It seems that Dick Maas' De Lift has become a true horror gem over the years and I even picked up that it's most wanted among cult-collectors. Well, here in the home countries (The Netherlands and Belgium) you can still easily find an old copy in videostores or even on flee-markets, so all you avid fanatics should come pay us a visit! To me, "De Lift" will always remain special because it was one of my very first encounters with the horror genre but even from a more objective viewpoint, I still think it's a very decent film with some genuine scares and an impressively grim atmosphere. The plot is far from brilliant (on the verge of ludicrous, actually) but that's widely made up by some effective shock-sequences and Maas' talent to build up slow suspense. After several people got injured by the newly installed elevator in a fancy building complex, mechanic Felix Adelaar is hired to do a detailed check up. Together with a persistent female reporter, he discovers that the production company has been experimenting with new chips that totally haven't been approved yet. There's a painful use of clichés, the dialogues are poorly written and granted there's a little too much talking going on. But, when the characters aren't talking nonsense, there's some pretty unsettling stuff to see! In the scariest sequence of the entire film, the fiendish elevator plays a deadly game with a young girl while the ominous music will make you move to the end of your seat. The footage filmed in the ugly shaft is really chilling and there's some excellent low-budget gore as well, with a nasty decapitation and a vile hanging as the absolute highlights. The biggest criticism I've come about this site is about the awful dubbing but, since I'm Dutch speaking, I luckily didn't suffer from that. "De Lift" was Dick Maas' first long-feature film and he also pleased the Dutch audiences with the happily deranged adventures of the Flodder family before emigrating to Hollywood where he remade his own debut. Even though Maas managed to recruit a great cast for this project (Naomi Watts, Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya...), it totally lacks the obscurity and dark cinematography of the original. Give it a look....if you can find it.
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Coventry18 May 2005
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Fella_shibby10 February 2021I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs. Revisited it recently. I found the movie very surrealistic then and aft revisiting, i found it to be far ahead of its time regarding machines taking control.
After an elevator mysteriously begins to function intelligently on its own and kill people, a technician from the elevator company becomes obsessed and begins to examine the electrical system in an attempt to find the malfunctions of the elevator thereby impacting his marital life.
While the film doesn't have any gory kills except for the decapitation one. It has less body count but certain amount of tension is maintained especially when the lil girl goes closer to the lift and during the climax when Felix takes matters into his own hands. -
Hey_Sweden17 December 2017In a high rise office building in the Netherlands, an elevator repairman named Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel) is busy trying to solve a mystery. The elevators in this place are now functioning improperly, incapacitating passengers if not killing them outright. Could the cause be some sort of human error, or is something supernatural going on? Felix works the clues in the company of an aggressive, sassy reporter, Mieke de Beer (Willeke van Ammelrooy).
Writer & director Dick Maas ("Amsterdamned") deserves some credit for treating his premise with some measure of restraint. Therefore, it won't be to all tastes. It admittedly comes up a little short in the thrills department, with a slow pace and a talky script. Yet, there are fun moments, such as when an unfortunate security guard is decapitated by an elevator. Also, Stapel is an appealing working-class, Everyman sort of hero, and he has some chemistry with the striking van Ammelrooy. They receive able support from players such as Josine van Dalsum (as Felix's wife), Siem Vroom (as a police inspector), and Hans Veerman (as the boss at "Rising Sun", the electronics company working in tandem with Felix's employers).
The script does possess some passing interest for the way that it touches upon the subject of technological evolution (with computers that used to fill up entire rooms now becoming much more compact, and the advent of computer chips).
"The Lift" is a little light on gore and other exploitable elements, but overall it's fairly entertaining to watch. Maas does pretty well working with the limited budget, and IS expert at crafting suspense, especially the eerie and atmospheric finale with Felix in an elevator shaft. The electronic score (composed by Maas) is likewise a highlight.
One of the set decorators is Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., who 28 years later, directed the prequel to John Carpenters' "The Thing".
