54) The Lift (1983)

"What is actually wrong with the lift?"

Director
Dick Maas

Cast
Huub Stapel - Felix Adelaar
Willeke van Ammelrooy - Mieke de Beer
Josine van Dalsum - Saskia Adelaar

I'm turning my attention to the Netherlands with the movie The Lift (aka De Lift) that's classified as SciFi horror.
Released in the Netherlands in 1983, and in the U.S. in 1985, the movie turns a simple elevator into a thing of terror! Or, well, it tries to.
Right off the bat, the only thing horrifying about The Lift are the stupid characters in the movie. And they're not comedic dumb. No! They're the result of dumb writing.
The elevator inside an Amsterdam office building suddenly turns as violent as an elevator can. It's true nature manifests itself one particular stormy evening as a group of party goers leave the top floor restaurant early in the morning.
Drunk and obnoxious, they end up stuck in the lift. The temperature rises inside as one of them starts to pass out. Another begins to have sex with his wife or girlfriend. (Yeah! They do.) And another one in the party also passes out. We later find out they survived and had to be rushed to the hospital due to the hot temperatures inside the lift.
The building manager contacts the repair company, Deta Liften, which sends out repairman Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel).
His primary inspection finds everything in perfect working order. Like the building managers, Adelaar doesn't understand how the elevator could suddenly malfunction with all parts working without any issues.
During his inspection, a journalist named Meike (Willeke van Ammelrooy) who's a writer for the local tabloid called De Nieuwe Revu walks in on him. After taking a few pictures, and chatting with him, she becomes just as intrigued by the strange malfunctioning of the elevator.
After more strange and dangerous occurrences with the lift, Adelaar becomes more and more obsessed with figuring out what could be causing these deadly issues.
One such occurrence involves a security guard who's head gets stuck in the doors as the elevator is up at the top floor. It slowly maneuvers its way down until it takes his head clean off. It's pretty sick.

Adelaar's drive to figure out why the elevator is causing so many deaths and injuries begins to ruin his marriage.
Still, the more he digs into the lift's manufacture history, the more its story becomes surreal and freaky.
He's finally left facing the machine with only one thing in mind - its destruction.
The SciFi horror story line about an evil elevator isn't the problem. A lot of horror movies are based on regular, everyday objects becoming cognizant and destructive. Whether those objects be killer tomatoes, or man-eating sofas, or evil donuts, or a random rubber tire with ESP abilities, or all trucks and machines suddenly turning on mankind, campy horror can be entertaining just for its own sake.
The Lift however elevates itself (no pun intended) above that campy style. It takes itself seriously enough. That's not necessarily a criticism.
With this movie, the execution is poor. The writing isn't polished. It's as though a script was written and whoever cleans up scripts in the movie making process was taking a nap at the time the movie studio in the Netherlands gave this movie the green light.
And what makes the movie non-believable isn't the evil elevator. It's the behavior of the characters. They simply do not act believable. They just follow the script, and that's all.
I'm not talking about the cliche' horror movie behavior where horror movie characters ignorantly put themselves in harms way that's otherwise so easily avoidable. No, their deeds are strange and unusual, even for a sci-fi/horror movie. Even bad movies can get that right.
In one scene, the manager of the building has the wife of one of his employees in his office for an affair. As they start "doing the deed", he asks her "what about your daughter?"
She replies her daughter is safe in the lobby.
The scene switches to a little girl waiting for her mommy, completely alone in the lobby with her doll. It's a maddening scene, actually.
The elevators start opening and closing purposely to gain the kid's curiosity. It's as though the elevator is playing a cat and mouse game.
The scene switches back to the couple in the office as they hear the daughter scream. When they run out, the doll's arm is severed and stuck in the elevator doors, and its face is smashed.
The mother yells at the little girl, angry over the state of her doll, gives the poor child a cold smack across the face. She calls her a "brat" for the dolls destruction.
What could be more unbelievable than that?

Huub Stapel in The Lift.

After a janitor is found inside the elevator, having died from mysterious circumstances related to the elevator, the owners put the blame of the strange goings-on, on him. Why? Because they believe since the janitor was always in the building whenever someone died, that somehow makes him guilty. Again, they blame the janitor. It's like listening to Abbott and Costello's Who's on First. You just want to jump in the middle of it so you can explain the situation. Obviously the janitor is always in the building because...he's the damn janitor!
And everyone seems to go with this. I just can't even begin? Even the news reporter goes with this explanation.
Oh, but not Felix. He seems to have a hunch the janitor isn't to blame. This isn't comedic. This is plain bad writing. C'mon, Netherlands!
However, this movie's storyline has a Stephen King feel to it. As King has written stories that include possessed laundry presses, a house transforming into a machine, a Buick 8 that acts as a gateway to another dimension or realm, an entire town populated by deceased rock and roll legends, a freaky Polaroid camera, and a set of novelty chattering teeth that seemingly come to life, a movie about a sinister building elevator seems to fit King's world.
Though there's gore and terror peppered in here and there, the movie is saturated with exposition. There's so much talking in this movie, the horror stuff was like a reward for sitting through so much of it. Unless the movie wanted the audience to feel like their waiting for an elevator, most of the movie was spent waiting for something to happen.
Despite that, the story is a compelling one and does maintain interest - barely. I mean, for horror fans, it'll take you where you want to go. The ending is suspenseful but I wouldn't say it was worth waiting for.
Evidently, there is a 2001 American remake directed by Dick Maas called The Shaft starring James Marshall and Naomi Watts. I'll have to keep an eye out for this.
Otherwise, I'd say The Lift is an easy pass. I'd just take the next one.