De Lift

1983
Dir. Dick Maas

Lift technician Felix (Huub Stapel) is called in to repair an elevator that has been at the centre of several bizarre deaths. As the deaths continue to mount, Felix begins an obsessive investigation that causes ructions with his family and colleagues. Joining forces with reporter Mieke de Beer (Willeke van Ammelrooy), he uncovers the involvement of shady multi-national corporation Rising Sun, who have installed an experimental computer chip in the elevator. An evil computer chip!

Take the stairs, take the stairs. For God's sake, take the Stairs!!!

I assumed that De Lift was going to be an immensely trashy affair. It’s about a killer lift. It's a Dutch horror film from the early Eighties - about a killer lift. Surprisingly, it’s a competently put together thriller that, after plodding around for about an hour with too many exposition-heavy scenes and bland characters, settles down to become a taut and suspenseful ride - albeit one with a very silly premise. Helping set the mood is an atmospheric score, courtesy of writer/director Maas, full of synthesizer drones and electronic blips and bleeps that could only ever have been produced in the Eighties. You just know something bad is going to happen when you hear a sustained synthesizer cord in the key of John Carpenter.

The machine/technological horror sub-genre is a strange one. It exploits the idea of everyday machines that suddenly and inexplicably turn hostile and deadly; eviscerating our flesh and bones in metallic, vice-grips. If handled well, this can be very effective. Case in point – the scene in The Machinist when Michael Ironside gets his arm caught and mangled inside a machine and various brutal death scenes in the Final Destination films. Yup, technology can be a real bitch – there’s just no reasoning with it. Transferring this notion to screen can be difficult though and often doesn’t work – The Mangler anyone? Let’s face it; it usually just looks preposterous when someone is being murdered by their toaster. Lifts are different though, they have the potential to become dreadful places that can induce real fear and panic: claustrophobia, confinement, heights, lack of air – all fears that director Maas doesn’t really do much to exploit in De Lift.



Four socially lubricated party guests take their clothes off in De Lift, only to be suffocated when the AC 'stops working'. A blind man plummets to his death when De Lift opens its doors and he walks into the empty shaft. A tap dancing janitor also falls victim to De Lift. And that’s it, really. One of the stand out scenes features the nasty decapitation of a security guard. The build up is tautly handled. Another pretty creepy moment occurs when a little girl plays in the lobby by the lifts. One by one the doors open and the enthralled kid happily plays peek-a-boo until De Lift takes a disliking to her doll…
The rest of the film is about Felix’s ‘investigation’ and features a load of scenes with really badly dubbed people talking. A lot.

Things become a little ludicrous when Felix realises that an old work buddy, who had also been working on the same lift, must have discovered something that drove him insane, and he eventually begins to suspect that the problem originates from the lift’s electronics – all that ectoplasm must have given it away. When he and Mieke realise the electronics are supplied by Rising Sun, they decide to snoop around and see what they can find out. They discover that, quite worryingly, Rising Sun install electronics systems all over the world – lifts, hospitals, factories, military installations and nuclear reactors. They’re everywhere! The dubious company has also been involved in international espionage and the bribery of many a politician. Crikey.



 
De Lift is unnecessarily talky. Add to this the fact that everyone has been really badly dubbed with mismatching voices that exhibit zero emotion. The dialogue heavy scenes really cause the pace to drag. There is also a sub-plot in which Felix’s wife Saskia (Josine van Dalsum) suspects he is having an affair and leaves him, taking their children with her. Much talk is given over to subjects such as the devastation caused when technology fails to do what it’s supposed to. Maas is obviously trying to play on the fact that society, even back in the early Eighties, is heavily reliant on technology and machines – and if anything were to go ‘wrong’ with them, we’d really be in for some trouble. One scene throws a distinct sci-fi element into the mix as a professor lectures our protagonists on molecule-sized protein computer chips and computers that can reproduce and then have to be buried ‘alive’ because they start to omit their own brain waves or something. A statistician relays worrying elevator facts such as ‘250,000 people are trapped in lifts every year.’ In the third act though, the dialogue all but stops, allowing the tension to rise quite effectively as Felix ditches his sidekick and enters the lift shaft by himself…

An unusual thriller with a quirky twist, prone to plodding but still enjoyable. Its got a killer lift! Wine might be necessary.