Seven out of 10. -
AlbertV7920 September 2001What do you get when a new elevator is installed and the evil of Stephen King's Christine? You get...THE LIFT. Dick Maas directed a stylish thriller about an elevator with malicious tones. Try suffocation, a blind man falling down the shaft (nice sound FX for this scene) and the famous decapitation scene. My friend was grossed out after seeing the decapitation scene. Nevertheless, it is up to our hero Felix (Huub Stapel) to find out what is wrong with the lift. After seeing this, I want to check out the 2001 remake DOWN, also directed by Maas with James Marshall in the role of the maintenance man in search of the lift's problems.
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Four annoying customers at a restaurant stay late during a lightning storm. They leave and step inside an elevator. The elevator stops because the power goes out. While stuck in the elevator, the heating goes berserk (two people start having sex)! Thankfully, they survive, but management decides to hire Felix (Huub Stapel), a technician, to figure out the problem with the unstable lift.
Stylish goofball black horror comedy supplies sufficient elevator kills (about three or four). The film manages to convey some tension with strong production design, special effects (most of the death scenes are shot backwards), and direction.
The subplots (mainly the one concerning infidelity) and exposition deescalate the film. Also, find this film in Dutch because I had to grit my teeth through some of the dubbing. "De Lift" entertains and manages to waste time. -
steenvreter2911 October 2000A new lift has been installed recently. A few people get stuck in it. A few days later, a blind man falls into the shaft. A guard is beheaded by the same lift. 'What we have here is a killing machine...!'
Director Dick Maas is a big fan of Steven Spielbergs films (same here, but only his earlier movies). 'De Lift', describable as another alternative for the JAWS-formula, makes clear that Dick Maas lacks a lot in comparison to the most successful Hollywood-director.
The movie has a few good scenes which are shocking, but the majority of the movie is surprisingly dull and tedious. As long as the story keeps to the elevator, it's OK. However, there are a lot of scenes about family problems and interminable discussions about elevators. Those do not build up tension, they're just very, very boring and though I am not much of a sadist, I only kept watching because I was anxiously waiting for the next person to be killed by the lift. In a very cruel way of course. One should not watch this movie for the story-line in the first place. The plot doesn't make ANY sense: how would you explain a killer lift? Anyhow, there IS some kind of explanation in the movie, but only kids under 8 years old would believe that nonsense. Under 8, for I watched this movie first when I was 7 years old and I was scared to death. Perhaps I am too old for this movie now.. -
Maedhros351 February 2008Back in 1983 when this movie was made, it was a real shocking classic. Not because of the opening nudity-scene in the elevator (after all: this is the Netherlands and 'Spetters' had been released three years prior), but because it was a real scary and sometimes even gory mainstream movie.
By todays standards it will probably disappoint you - the story about a rogue biocomputer-operated elevator is severely outdated and special effects are negligible. But nevertheless it really has something - eerie and terrifying music and some really scare scenes. Not the one with the guard being decapitated, but the one with the little girl begin enthralled by the three elevators is classic.
Another classic scene is right at the end, where the surviving cast members take the stairs, 10+ floors down, instead of the (now normal) elevators. -
"The Lift" is a low-budget Dutch movie about a killer elevator. The whackiest thing is that it's a mostly stone-faced low-budget movie about a killer elevator. The film was re-made as "Down / The Shaft" by the same director, Dick Maas, in the early 00's. This time he had a larger budget and a (rather questionable) sense of humor injected into the flick. Then 9/11 happened and the movie, with it's multiple terrorist references and NYC location, got postponed. It was conveniently released after lead actress Naomi Watts finally hit it big with "Mulholland Dr." and "The Ring." I enjoy the movie for it's bizarre jokes and dialogue ("I'll pee on them!"), but I can recognize it's not a particularly good movie.
Well, "The Lift" is even worse. Apparently Maas hadn't yet realized how inherently silly a killer elevator movie is. Perhaps some of the humor got lost in translation--the version I watched was horrendously dubbed in English. Lead actor Huub Stapel is unbearably uncharismatic and slowly chugs through the movie like he'd rather be doing something else. Not that he's given much to work with--his character is a total tool that only exists as a protagonist for the killer elevator. There's not much here to redeem this film, though there are a few fun (but dated) effects that helped keep my attention for its duration. If you're trying to hunt this one down, you might want to forget it. Or stick with the slaptastic and goofy remake--"The Lift" is more like the long lost cousin of "The Mangler." -
BA_Harrison10 July 2020The lifts in an office building begin to kill off the occupants. Lift technician Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel) tries to find out what is causing the trouble and discovers that an experimental bio-tech micro-processor is the problem.
