Le 13e étage

On the 13th floor of an office building, a terrible innocent occurred, involving that of child who was murdered. His uneasy soul now inhabits the electricity system of the 13th floor. The abandoned floor is now home for some runaway young adults. One of them just happened to see the murder of the boy when she was a little girl, because she's the daughter of the murderer. She plans to give out the information of her corrupt father, but he plans to get that information back. At any cost.

Gee, there's some malice towards this uneven, but slightly interesting little supernatural thriller from Australia. There's not doubt it can get quite laboured pace wise and a little lost in the story's direction. It seemed to concentrate more on the chase side of the plot with the supernatural element of the cursed floor being pushed aside and feeling quite half-baked to the overall picture. The ill-constructed story might be put together rather weakly, but there were some nice touches by director Chris Roache. He demonstrates moody set pieces in the office building with atmospheric lighting and the suspense is squeezed tight in a few small pockets. A eerily booming electronic score adds another spin to the bleak air and Roache makes efficient use of Sydney's surroundings. The performances are completely sound and Lisa Hensley really impresses as the lead. Miranda Otto is fine in an early performance. Some well-known Australian faces; Michael Caton and Georgie Parker also pop up in guest spots. Just wait around for the glowing dead boy who brings death. The make-up for the death scenes are decently pulled off, although the special effects that was tact on, can look rather pitiful and miss-placed. Now it's all talk, little action. Yeah the script is a muddle and it takes a while to make a real mark, but some fruity (and not-so) characters that you care for and its airy embodiment kept me more than compelled.

An okay little item, that's terribly slow, but manages a couple effective scenes.

Watching this small Aussie horror in 1989 on TV, I had stayed clear that was dealing in a lowest budge with a exiting premise indeed, The 13th Floor set on Sidney didn't gets fire, although is far away to be bad as some reviewers implied, aside the mismatches a fresh concept in some points overcome the weak ones, let the audience stay up during the offer, the main plot in a quick overview is about a young girl witnessed his political power father Robert Thompson (Tony Blackett) electrocute wittingly a young boy in front of his father about to be murder aftermaths over a missing money at 13th floor of a building under construction.

Twelve years later the already grow up girl Heather Thompson (Lisa Hensley) becomes a nightmare for his father, drugs, bad companies and so on, to worsen stolen documents that proves his father carried out many deaths including the little boy electrocuted on the jinxed 13th floor on the building, so Thompson hires an old detective of unorthodox way aiming for recover the documents by all means, meanwhile Heather hole up with a girl in the empty 13th floor where strangely appear an electrified entity coming from electrical cabinet.

Among the characters some stand out as the moronic caretaker Bert (Jeff Truman) also the odd John Burke (Tim McKenzie) on romantic interest on Heather, rouse up a jealous of Rebecca (Miranda Otto) hinting a previous les.bian relationship between them, without forget the janitor Nick (Paul Hunt) and the fancy-pants and dainty Alistair (Adam Cook), it can't be overlooked at all.

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First watch: 1989 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 5.5.

not really a comment but there seems to be a lot of comments here that refer to 13th floor from 1999 and not this movie

This one is a modest little horror film made on the smell of oily rag. Just out of film school, writer/director Chris Roache shot this film in 24 days and copped a lot of grief doing it. But that's another story. It was always destined for the the video market at the time and did exceptionally well in the UK rental market chalking up a silver sales award.

Its clear that many people didn't like this movie, but the script is pretty X Files, although its Australian and done on a shoestring budget.

The 13th Floor is an off kilter Aussie movie about a woman who saw her corrupt father murder a man and his son, and who has gone off the rails as a result. She is living off grid with a couple of friends as some kind of political group who scrounge money and squat.

The father is looking to track down his wayward daughter using paid for thugs, however it appears that someone from the fathers past is looking for revenge.

If you enjoy obscure Aussie movies from the 80's then this is worth a watch, it dares to stray from the Hollywood cheery narrative and cheery ending which will annoy some. I would even go far as to say the main character isn't even that sympathetic, but there is a definite underlying humour to the movie and it is at least a fairly novel story.

This isn't for your average viewer who wants revenge movie where everything is wrapped up nicely at the end. But if you want something unusual that could easily have been an X Files movie, I would recommend it.