Overrated

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Like the reviewer above me, I saw this when I was young and it returns to my thoughts often...it has a certain haunting quality to it that is hard to define. Powerful and evocative and yet very understated. There is an air of reconciliation for the generations here, after the turbulent and impassioned separation of the 1960s, just passed.No performances stand out in my mind...Matthew Cowles is believable as the small-town heavy, and Arthur Kennedy turns in a memorable performance in the twilight of his career.It's the eerie and unexplained presence of the young man...almost like a lost child, how the old couple summons him up from the crawlspace and just accept him as their surrogate child, that's always stuck with me and made this movie return to my thoughts again and again, after all of these years.

I'm afraid the other poster may be misremembering--I believe they are thinking of Bad Ronald, another ABC TV-movie of this period. Crawlspace, anyway, is about a retired couple who discover a young drifter living in their--surprise!--crawlspace and attempt to "adopt" him to fill a void in their lives. They try to socialize him and include him in their new "family," with tragic results.I bought a used copy of the book online. I haven't read it since 7th grade, but so far it is just as good as I remember. My recollection is that the movie is entertaining, but not as good as the novel. Arthur Kennedy and Theresa Wright were both excellent, and it was pretty suspenseful for a movie-of-the-week.

I would love to see this film as an adult... It would air as the CBS Late Night movie when I was a kid... (I think it was made by the network as a TV film originally) and scared the heck out me as a kid.We had a crawl space and the sounds from the duct vents would horrify me after seeing this for weeks!It always seem to air when I would visit my grandfather's house (out of town) as well. He lived in a home from the turn of the century.Talk about a house that could make some noise after midnight.I too would love to see this released on DVD.With Arthur Miller and Teresa Wright it ought to have been made available to the public by now? It appears a remake is due for 2007 which should get the original re-released on DVD.

It's been awhile since I've seen this one, but I remember what it was about. A different young man is taunted by the so-called "normal" kids until he's finally driven to kill violently. This movie may be almost 30 years old, but (unfortunately) its message is still timely. Time to dust this one off and show it again. Good to watch as a family with discussion afterwards.