MY CALL: This incredibly boring Dutch horror has no merits. This is only for devourers of the most bad of bad movies. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Lift: The obvious choice is Devil (2010), which is fantastic. The Platform (2019) is not really “elevator horror,” but it would still make a decent themed double-feature. There’s also The Shaft (2001; aka, Down), Thang Máy (2020) from Vietnam, and Elevator Game (2023).
After lightning strikes a high-rise, the elevator malfunctions and literally heats up its occupants nearly to death because… well… it’s evil?
This old flick is incredibly tedious from the start. It’s a rigidly written movie with way too many characters that have way too much dialogue that is completely inconsequential. It’s as if the director is trying add to the running time at any boring cost—which sadly, may indeed have been the case. Many entire scenes could be deleted from this movie and go completely unnoticed. For example, I didn’t need to know the blind man’s extremely mundane backstory before he died immediately after we learn about him. And why did I need to know how sentimental his pen was before he had a completely off-screen death falling down the elevator shaft? Not good writing; that’s not the reason.
Now I must admit that death #2 was quite entertaining as the victim’s head is caught in the elevator doors as the lift cage lowers and severs his head (like in Final Destination 2). That was a good laugh and well done for lower budget 80s horror. But overall, the death scenes are incredibly too few and far between to suggest enduring this movie. There isn’t really any non-death horror either.
Elevator repairman Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel; Saint) teams up with a journalist (Willeke van Ammelrooy; Doodzonde) to try to get to the bottom of these mysterious deaths, which his boss doesn’t like him sniffing about. This is all written more like a bad crime thriller than a horror movie. I’m not sure the director could decide which of the two genres this even was.
Eventually there are somewhat interesting revelations regarding recent technological advances and how they may get out of hand. But I just don’t care. This movie made me suffer too many painfully boring scenes before it ever threatened any point or allegory. At this point, I was just waiting for it to end. Sigh. Yeah, don’t watch this.
Writer and director Dick Maas (Saint, Prey) apparently remade this under the title The Shaft (2001). I’m such a glutton for punishment that I just might watch it… it actually has a decent cast.
