212) Crawlspace (1972)

"He existed as an issue between us, and for all intents and purposes, though we had managed to get him out of the crawl, he was still very much present in the house." - Herbert Lieberman.

Director
John Newland
Buzz Kulik

Cast
Tom Happer - Richard Roy Atlee
Arthur Kennedy - Albert Graves
Teresa Wright - Alice Graves
Eugene Roche - Sheriff Emil Birge
Matthew Cowles - Dave Freeman
Dan Morgan - Dr. Harlow
Roger Serbagi - Davalos
Louise Campbell - Miz Gerard
Fleet Emerson - Wheeler

A couple of months ago, my family and I moved from "the Little Apple" in Kansas up to a small town that boasts being the "Irish Capital of Nebraska." Among the action-packed adventures we've had up here, a huge book sale was actually one of the more entertaining excursions we've taken. At my age, it doesn't take much to amuse me. 

Evidently, the current owners of a local antique store called "This N' That" bought the building which housed a huge selection of books that included a ton of paperbacks. When it comes to literature (using the term loosely) I'm a sucker for paperbacks, cheap editions, and I have a forbidden love of movie novelizations. Actually, during a weekend stay in Omaha a few months ago, I just found a paperback novelization of the 1977 movie "The Goodbye Girl" which is based on Neil Simon's play, and stars Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason. I'm a fan of Neil Simon movies so it caught my eye...and my wallet. 

Anyways, the store owners were trying to sell off this huge inventory of books all summer at nearly nothing of a cost. So, they had these random sales throughout the summer. 

Arthur Kennedy as Albert Graves in "Crawlspace."

I found some desirable paperbacks and a few hard cover treasures including a first edition of Charlie Chaplin's book, "My Autobiography," and a first edition of Robert Curran's book "The Haunted" about the Smurl family of West Pittston, PA and the hauntings they claim to have endured. I think it's currently out of print. I read that book twenty years ago in two days. 

Among the haul of paper backs I walked away with, each one costing a quarter each, was Herbert Lieberman's novel "Crawlspace." 

I'd never read anything by Lieberman until now. The title alone caught my attention. 

When it comes to horror and thriller stories, I have this weird affinity for ones that take place in run-down, unsettling homes where the characters find themselves lost in the hallways and walls within. Movies such as "Nothing But Trouble," "The People Under the Stairs" and "The Boy" come to mind. What's inside the walls? What's behind all those doors? What's down in the basement? They have to go in, in order to get out. It's an imagination's playground. 

I couldn't put the book down. But if I did, I was anxious to get back to it. The story begins with a vagrant living in the crawlspace of a New England couple's home. 

According to fantasticfiction.com, it's Lieberman's first novel. And if his other books are anything like this one, Lieberman definitely kicked off his novel-writing career with an entertaining and truly suspenseful book that kept me wanting to come back, no matter how frustrating I found the characters to be. 

And me being...well...me, I had to find out if this, or anything Lieberman wrote, received the honorary movie adaptation. Luckily enough, "Crawlspace" did get a movie adaptation back in '72. It's a made for T.V. That's really nothing special. But it is what it is. I'll take it. 

By the way. I've already reviewed a movie called "Crawlspace" with Klaus Kinski. That's a completely different movie. 

This "Crawlspace" based on Lieberman's book is difficult to find. Regardless, I was determined to find it. I certainly wasn't willing to pay the $172 Amazon was asking for a copy of the DVD. 

So, I found it uploaded for free on the YouTube channel, "TVTERRORLAND." Granted the video quality is a bit poor, but it worked out alright. 

Like the novel, the story begins with an elder couple, Albert and Alice Graves (Arthur Kennedy and Teresa Wright) who live alone in a small home in a quaint New England town. 

The couple never had children of their own. 

Tom Happer as Richard Atlee.

It's winter when the story opens, and the Graves's furnace is low on oil. So, they call for someone to replenish their supply. 

A young-looking kid named Richard Atlee (Tom Happer) comes over to take care of it. When he's done, Alice chats with Richard for a bit before inviting him to stay for dinner, which Richard accepts. Albert isn't keen on the idea but just goes along with it. During dinner, Richard takes an interest in Albert's books, particularly a book of poems by William Blake. Richard asks to borrow it, and Albert reluctantly agrees so long as he promises to return it. 

A few days later, the couple wakes up to noises outside near their cellar door. Albert checks the basement the next morning to see what might have cause the noise. 

When he crawls in, he finds some small items that belong to him including the book of poems he lent Richard. 

Disturbed by this discovery, yet sympathetic to the young man, the couple soon begin to take pity and welcome Richard into their home and take care of him. 

Richard, in turn, works around the house, and often cooks for them as well. 