The Lift, by Dutch director Dick Maas, was snapped up by a major studio when it was shown at Cannes in 1984, which is great because it helped give Maas the clout to make more movies, his next horror film being the excellent Amsterdamned (1988). But as important as the film was to Maas' career, The Lift isn't without its faults...
It starts off in fine exploitative style with four people trapped in the titular elevator, one couple making the most if the situation by getting frisky (resulting in some early nudity) before almost being killed by the defective air conditioning. For most of the remaining movie, however, nothing much of interest happens: people run up and down the stairs of the office building, Felix flirts with reporter Mieke (Willeke van Ammelrooy), there's lots of dull talk about micro-processors and relays, Felix and Mieke go bowling with friends, Mieke accuses her husband of adultery, and Felix visits an old work colleague at a sanitarium. None of this is very interesting. The climactic scene in which Felix climbs inside the lift shaft to get to the bottom of the mystery is also frustratingly lacklustre - poorly shot and edited, badly lit, and bereft of excitement.
Even the film's much touted elevator decapitation is weak, a neat idea let down by an unconvincing rubber head (and no blood!).
That said, even with all of its shortcomings, I'm glad the film exists: it served as a practice run for Maas' 2001 movie Down (a remake of The Lift), which is a whole load of fun - if you haven't seen it, and enjoy gloriously daft horror movies, deffo check it out. -
edeighton31 October 2017Eric Deighton's review of De Lift (1983)
*Warning spoilers*
Everyone loves John Carpenter's Halloween. De Lift is the Dutch answer to Halloween. Like John Carpenter, Director, Dick Maas, writes, directs and composes the music for the movie De Lift (1983). Dick Maas does a great job at all three roles. The plot is well written and slowly builds suspense and intrigue. The movie is slickly directed and contains a number of trick camera shots (like the bowling scene) and an overall very stylistic camera work. The lighting of the exterior of the elevator is especially effective. The score is a clearly Carpenter-inspired synthesized bit of music that really adds to the atmosphere of this movie.
Director Dick Maas has created a great looking film. The film looks and feels like a 1980's horror movie should. I felt while watching this movie that Dick Maas must have been heavily influenced by Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", but in interviews Dick Maas insists that the Lift is his take on Steven Spielberg's "Jaws". Dick Maas has stated that he wanted the same feel in De Lift as the audience felt in Jaws with the elevator taking the place of the shark. Dick Maas uses similar techniques to Spielberg as humor and horror are both presented in this film. Dick Maas has a flair for some pretty funny sight gags that are littered throughout the film. There are several false jump scenes as various characters approach the elevator only to escape unharmed. The elevator, like the shark in Jaws, is sure to eventually get its prey and each time a victim escapes it only heightens the tension.
While the main setting of this film is the fancy Icarus high-rise office building, the hero is a blue collar working man played to perfection by dutch actor, Huub Stapel. This movie is full of great Dutch character actors. None of the characters in this movie seem like throw away parts. All of the characters have interesting little quirks and all seem to advance the plot and bring this story to life. Many of the actors had to take on double and sometimes triple duties to get this film made. The budget did not provide for any stunt men, so every actor did his or her own stunts, including the dangerous scenes in the elevator shaft. Additionally, the non-actor crew was pressed into service as extras for many of the shots.
Yes, this is a movie about a killer elevator, but why does the elevator kill? This movie treats its subject matter very serious, to the point where this movie has the feel of a crime drama. There is much time spent following our blue collar hero (elevator repair man) around as he investigates what is causing this elevator to kill people. The investigation portion of the film includes visits to the factory, interviews with computer technicians, visits to a mental hospital to interview the last elevator repairman to work on the killer elevator and a crash course on bio-technology by an excited professor. Is the killer elevator part of some corporate conspiracy; is there some alien slime that is making the elevator kill; or, has the microchip developed not only self awareness and free will but also an organic like ability to reproduce? The movie really does not ever provide a satisfactory explanation.
