Crawlspace [2012]

‘Crawlspace’ is a 2012 Australian genre twisting science fiction horror. Australian cinema, especially genre cinema, rarely ever disappoints and ‘Crawlspace’ is no exception.

I’m always wary of films that use the names of previous horror, especially when it comes to demented stuff like Klaus Kinski’s ‘Crawlspace’ of 1986. Sometimes I’ll point that out so I can namecheck a film about the crazed son of a Nazi doctor obsessed with trapping women in his apartment block so he can torture them.

The premise is simple enough, we follow a group of soldiers into an underground research facility that has come under attack. ‘Crawlspace’ is a collage of genres and there is little point to classify it — it slips from standard thriller into sci-fi into Horror into psychological horror and on. It remains at all times claustrophobic and will force you to think and pay attention. At the same time, it has an attack gorilla. It is hard for me to say anything bad about any film that has an attack gorilla anywhere.

Often I have found myself sitting back, watching something like ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ and thinking

“What this needs, what this really needs right now to elevate it to cinematic greatness is a fucking attack gorilla, maybe two.”

same goes for every time I watch ‘The Bicycle Thief’ — yep, each scene should end with an attack gorilla, the pathos would finally reach out to grab you.

It is always hard to judge fare delivered by special fx guys that have moved to directing and script writing. If you’ve gotten hooked on their previous work (such as ‘Red Hill’ a film so good I had to follow a few of the people who participated.) you will always be rooting for them. Even though what they put out may not be the most coherent work.

‘Crawlspace’ suffers in that the writing wobbles a lot — however it is not too annoying when you hit the speed bumps of jarred scenes and juxtapose as overall there is a tight film here — filled with enough ideas to make several genre movies (seriously — attack gorillas — get on that).

While messy, I found it enjoyable enough to keep watching and it has a wonderful little twist at the ending that promises sequels I would definitely watch. I would really like to see what the people behind this could do with more money and perhaps tighter scripts.

And of course — Attack Gorilla.

Originally published at 13/03/2013