However, things take a dark turn rather quickly, especially as locals in town don't care much for Richard's presence. Nor do they approve of the Graves giving him room and board. 

The story follows Albert and Alice's relationship, and how negatively it's affected once they invite Richard into their lives. In fact, Richard soon dominates their whole lives. Their irrational kindness morphs to pure regret and a sense of being trapped. Richard doesn't kidnap them, but he develops a psychological hold on the both of them.  

I think this made-for-tv adaptation captures the sharp emotions in the book, but to a diluted degree. 

It needs a longer run time to include some of the more crucial scenes in the book, especially the shocking ending. 

One scene in the book which isn't included in the movie sees Richard showing Albert a cave deep in the woods behind their house where he was hiding for a while. There, Richard and Albert have a conversation about themselves that gives the reader insight into both of their motivations and mind-sets. Some other crucial scenes in the book are simply given lip service. 

The movie goes through the actions, and has a small amount of the book's intrigue, but it doesn't give the story enough time to develop naturally and build up properly. Some of it's there. Just as the characters capture the audience's interest, it bulldozes through the final act and then ends. 

Teresa Wright as Alice Graves.

It feels much too condensed and misses the emotional turmoil Alice and Albert deal with by having Richard stay with them. It tries. It clearly does!

I mentioned sharp emotions. The story deals with empathy, trust, priorities, regret, fear, family, intrusion, duty...there's a lot in this story. 

Despite the compacted movie version of "Crawlspace," it still manages to portray that initial fear behind someone intruding into our lives whom we're unable escape from thanks to fear. 

The actors, especially Arthur Kennedy and Tom Happer, do a well enough with what they're working with. 

The way they depict their respective characters is how I imagined them when I read the book. 

I hope one of these days, Lieberman's initial novel gets a theatrical movie. It has a lot of promise and suspense. It's also timely in a metaphoric sort of way. You know - welcoming undesirable strangers into our own home with only a false notion of charity to back up the insanity behind such a dangerous decision. 

It's a story that should be given the theatrical treatment. The T.V. movie told the story semi-well. And being a made-for-TV film, "Crawlspace" is more like an extended episode of some TV drama. It does as much as it can with what's given to it - good actors and a thrilling, suspenseful story. 

As for the novel, it's the best 25 cents has ever gotten me! 

211) Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

"The real Santa was totally different. The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax."

Director

Jalmari Helander

Cast
Onni Tommila - Pietari Kontio
Jorma Tommila - Rauno Kontio
Tommi Korpela - Aimo
Rauno Juvonen - Piiparinen
Per Christian Ellefsen - Riley
Ilmari Järvenpää - Juuso
Peeter Jakobi - Pietari's Elf

I wanted to review a sci-fi Christmas movie for my platform 1000daysofscifi.blogspot.com. My first post over there, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is the only sci-fi Christmas movie I know of. Otherwise, I had trouble finding another one. 

When Googling other movies in the holiday sci-fi subgenre, if there is such a subgenre, I came up with a list of Christmas movies that look more like horror that sci-fi. One of the movies suggested by Google was the 1984 movie "Gremlins." I suppose that can be labeled science fiction. It is a Christmas movie. Afterall, the holiday plays an integral part in the "Gremlins" story, so it checks that part of the formula in what constitutes a Christmas movie. As for sci-fi, that's another discussion for another time, which I'll probably never have on this nor any of my other platforms. 

On IMDB's list of "Christmas Movies SciFi & Horror Style" the titles I found there seem to be horror rather than sci-fi. 

And "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" from 2010 is number one on the list. So, I cozied up in a Christmassy blanket, poured me a glass of egg nog and brandy (I can't have one without the other) and watched this list-topping sci-fi or horror movie. 

"Rare Exports" is a Finnish movie labeled as a fantasy action horror comedy. The horror is light. The fantasy is moderate, and the action increases as the story progresses. Above all, it's certainly a take on Santa Claus and his lore the likes of which I haven't seen in any other movie. 

The film starts as a research and excavation team, working for the firm "Subzero," are drilling for samples on top of a fell called Korvatunturi located in the Lapland region of Finland. 

Riley (Per Christian Ellefsen), the excavation leader, thinks this fell is really a burial site built by the ancient native people known as the Sámi. He hopes to unearth the remains of Santa Claus whom he believes is buried within. 

Meanwhile, from the village at the foot of the fell, two young boys, Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää) and Pietari (Onni Tommila), sneak up to the top of the fell to watch the workers blast open and search inside the alleged huge burial site. Pietari lives with his father, Rauno (Jorma Tommila), in the village.
Juuso tells Pietari that Santa Claus is, in fact, real. However, the common depiction of Santa as the jolly old fat man dressed in red is made up. The real Santa hands out punishments to bad children that are far more severe than putting coal in their stockings. He does, however, watch children closely. And that includes Juuso and Pietari. 