I watched the whole movie in Dutch with English sub-titles. I tried re-watching it in English, but the voice actors that did the dubbing work were awful and gave an uninspired performance. The Dutch version with English sub-titles is far superior. Director Dick Maas did a remake of De Lift in 2001 titled "The Shaft/Down" starring Naomi Watts. -
A dark and stormy night at Hotel Icarus, and close-up of a girl's gaping laugh, before a loud and obnoxious group of drunken socialites become stranded in a lift. Fifteen minutes of darkly lit photography later, they are rescued. A lift repairman goes into the the lift by himself to investigate the cause of this boredom, and is followed by a female journalist out looking for a story. The lift's wiring, as it turns out, is possessed by demons from hell, causing deaths for no apparent reason, in all sorts of contrived ways. A well done decapitation scene (juxtaposed with a policeman slicing the end of his cigar) and a decent enough death of a blind man, as well as impressive set designs and lighting are about all this Dutch "thriller" have going for it. This film barely even qualifies as a horror movie, as there is so much blah blah blah blah blah it could almost be considered a character study of the lift repairman. Pardon me, while I yawn uncontrollably.
Film tries to be a serious, atmospheric suspense/ thriller, but there is just no possible way to make interesting a story of a killer lift. -
I agree with John Hartl's review about the quality of this movie. It could easily have been silly, but it definitely is not. The last part, with Felix lit only by his industrial hand lamp in the enemy's own domain, is completely engrossing. The - quite sparse - music is eerily effective and the photography very good, as are the performances. In the version I saw, the dubbing is well done and convincing. Another winner from the Netherlands. About time we high risers took the lift seriously!
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claudio_carvalho23 July 2022The lift of a restaurant in the top of an office building locks four passengers inside without air conditioning system and almost suffocates them. Then a security guard is beheaded by the lift. The Deta Liften technician Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel) is assigned to check the equipment and he does not find any problem in the mechanical and the electric systems of the lift. He stumbles upon the snoopy reporter Mieke de Beer (Willeke van Ammelrooy) and teams up with her to check the electronic component of the lift that belongs to the Rising Sun Electronics and they conclude that a microchip maybe the responsible for the erratic behavior of the lift.
"De lift" is an entertaining Dutch movie with an entertaining storyline. When the little girl approaches the lift killer, there is tension based on the DVD cover. The domestic problem of Felix with his wife is the weakest part of the story. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "O Elevador Assassino" ("The Lift Killer") -
mwilson197627 May 2020This macabre story about a murderous elevator that mysteriously begins to function on its own and kills anybody who goes near it is more of a black comedy than a scary horror movie. Huub Stapel plays a repairman who discovers that the company he is working for has been experimenting with microchips in the lifts circuitry, and teams up with a tabloid newspaper reporter (Willeke van Ammelrooy) to try and get to the bottom of things . A security guard being decapitated is a gory highlight, but genuine scares and tension are few and far apart in this 1983 Dutch film directed and written by Dick Maas, who also made an American remake entitled Down in 2001. They should have taken the stairs.
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The Non-Hip6 April 2003Keep in mind that this low budget film was made for a dutch audience, and was only released internationally because of it's tremendous success in the Netherlands.
The english voices are horrible! I was able to see this version when I visited the US and found it in a small-town video store. The english voices pretty much ruined the movie.
