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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