THE LIFT
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| Rated R
| | Copyright 1983 Sigma Films
| | Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 'a long time ago'
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- Felix Adelaar - Elevator technician who is a workaholic.
- Mieke - Horny female reporter, I could do without her making sexual references.
- Saskia Adelaar - Felix's jealous wife, she freaks out and leaves him. Typical.
- Mr. Ravenstein - Building manager who's been doing his partner's wife; likes black lingerie.
- Bernie (Birdy?) and Karen - The two Adelaar rug rats.
- Mr. Chrome - Head of the Rising Sun research team who created the lift. Strangled by his creation.
- Mr. Fink - Old blind guy who should've learned to use his cane correctly by now. Falls down the elevator shaft.
- Two Drunk Middle Aged Couples - Annoying, but the lift turns off the air conditioning and tries to choke them.
- The Lift - An elevator with an experimental control chip, it hates people. Shot by Mr. Chrome.
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Here it is folks, the killer elevator movie. I know you've been wandering through the video store looking for it, because somewhere (probably Europe), someone (who might be a tad claustrophobic) had written the script for this movie. Amazingly you were right, but I'm not certain it's a good thing.
Felix answers a maintenance call when the lift "malfunctions" and nearly suffocates four people. Considering they were the braying-laugh-when-drunk sort, it would not have been a serious loss. Everything checks out fine, but soon two more people are dead. The visually challenged Mr. Fink presses the open button then steps through into an empty shaft, there's a short shriek, the sounds of a body hitting things on the way down, then a good solid thump. Hey, if a blind man falls down an elevator shaft and no one is around - does he make a sound? Anyway... ...pretty soon after this we are rewarded with the real reason to watch this movie, a decapitation. One of the security guards pokes his head into the open shaft, the doors close on his neck and his partner watches in horror as the lift decapitates a mannequin. (Ahem.)
After the prior events, you're going to be bored for about oh, forty minutes while Felix and Mieke run around learning the truth. It turns out that Mr. Chrome put an experimental control chip in the elevator, one which can reproduce even! (This is signified by it dripping gelatin.) Good old Felix climbs into the shaft and starts beating on the chip with a wrench; it responds by trying to smash him. Unattractive slut reporter woman comes to the rescue, dragging the wounded man out of harm's way. What happens next should leave you scratching your head, or whatever body part it causes to itch. Mr. Chrome shows up with a semiautomatic pistol, unloads an entire clip into the control panel, then turns around and enigmatically states, "It was very sick." (I'm never going to a hospital again.)
Our two protagonists decide to use the stairs on their way out... |
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| Things I Learned From This Movie: | |
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- Elevators are airtight.
- Kids like to play with toupees.
- Blind people just carry canes as a fashion statement. They don't really use them.
- Elevators make handy guillotines.
- The standards for "hot" women are lower in Europe.
- Kids love playing peek a boo with lifts.
- Jazz music, raspberry syrup, and prozac don't mix.
- Dead computers are buried, literally, under dirt.
- They shoot sick elevators too.
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- 3 mins - Arggh, shut up!
- 7 mins - RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOT!
- 18 mins - It's one elevator out of three, why would you have to take the stairs?
- 23 mins - Um, blind guy, the lift isn't there - it's just an open shaft. Maybe if you used that cane...
- 28 mins - Head stuck in the elevator doors, not good!
- 61 mins - Way to freak out Saskia.
- 65 mins - A computer committed suicide?
- 72 mins - Bad continuity, he started that sentence inside and finished outside?
- 76 mins - RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST A TOY CAR!
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| | Audio clips in wav format | SOUNDS | Starving actors speak out | |
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| File | Dialog |  | thelift1.wav
| Mr. Ravenstein: "This is strange, but there are four people in the hospital who nearly suffocated in here. There has to be a reason for this. What do you think?
Felix: "I'll run tests on all the main electrical circuits. There may be something there."
| | thelift2.wav
| Mieke: "Something is going on here. No one gets beheaded on a lift."
| | thelift3.wav
| Mr. Ravenstein: "You're wearing black underwear!"
| | thelift4.wav
| Felix: "This lift does things it shouldn't."
Mieke: "I've done things I shouldn't."
Felix: "Nyu, but you're not a machine."
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| Click for a larger image | IMAGES | Scenes from the movie | |
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| | Watch a scene | VIDEO | MPEG video files | |
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| | Leave a comment | EXTRAS | Buy the movie | |
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| The Lift
Reply #1. Posted on August 16, 1999, 11:08:02 AM by Dave
Andrew,
This is a great movie....a classic. I remember the first time I saw this I kept laughing at the name on the side of the van (something like Deada Liften). Anyway I actually like this movie as it has a good plot and the acting is ok for a horror movie from nowhere!!!!
I give it a 7 out of 10...I'd watch it again...probably will this weekend...
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Reply #2. Posted on August 17, 1999, 01:43:28 AM by Squishy
What a gas. Worst dubbing ever for a flick from the Western half of the globe. And the strangulation at the end--who knew that elevator cables had their own musculature? I think I'll rent this one night triple-billed with "The Refrigerator" and "The Mangler." Pray for Squishy.
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Reply #3. Posted on September 05, 1999, 03:27:44 PM by Squishy
Say, I have an idea for a sequel; "The Loo." See, the corporation that created the technology behind "The Lift" decides it would be safer to use it on bidets; mysterious drownings begin to occur. A little girl is almost lured to her doom by a playful water-fountain display. A blind man falls in. After the new corporate head takes the toilet out by shooting it in the head (huh huh huh), he is killed by the toilet-paper dispenser...
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Reply #4. Posted on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM by Pomy
Well, well...
Where ta start? Yea, so this movie is a pile of s**t.
I think it could be better. It's not about the directin' or the actin' (b'coz that it would be a double pile of s**t), it's about the ways that elevator kills. I mean that the head choppin' is OK, so far, but the aircondition's and the fact of an elevator is bein' airtight :) well sux!
The other problem is the end of the movie. I don't think that anybody could hung there in the shaft when a ca. 1.5 tons of weight-iron gives massage on the spine... funny!
And ain't that a s**t when the elevator knows (!) that someone is blind? And about the blind people. What tha f**k is the cane for if they don't use it?! Ne'r mind, better luck next time.
POMY
Ps.: By the bye: if they'd call it a fun-film, it'd be my favorite... but this way... s**t!
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Reply #5. Posted on October 16, 1999, 10:41:18 AM by dfect@hotmail.com
Hey give it a change, it's a Dutch movie you know!! I scared the f*ck out of me when I was young and this movie was on the tv.
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Reply #6. Posted on November 21, 1999, 10:51:58 AM by Athenachri@aol.com
This movie was one of the very first cheesy movies I ever saw. The greatest thing about it was the movie cover. Ah, a classic movie cover: "Take the stairs! Take the stairs! For God's Sake- take the stairs!!"
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Reply #7. Posted on March 07, 2000, 08:13:17 AM by Lupe
Well, I'm embarrassed to be Dutch when "one of the things that you learn from this movie" is the fact that we have lower standards for beautiful women; the actress Willeke van Ammelrooy was too old and eighties-styled, but I guess she got the part just because she's famous here in Holland.And I'm drop-dead gorgeous myself, no kidding !!! They should have given me the part, oh no I was seven years old at the time.And it did scare me then, of course.
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Reply #8. Posted on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM by staev
Tagline: The stairs! For God's sake, take the stairs!
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