This is no reason to give the movie a low rating however, since the movie in it's original form was an amazing breakthrough in Dutch film making. This movie's rating would be much higher if it was only rated by it's intended, dutch audience. -
videorama-759-85939119 November 2015This film could well have you, put off by lifts, as they have never been more frightening here. Of course here, what the viewer really wants to know, is what is causing this particular lift, the middle one of three, to malfunction, and display some quite scary behavior, while also causing a few nasty incidents and deaths, to some of it's users. Why this film works on a more realistic level, is the bad hiccups that occur with this lift, whether the air conditioner stuffing up, or the lift not arriving where it should, hence a blind man falling to his doom, these are real believable faults and they do happen, where the one in it's finale, is totally off the wall, and ridiculous. Is it being sabotaged, by a rival lift company, or is it just possessed? Looking into it, comes an electrician (Huub Staple- The Indecent Woman) who by the end of it, becomes so obsessed by getting to the core of this problem. We also see family life around this electrician, where the wife believes, he's having an affair with this reporter. I really liked how we see some family life around our hero, the relationship with his children. The lift has a lot of suspense, the most engrossing part, the last fifteen minutes, with Staple now checking the lift's devices, tooth and nail. Violence is very low for gore hounds, though not every horror delivers it's quota of gore. In fact, it's the better horror movies that have less. I'm not saying The Lift is good. There's something unavoidably dull about it. There should of been more poured into it. But is it worth watching? Yes. The last scene, with our two hero's resorted to using the stairs, played against a great finale music score is like a punchline to all those people out there who opt for the lift. Once, thinking I nearly got in a lift, when using an electronic card, it's awful feeling, where moments like this you give anything to make that other choice.
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NoName19891 July 2007When I was going to see "De Lift", I feared that it would be quite bad, because it's a Dutch film, and in general I don't like Dutch films that much. But here, I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. The story is quite simple: a demonic elevator that kills people. It seems a bit stupid, but it's more interesting than one would expect! The production values are pretty low because of the small budget, but nevertheless, sometimes this film is very exciting. Something else worth mentioning, is the music by Dick Maas(who is also the director!), that is quite haunting and creates a tense atmosphere! Only the end is a bit disappointing, but nevertheless, this is a good film, better than one would expect, so if you would get the chance to see it, don't hesitate!
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Analog_Devotee4 March 2020This one's only for the more dedicated fans of 80's horror. It's schlocky, the effects are laughable, the acting is decent but foiled by a sub par English dub, and I'll be damned if it isn't a good time!
Track this one down only if you really, really love cult horror. -
Leofwine_draca17 August 2016This little Dutch chiller is a cut above the rest due to the director's fine ability to maintain suspense throughout what is in reality, a slow-moving and relatively action-less film. The idea of a killer lift is at once laughable, but the makers of this film get over that hurdle by slowly and surely building up tension as the lift takes every opportunity to destroy anything that comes near it. The basic yet powerful music score (composed by the director, Dick Maas) helps to add to the feel of the film, a feeling of unknown terror and evil.
The acting is fine; the dubbing is obvious but doesn't detract in this case. The male lead is more than capable of carrying the role of a lift repair man and is actually quite charismatic; we actually care for him when he's put into danger. The female journalist is surprisingly non-annoying, considering the stereotyped role she fits, and the pair spark together well as an early variation of Mulder and Scully. As for the others, they're more amusing than anything, especially the ill-conceived asylum scene.
The deaths here are mainly off-screen, with one notable exception. A guy gets his head jammed in lift doors, and is then decapitated by the descending lift in one of the evillest, most imaginative death scenes I've ever witnessed on film. It's a masterful moment. As for the other deaths, they're kept to a minimum, apart from at the over-the-top finale. It seems that once the nudity and violence has been dispensed with at the opening of this film, it settles back into investigation mode, with plenty of dialogue to keep things moving along. The foreign setting makes a nice change too.
The aforementioned finale is actually very good, with Stapel getting involved in some DIE HARD-style heroics while swinging about in the lift shaft. It turns out that all the trouble is the cause of some artificially intelligent computer chips, you could have fooled me! The final twist, where a cable twists out of the lift to wrap around another victim's next, is sped up and actually shocking. Don't be put off by the low budget or the obscure nature of this film, it's not a bad little piece and achieves what it sets out to do. -
A state of the art elevator system starts to go haywire and kill people after being struck by lightning...almost like it has a mind of it's own.
Meanwhile, an elevator repairman and local journalist have teamed up to figure out what is going on.
It seems the elevator company is trying to cover something up.
After a little digging, they reveal that the Japanese company responsible for designing the electrical components of the lift system, have developed a bio-chip: a biological computer chip that is known to become endowed with artificial intelligence.