Meanwhile, reindeer hunters from the village discover nearly hundreds of dead reindeers near their village. They think wolves were driven to kill all these reindeer by the Subzero workers scaring the wolves down to the village, especially after using dynamite to blast into the stone. 

So, several villagers march up the top of the fell to demand reparation for the dead reindeer as they rely on the hunting for food and such. 

When they reach the top, there's no one up there. All they find is a massive deep hole. 

Meanwhile, one of Rauno's wolf traps ends up capturing a strange, seemingly deceased, naked old man on Christmas Eve morning. 

Rauno and his neighbor Piiparinen (Rauno Juvonen) take the body into the slaughterhouse and lay him down. They soon realize the old man is still alive. Piiparinen leans in close to the old man, who suddenly jumps up and bites his ear. 

As they tie him up and discuss what they should do next, Pietari tries calling his friends only to find that they're all missing. 

Pietari fears the old man is actually Santa, and that his friends are missing because they must have been bad and were therefor taken by Santa. 

So, he's compelled to confess to his dad that he snuck up to the fell and caused the deer to be eaten by wolves. If he confesses, then maybe Santa will leave him alone. 

Rauno and Piiparinen decide to dress the old man as Santa and offer to sell him to Subzero workers as compensation for the money lost from the dead deer. 

They haul this guy up to the fell where they meet Riley. However, he tells them the old man is not Santa. Rather, he's one of Santa's elves. 

Soon, several other elves appear and end up killing Riley. 

The men run into a nearby hanger where they find a looming horned figure frozen in ice, which turns out to actually be Santa Claus. 

Next to him is a huge sack filled with crying screaming children. 

Their discovery turns into a destroy and rescue mission, and Pietari takes it upon himself to come up with and carry out the plans to accomplish this unbelievable task. 

"Rare Exports" is more horror with little (if any) sci-fi elements as general audiences would claim the meaning of "sci-fi" to be.

The movie has an unsettling tone unlike other holiday horror movies I've seen, particularly those movies that depict an evil Santa in some way or another. That also includes the 2015 movie, "Krampus" which has a tinge of satire to it.  A lot of that tone comes from its dramatic tone and realistic (real world) atmosphere.

There's something about the evil child-punishing elements surround Santa Claus, or whatever depiction of Santa various countries have, that seems to be all the trend now.

What I don't appreciation is the trend in celebrating folkloric Christmas characters like Krampus who has become a symbol of anti-Christmas and defiance in general in modern society. Various places now offer kids an opportunity to visit Krampus just as they would visit Santa Claus, and get their picture taken with him.

Society today lambasts personal responsibility for crimes and misdeeds, so it's no wonder that the evil side of Christmas folkloric characters like Krampus are celebrated in place of Christ or Saint Nicholas at Christmas. Being contrarian in the face of innocence and goodness is nothing to aspire.

Anyways, I think "Rare Exports" is a horror movie with subtle comedy or satire that audiences might interpret in different ways. Perhaps it's a criticism or cynical take of modern Christmas commercialism and how it sees the history of Christmas celebrations. 

It's a different take on the whole "bad Santa" schtick seen over and over again in movies, especially horror movies.  

What I like about this is it's real-world realism. I enjoy movies that take a true-to-life approach to fictional and fantastical aspects of life...like Santa Claus. Mel Gibson did it really well in the 2021 movie, "Fatman." The 2004 independent movie, "Primer" is such a movie that takes a realistic depiction of time travel comes to mind. Although, "Rare Exports" still carries a hint of fantasy. How can a movie about Santa, no matter how serious it tries to be, not carry a tone of fantasy? 

It's an entertaining, certainly different, type of movie. I have an interest in movies that portray otherwise fantastical things in a true-to-life manner. 

I'm skeptical about what I'm supposed to take away from this movie, at least as far as consequences go for a person's misdeeds. What are the characters saving the world from? A retributive Santa? The consequences of misdeeds? Old ancient lores? Is the movie satirizing that whole notion? Or is it just a creature-feature rendition of Santa Claus and his elves? 

Whatever the case might be, it's unpredictable. I honestly couldn't determine what was going to happen. When I thought I knew where the story was leading, it went in a different direction from what I expected.  

The movie is well structured and certainly something unlike anything I've seen before in the huge library of Christmas movies of any genre. 

It has satisfying suspense with the spice of terror, action, and fantasy. Within all that maintains a true Christmas feel and charm. And I mean that! As far as its story goes, I'm still unsure what sort of message it's trying to leave me with. Otherwise, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome, and doesn't waste time with excessive build-up, nor does it feel conceited.