Fahrstuhl des Grauens

A new lift has been installed recently. A few people get stuck in it. A few days later, a blind man falls into the shaft. A guard is beheaded by the same lift. 'What we have here is a killing machine...!'

Director Dick Maas is a big fan of Steven Spielbergs films (same here, but only his earlier movies). 'De Lift', describable as another alternative for the JAWS-formula, makes clear that Dick Maas lacks a lot in comparison to the most successful Hollywood-director.

The movie has a few good scenes which are shocking, but the majority of the movie is surprisingly dull and tedious. As long as the story keeps to the elevator, it's OK. However, there are a lot of scenes about family problems and interminable discussions about elevators. Those do not build up tension, they're just very, very boring and though I am not much of a sadist, I only kept watching because I was anxiously waiting for the next person to be killed by the lift. In a very cruel way of course. One should not watch this movie for the story-line in the first place. The plot doesn't make ANY sense: how would you explain a killer lift? Anyhow, there IS some kind of explanation in the movie, but only kids under 8 years old would believe that nonsense. Under 8, for I watched this movie first when I was 7 years old and I was scared to death. Perhaps I am too old for this movie now..

A superb Dutch film, with truly suspenseful moments! Nothing is quite so sinister as stretches of silence in movies, especially when they accompany Hitchcockian (which is to say here, predictable) suspense sequences. From the moment you read the synopsis, and figure that a film about bewitched microchips cannot expect to be taken seriously, you'd be forgiven for laughing at yourself for even contemplating seeing the film. However, If you're like me, and you consider that music, background noise, post-production, lipsynching, subliminal messaging goes too far in films, rendering terrible scenes risibly hyperactive, then you'll get off on the real-time sparsity of effects used here. Each delay to the denouement, agonisingly adds to the deathtoll. Is this going to change the world? Would a suspiciously murderous lift, in the real world? Tell the director, I'd like to see more.

I agree that the movie does have a lot of flaws, but considering the fact that it is impossible to make high budget movies in Holland (Paul Verhoeve could never have made a movie like Robocop in Holland!) and considering how old the movie is, it's a quite decent movie.

There are enough American movies in English which are far worse.

An elevator seems to have a mind of its own, and it is deathly. The director builds a solid horror movie on people's fear of elevators. This is clearly a B-horror movie, but as such it is good. There are various truly shocking scenes.

The story line is very simple. The main character is an elevator-repairman and he must repair an elevator that caused an accident. What he finds out is truly bizarre and unbelievable, but scary nonetheless.

One of the best dutch made horror movies (but frankly, I don't know many other dutch horror movies).

In a high rise office building in the Netherlands, an elevator repairman named Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel) is busy trying to solve a mystery. The elevators in this place are now functioning improperly, incapacitating passengers if not killing them outright. Could the cause be some sort of human error, or is something supernatural going on? Felix works the clues in the company of an aggressive, sassy reporter, Mieke de Beer (Willeke van Ammelrooy).

Writer & director Dick Maas ("Amsterdamned") deserves some credit for treating his premise with some measure of restraint. Therefore, it won't be to all tastes. It admittedly comes up a little short in the thrills department, with a slow pace and a talky script. Yet, there are fun moments, such as when an unfortunate security guard is decapitated by an elevator. Also, Stapel is an appealing working-class, Everyman sort of hero, and he has some chemistry with the striking van Ammelrooy. They receive able support from players such as Josine van Dalsum (as Felix's wife), Siem Vroom (as a police inspector), and Hans Veerman (as the boss at "Rising Sun", the electronics company working in tandem with Felix's employers).

The script does possess some passing interest for the way that it touches upon the subject of technological evolution (with computers that used to fill up entire rooms now becoming much more compact, and the advent of computer chips).

"The Lift" is a little light on gore and other exploitable elements, but overall it's fairly entertaining to watch. Maas does pretty well working with the limited budget, and IS expert at crafting suspense, especially the eerie and atmospheric finale with Felix in an elevator shaft. The electronic score (composed by Maas) is likewise a highlight.

One of the set decorators is Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., who 28 years later, directed the prequel to John Carpenters' "The Thing".

Seven out of 10.