Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79317 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 181 minutes

Amazon.com
A double dose of delirium awaits you on this demented DVD! Taking her Diary of a Mad Housewife acclaim to effective extremes, Carrie Snodgress is disturbingly convincing in The Attic (1980), a morbid slice of gothic pie in which she plays a dowdy librarian, obsessively grieving 19 years after the disappearance of her picture-perfect boyfriend. This prolonged sadness is aggravated by her apparently disabled father (Ray Milland), who dominates her life with such abusive bitterness that she descends even deeper into tortured desperation. What does she discover in the attic? We're not telling, but suffice it to say Daddy's evil goes beyond expectations! Directed with earnest compassion for its damaged wallflower, The Attic is wretched psychodrama at its most bizarre.

On the flipside, Crawlspace (1986) is grade-Z pulp for those who take perverse delight in the derangement of Klaus Kinski, here playing a suicidal heir to the Third Reich, continuing his Nazi reign of terror as the voyeuristic landlord in a building full of unsuspecting young females. Drawing on his alleged hatred for Kinski (by all accounts it was mutual), director David Schmoeller puts Kinski through the paces (and claustrophobic spaces), turning this nudity-spiced schlockfest into a lecherous tour of depravity. With a score by Italian composer Pino Donaggio, Crawlspace is surely someone's guilty pleasure. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

A gruesome twosome...
MGM releases yet another double dose of the macabre in their 'Midnight Movie Madness' series with The Attic (1979) and Crawlspace (1986).

The Attic stars Carrie Snodgrass as Louise, a librarian and your classic 'old maid' stuck caring for her domineering and verbally abusive father (Ray Milland) who is confined to a wheelchair. Louise was left at the altar 19 years previous, due to the disappearance of her fiancé and has been waiting for his return ever since. The time spent living with her father has taken its' toll, and basically squeezed almost all of the spirit out of the woman. The maddening, soul crushing boredom of toiling away in a rather stale library while dreams of far away places danced in her head, and then having to go home and deal with the constant verbal lashings of her father, has manifested itself in strange fantasies with Louise humiliating or eliminating her father in various ways. She does struggle to exert herself, but always seems to be on the short end of the stick, at least when it comes to her father. What happens when she is finally pushed over the edge? Watch and see...

The Attic was quite slow and some might even say tedious, but I rather enjoyed it. The plot seemed to drift here and there at times, but it did find its' way, providing a rather predictable, but satisfying ending. The build up crawls along at a snail's pace, allowing for some viewers to grow wary, but I felt the tension within the plot and I found myself unable to turn away. It was funny, but due to the title, I kind of expected something with more of a horror element, but instead found myself treated to a dusty little gem. I thought Ray Milland was pretty good as the tyrannical, father confined to a wheelchair, spying and berating his daughter at every chance. I found myself wanting to tell him off a number of times, as my dislike for the character grew. If you're looking for scenes of blood soaked violence in this movie, you're going to be disappointed.

Crawlspace (1986) stars Klaus Kinski as Karl Gunther, former doctor and now owner of an apartment house. His hobbies include playing Russian roulette, writing his memoirs, conversing with the caged woman in the attic who's tongue he removed (talk about your one sided conversations), rats, collecting body parts, and sliding around the crawlspaces in his building spying on his comely female tenants in various activities and states of undress. The film also stars Talia Balsam as Lori, as student who has just moved in the building, but will soon find the place to be not quite the deal she first thought. I can see the ad for renting the apartment now... 2nd & 3rd floor units. Newly renovated & deleaded. Stove & refrigerator included. Front/rear balconies. Section 8 approved. First & last due at time of rental. Nice quiet area. Resident psycho included. Okay, maybe that last part was left out...

As Lori moves in, she hears strange noises coming from the vents by the ceiling. What could they be? Mice? The idea of Klaus Kinski creeping around, peeping through vents certainly gave me the willies. He's such an ugly little man, and I have to wonder how much of his performance was acting and how much wasn't...His perversions seems to really begin to bloom when his new tenant moves in, driving him to extreme measures to satisfy his self proclaimed addiction to all things once alive but not anymore.

Crawlspace, contrary to The Attic, moves along fairly quickly, and also has a fair amount of blood and some pretty gruesome murders. Most aren't shown, except for small details, leaving the rest to the viewer's imagination. The ending, while definitely final, almost seemed anti-climatic to the rest of the film, but if one looks a bit more closely, you will understand how it ties together, given the character played by Kinski. He's such an oddball in this film, and I loved how most of the other characters overlooked that, especially since they were women, and most women I know have better perceptive skills than I do...oh well...he also seemed to slip into his full blown dementia pretty quickly, but then again, I'm no doctor, so what do I know?

Both films look really great, and are presented in wide screen format. I've found that MGM has consistently done a fine job in releasing their films, even the more dubious ones, providing very good quality. No real special features, except for a trailer for Crawlspace, but that's all right. I still feel like I got pretty good bargain with two watchable films at a decent price.

Cookieman108

More Midnite Madness
The MGM "Midnite Movies" series keeps its streak going with another entertaining release. Hey, all the movies in this series aren't fabulous, but they've all been at least perfectly watchable, some even much better than that. And it helps that these rescued-from-obscurity movies have mostly all been presented to us in the form of sharp, clean, widescreen prints. This is is the case with both "The Attic" and "Crawlspace", both of which I'd rate as "watchable-plus" in the entertainment department. In other words, they're both ultimately pretty average, but laced with interesting, offbeat moments here and there. Unlike other Midnite Movies releases, however, there isn't much in the value-added department here (meaning extras). Oh, well-- you can't have everything. Still, for the price you can't beat it.

Small Spaces
The Attic is a movie that I have had on video for years and enjoy watching it every once in a while. Even thought the movie does not have a lot of visual shock, there are a few tense moments. Basically, Carrie Snodgrass is a spinster librarian dominated by her sadistic father, Ray Milland. The movie is well worth the last 10 minutes or so and if you enjoy suspenseful twisted end to a movie, then this one is for you.

Crawlspace is where Klaus Kinski is the son of a Nazi war criminal and like his father has the desire to kill. Basically, he rents rooms to women and spies on them from the ventilator shaft (i.e., crawlspace). There is not a lot of blood and gore compared to other movies of the 80's. The movie should be watched just to see what is kept in the lab.