The Lift, Homicidal Elevator

Now that the dollar is worth more than the Euro, we can call lifts elevators.  A homicidal elevator?  Happens.  There have been a lot of good movies about horror in elevators.  Today we have a Dutch film that helps explain the European fear of lifts (or, wait!  Maybe that's bursting dikes).  In a weird one from 1983, we look at "The Lift," directed by Dick Maas.  It is an ambitious horror film that will eventually become science fiction.

Four drunk revelers are almost cooked to death inside the elevator of a fancy office building...so it begins.  Felix (Huub Staapel) is summoned.  He is a repairman from the elevator company.  Yep, the elevator checks out fine.  The carnage continues as the thing decapitates a security guard and murders a blind guy.  Felix is called back.  Again, the elevator is fine.  Felix gets suspicious when he finds out his repairman predecessor is now committed to an insane asylum.  Now Felix is joined with reporterette, Mieke (Willeke van Amelrooy).  She's a babe and the two end up doing quite an investigation.

As the elevator continues to misbehave, Felix and Mieke uncover a conspiracy involving a mysterious electronics firm.  This gets Felix taken off his job.  Also checking on the elevator is a mysterious man who drives a van from this weird electronics company.  Normal people would figure the elevator is demon possessed (happens all the time), but our Dutch protagonists are just a bit smarter than us normal people.  Now Mieke and Felix realize what is going on in this rogue elevator is something much larger than an inconvenience in a large office building.  Yep, just like a good western, there will be an epic battle at the end between man and elevator.

Weird and a bit different.  The final reveal is ambitious and a bit icky.  The characters are not really likable except the reporterette is quite the babe.  What is causing the elevator to be homicidal?   Does the elevator have special plans for the hot reporterette?  Since the dollar is valued more than the Euro now, can we call football...soccer?  For a quirky 1980's Euro techno-horror epic, see "The Lift."