Trivia / Crawlspace

• Recycled Set: Sets are reused from Troll (1986). The director was specifically asked to come up with a story that would largely take place in an apartment building because the studio wanted to get more use out of those sets.
• Troubled Production: Hoo boy! Klaus Kinski's antics were so bad that the director, David Schmoeller, made a documentary about them.
  • Schmoeller had been warned about Kinski's reputation for extreme volatility when a colleague showed him a Playboy interview in which the actor ranted at length about his hatred of directors, but when he contacted the director of Kinski's previous project, he was assured that Kinski was wonderful to work with. This would not be the case.
  • Prior to filming, Kinski allegedly threw a fit over the wardrobe that had been picked out for him, and subsequently went out and bought his own clothes (charging them to the film and keeping them himself afterwards).
  • On set, Kinski clashed bitterly with other actors and crew members. By the third day of filming, Kinski had started six fistfights and caused the film to fall significantly behind schedule. Schmoeller and the producers attempted to fire him, but Empire Pictures demanded that the bankable star remain. Aside from his combative behavior and bizarre demands (including an order that Schmoeller refrain from saying either "action" or "cut", essentially forcing him to film Kinski continually so he could start and end his scenes whenever he wished) he also refused to say any lines which he didn't like, to the point where, "Scenes were starting not to make sense because he would NOT say this or that line."
  • Co-star Tane McClure later recalled that Schmoeller begged her to stay on set because Kinski (who she claims was "unfortunately, very interested in me") behaved better when she was around.
  • Tensions reached the point of the film's Italian producer seriously contemplated murdering Kinski for the insurance money, and several crew members (up to three or four times a day) asked Schmoeller to, "Please kill Mr. Kinski"—a request that became the title of Schmoeller's later film about the experience. Producer Charles Band even stated that one time he got called to the set because Schmoller and Kinski got into such a bad argument over a close up, that Kinski pulled out a knife. When Band had arrived the two were still arguing so intensely, that both Kinski and Schmoller were being held back but Kinski had managed to still in the conflict, grab Schmoller and had the knife pointed right at him. Luckily Band was able to calm down Kinski and deescalate the situation.
• What Could Have Been: The original script was an anti-Vietnam war tale revolving around a returning vet who decides to re-create a prisoner-of-war camp in his attic. If filmed, this version probably wouldn't have had Klaus Kinski - the producer convinced the director/writer to change the villain into a Nazi (feeling the Vietnam war was still a sensitive subject) by saying he could get Kinski in the cast, so the second draft was specifically written with Kinski in mind.

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