Which might explain a lot...if they can manage to stop the conspiracy...before they become it's next victims...
This film really plays off the paranoia of the times- a fear of impending doom from the computer apocalypse, sort of thing.
And it's not that great. It's pretty slow moving, the special effects are kinda lame, and the kill scenes are pretty anti-climactic.
I'm not sure what you can expect though...there are only so many ways an elevator can kill somebody.
5.5 out of 10. -
frankde-jong16 February 2022"The elevator" was the debut of Dutch director Dick Maas. It is a thrilling film in the style of John Carpenter about a very normal object going mad. In "The elevator" this normal object is of course an elevator, in Carpenter's "Christine" from the same year it is a car.
The daily character of these objects make these films horror and not science fiction, but in "The elevator" there are elements of the last mentioned genre as well. The 80s were still far removed from the internet of things, but it slowly became more and more common to assimilate computers or chips in machines. It is the "system software" of the elevator that is causing trouble, and just like the computer HAL in "2001, a space odyssey" (1968, Stanley Kubrick) this software seems to have a will of its own and actively resists being turned off.
On top of this mix of horror and science fiction there is also a (minor) critical element in the film in the form of a commercial company preferring casualties to loss of turnover. -
preppy-39 May 2011Ridiculous horror film about an elevator that kills people. Seriously! A man figures out and tries to find out why the elevator is acting this way...and get it to stop.
How a film with such a stupid premise got made is beyond me. Let's face it--elevators just aren't scary! They can't chase after you or catch you. To avoid them you just take the stairs! Even if you can accept that it doesn't even stay true to its own premise. At one point a blind man is waiting for the elevator. The doors open--but there's no car there and he falls to his death. How exactly did the elevator KNOW that the guy was blind? Even worse we never get a plausible explanation as to why this is happening. We get lots of boring family drama and loonnggg talks about elevators. Seriously--there is WAY too much talk in this. Three times I had to rewind the tape to be able to read all the subtitles (this is from the Netherlands). This gets a three for some cool murders but, all in all, boring and pretty pointless. -
hderksen13 August 2007An elevator seems to have a mind of its own, and it is deathly. The director builds a solid horror movie on people's fear of elevators. This is clearly a B-horror movie, but as such it is good. There are various truly shocking scenes.
The story line is very simple. The main character is an elevator-repairman and he must repair an elevator that caused an accident. What he finds out is truly bizarre and unbelievable, but scary nonetheless.
One of the best dutch made horror movies (but frankly, I don't know many other dutch horror movies). -
shawnblackman6 October 2016Cult classic for sure. This brings horror to new heights. I had seen Amsterdamned (1988) and liked it so I figured why not another Dutch delight. This one has a state of the art elevator system developing a mind of its own as it randomly maims and kills.
This had a serious tone to it instead of campiness. The scene where buddy loses his head was done a little cheesy but I guess it is 1983 after all. The film kept you locked in as you follow the mechanic and a journalist trying to find out who's giving them the shaft. Tense scenes are aplenty. The synthesizer music added to the effect well or should I say elevated it to new levels.
It is an awesome old school horror. You will have to read this one though being from the Netherlands. Now I'm going to take steps to avoid elevators. -
PeeDee-25 September 2005Although I did not particularly enjoy "Amsterdammned" (a similar sort of film), I gave it another shot because I did not want to believe that - as the Dutch themselves often say - the Dutch cinematography in general is just worthless (however, you DO get "tits, sex and throwing up" in most films ;o) ). I have seen "Antonia" and "Character" and enjoyed them both very much. Moreover, living in the Netherlands I wanted to know what a 'cult' movie that the locals consider "the most thrilling Dutch film ever" (4 out of 5 stars in a renowned TV magazine) looks like. Well, to tell the truth, I was nothing but disappointed. Even if I overlook the shaky idea of an 'evil microchip', the predictable direction and the cheap effects, I just cannot overlook the HORRENDOUS acting of the whole cast. They were all in desperate need of some Strasberg classes... All in all, if you want to get a positive picture of the Dutch cinematography, please do NOT waste time rolling your eyes up during this flop!