A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Ever briefly get stuck in an elevator thats messing with you, malfunctioning and seems to almost have a mischievous mind of its own? That's the premise of Down, also known as The Shaft. It concerns an elevator in a huge residential/office building that has gone homicidally haywire. It traps, drops and tricks people no end, raising and lowering the interior temperature to dangerous effect and generally just being a great big meanie. No one seems so know what's going on with it though, especially the mechanic who installed it (Twin Peak's James Marshall). The incidents accumulate, attracting a perky tabloid reporter (Naomi Watts having a ball) who makes up all kinds of tall tales to explain the situation in sensationalistic terms. This infuriates the CEO of the elevator company (now there's a job title) played by a snarky Ron Perlman who gets a rant towards Marshall that walked in from a way better script (which leads me to believe it was the spawn of Perlman's legendary improv skills). There's also a cop played by Dan Hedeya who can't seem to figure it out wither. The truth is a lot more interesting than you might expect and has nothing to do with ghosts or spirits at all, but centers around a deranged research scientist (Michael Ironside, whacked out to kingdom come). It's not the least bit scary, but it's worth a watch simply for the fact that it's a movie about a damn elevator that kills people lol. Cujo and Christine ain't got nothing on this bitch. The scene where a gaggle of pregnant ladies enter the thing is just priceless in its blatantly gross out manner. Fun, fun stuff and great research to embarrass Watts with sometime down the road if you ever find yourself interviewing her on the red carpet hehe.

Released in the US as The Shaft, this is Dick Maas remake of his own striking debut. 1983's The Lift was a blackly comic chiller about a skyscraper's lift that begins to take the lives of its occupants. This beefed up version keeps the original premise intact, right down to the odd bio-mechanical explanation, but takes place in New York City, pre- 9/11. Beginning with an extravagant pan through the Manhattan skyline and onto the observation deck of the CG rendered Millennium Building, Maas's film looks ever bit as stylish as its $15 million budget would suggest. Given its blockbuster production values its easy to take this absurd movie at face value, but those familiar with the original may recognise that Maas is actually attempting deadpan parody. Slickly directed in widescreen frame, Marc Felperlaan's cinematography complements both the city (which was used only for exterior shots) and the gorgeous art deco production design of the building itself. James Marshall, as the rugged young hero, has something of Christian Slater, Mark Whalberg or Josh Hartnett about him, while his love interest is none other than Naomi Watts, who shortly after became a star in another US-set remake of a foreign classic. In this and that other film she plays a reporter investigating an absurd concept, here a killer lift, there killer videotapes. They are supported by respectable cast of character actors Michael Ironside, Edward Herrman, Ron Perlman and Dan Hedaya. Kicking off the scene with the sounds of Aerosmith's Love in an Elevator, an extravagant race takes place between two incredibly skilled risk takers through New York traffic and into the basement parking garage of the Millennium Building. One of the skaters is then sucked into the lift, in an unexplained supernatural moment, only to be thrown out from the top floor. Bold, inventive and darkly humorous, this brief sequence, which has no dialogue or featured performers present, displays Maas' talent with his rehashed material to the greatest effect. This film was, unfortunately, somewhat prophetic and is laced with unintended irony as a result. Released over two years after the destructive assault on the World Trade Centre, it's not difficult to see why. The very first shot shows us those twin towers, which will forever provoke gasps of remembrance in whatever film they appear, and soon we are in a similar building where horrifying acts are occurring. This seems at first a rather tenuous reason to delay a release, but then the moment arrives when the narrative enlists comments from the fictional President, in which he expresses fear of the occurrences as a terrorist act. This remake is something of a cross between its inspirational text and the likes of high-rise horror's Poltergeist 3 (Gary Sherman, 1988) and The Tower (Richard Kletter, 1993), and is certainly superior in the execution of its novel concept than either The Mangler (Tobe Hooper, 1994) or sequels. The only thing that really lets this film down is the bad language. The F-word is used gratuitously and repeatedly throughout.

I got this neighbor who scours thrift store video tape bins to find what I can only describe as the worst misuses of VHS media known to man. The worse the movie, the bigger his chest swells with pride for saving it from oblivion. So when he gives me another one of his treasures I said OK, because I was bored out of my mind anyway and knew it would be a trek into weirdness. Incidentaly, here in the US the title of the movie is "The Shaft", my neighbor happens to enjoy the company of men so I suspect he thought he had stumbled upon a porno! Heh, heh, heh... :). Anyway, I popped it in the VCR and was immediately struck by the quality of the cinematography in the opening scene, really novel and well done. The setting kind of reminded me of some of the mid 80's films HBO used to run as filler, the look and pace of it hail to a previous decade. I kept watching and became ever more surprised by all the twists and turns, it really keeps you off balance and that makes it fun. I found myself talking at the screen and bursting out in laughter with some of the ridiculous things the movie asks you to accept. Just a great little quirky, surprising and fun pseudo sci-fi ride.

I can't comprehend this movie. It was so ridiculous that I thought it might be a parody, but as time wore on, I realized that there was no sense of humor to it. There were some reasonably big names and it seemed like there was a lot of money behind it. But a horror movie based on a murdering elevator? Just don't go in there.I also noticed that many of the performers looked downright embarrassed. There is a certain dead eyed expression an actor gets when they realize that they are involved in a real piece of garbage. Just pause this movie once or twice during a close up and you'll see exactly what I mean.This was just painful in every respect. I can't believe that this was done by professionals. This was basically a movie written by an elevator repairman and meant for the enjoyment of other elevator repairmen. EVERYONE else should stay the hell away.