Weirdhouse Cinema: The Lift

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe take a ride in Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas’ 1983 killer elevator movie “The Lift.”

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And is this
our first killer appliance movie? I sure think so. The

(00:23):
only thing that I was thinking could possibly compete with
it is when we did Chopping Mall, which is about
some some like security robots in a shopping mall that
go mad and try to murder a bunch of party teens.
But I think this may well be our first, our
first film more in the in the zone of consumer
or or domestic appliances that go hay wire and seek blood.

(00:47):
I think you're probably right. The only other film that
we've looked at on Weird How Cinema that comes close
would be Ghost in the Machine, which wasn't about like
the appliances or the or the or any kind of
AI going going hey wire. It was about like a
spirit uh, an entity of mind possessing all of these things.
And and that is the thing that causes say, a

(01:08):
microwave to malfunction and microwave an entire room. Oh yeah,
it's a serial killer whose brain gets sucked into the
telephone wires and then it can inhabit any machine. But
but but oh yeah, yeah, okay, so that's a good point.
That is kind of a killer appliance movie. But I
think you have to break killer appliance horror movies down
into two very distinct camps. There is one in which

(01:32):
multiple appliances can be commondered by an evil spirit, or
multiple appliances are attacking, so goes to the machine would
be one. Maximum overdrive is another one. I think there's
some alien force in that that turns I think maximum
overdrive should be our terminology for a full blown all
appliances attack, all human scenario, right exactly. Yes, So so

(01:55):
that's like all your soda machines, all your hair dryers,
they're they're all on the attack. But the other camp
is the movie in which there is a single appliance
or machine or an animate object that seeks human blood.
And there are your examples would be something like Deathbed,
the bed that eats people, or or the movie we're
gonna be talking about today, the Lift from nineteen eighty three,

(02:19):
a Dutch killer elevator movie. And based on what I've
been able to determine, I think this may be the
first real killer elevator movie that that either inspired other
elevate killer elevator movies or at least beat them to
the punch. Are there really other killer elevator movies? I
feel like I looked up a list of elevator horror movies,

(02:41):
but they're just like they just take place in an
elevator or feature an elevator. Um. I mean, I don't know.
I guess some of these would would would require getting
to the like the spoiler point to find out is
this an elevator or is there is there like an
evil psychopath controlling the elevator. I don't know what the
you know, the particular twist is going to be, but
this is definitely a killer elevator movie. Uh, absolutely to

(03:06):
its core. Oh wait, I just remembered something. I don't
know if you did. You ever see Speed, you know,
the nineties Kiana Reeves Sandra, Yeah, that begins with a
and it's sort of a killer elevator scenario. The elevator
has been hijacked by Dennis Hopper and it smashes An
Esteves right before he waited. An Estevez does no, no, no,
you're there. You're confusing it with the nineteen nineties Mission

(03:28):
Impossible movie. And there that's an elevator that I don't
know if, I don't know if there's a psychopath behind it,
but that John goes haywire and it smashes an Estevez.
Are you telling me an Estevez is not smashed in Speed? Uh? No,
I think someone is killed, but it's no. The problem
in Speed is that Dennis Hopper commandeers an elevator. Okay, anyway,

(03:50):
he it's his it's his trial run of the bus plan. Basically,
he puts a bunch of bombs on an elevator and
he okay, and it does not kill. No, I don't
think there is an Esteves in Bead. Okay. There's Jeff
Daniels in Speed? Is there? Yeah? Okay? Man, it's Keanu
and Jeff Daniels or the cops um and and Sandra

(04:10):
Bullock is the bus passenger who ends up driving. Okay,
it's been a while since I've seen I've clearly fused
it together with at least two other films. Well, we're
off to a great start here. But okay, let's just
name some other movies you can think of that have
elevator scenes. And well, I mean that's That's one of
the things about elevators. I think they're an interesting subject
for a film like like this because there's something about elevators,

(04:34):
uh that resonate with us. You think of all the
various elevator scenes in various films, and sometimes it's an
action centerpiece, other times it's just a situation. Very often
was just a place for two characters to have a
conversation between scenes, but they're often very memorable. Like just
I was thinking, like, off the top of my head,
what are some of the key elevator scenes I think of.

(04:56):
I think of Big Trouble and Little China. Uh, they're
not they're basically just standing around in there. But it's
a great scene. Um, I'm kind of feeling good. Yeah,
it's a wonderful, wonderful scene, even though they're just they're
just using it like normal people us an elevator as
a way. Well. Actually, there are multiple elevator scenes in
that movie that are great because there's a flooding elevator
they have to escape. Yeah, but then you have you

(05:18):
have some real action centerpieces, uh, particularly in two different
James Cameron films. You've got aliens and you've got Terminator
to both of which involved people flinging into an elevator
and then a superpowered uh enemy prying the elevator open,
only to be blasted with a shotgun. What do you know?
You're right? Yes, so in one case it's Robert Patrick

(05:39):
as the liquid metal and then the other case is
just an alien warrior. Yeah. And I don't think until today,
I'd ever put it together that those two scenes are
essentially the same scene. Uh, but they're both great. Other
key elevator scenes that come to mind. I mean, you've
got like the shining with the blood flowing out of it.
You've got that wonderful switchero that takes place in the
Silence the Lambs. Uh, there's a really bloody reveal in

(06:03):
the Untouchables from Brian to Palma. Uh. So those are
just some of the ones that come to mind. Like,
there's something about the elevator that just works great for theater.
It has its own curtains that open and close. Um,
it goes up and down, it smashes that you can
climb on top of it. Their cables up there, Like
we're just obsessed with the elevator. Oh yeah, yeah, Well,
I mean the fact that the elevator doors open in

(06:25):
the same way that curtains open. Like you say, I
think that has a natural revelatory quality that that calls
to mind sort of an unveiling, because there are a
lot of scenes in movies, even beyond what you mentioned,
where elevator doors peel back to reveal a scene that
shocks someone who's there waiting for the elevator to arrive.
So like and die Hard too, you know, there's a

(06:46):
there's a scene like that, and The Lift, of the
movie we're gonna talk about today, I would say has
at least five scenes where we don't immediately see what's
in the elevator, but we see the doors open, and
then someone is there waiting for the elevator and they
react with horror to whatever they see inside. You know,
they react like they're looking at the security footage from
event Horizon. Yeah, and uh, you know what is we'll

(07:10):
get into. I think, you know, you you might well
go into a movie like The Lift and think, all right, um,
elevators work well, like a small dose here and there,
maybe a couple of elevator scenes in the film, But
if you build an entire movie based on the elevator.
Are you going to be able to maintain that level
of interest in the elevator? You can be able to
define all these interesting ways to use it. And I

(07:32):
think the answer is yes. I think this movie pulls
it off well yeah, and I think it partially does
so by having a sense of humor. I mean, one
thing I was kind of surprised by was the trailer
made me think that this movie would be uh dryer,
and that more of the absurdity of it would just
kind of flow out of an understated realization of its

(07:54):
absurd core premise. But in fact, this is a fairly
juicy camp e move v. It's it's more along the
lines of chopping Mall or something like that. I can
only suspect that this is even more the case if
one is um he's watching it in the original language,
because I watched it dubbed into English and this was
the only option available to me, and the dub is
very good. But the dub is also like, I feel

(08:17):
like I've heard these same dub voices before in some cases,
you know, it feels like the same sort of American
dub you'd get on any number of Italian films from
the same time period. Oh, but I absolutely loved the
dub because some of the casting, or at least I
don't know if it was like that they just cast
people who sound this way, or if they made conscious
choices to deliver their lines in this hilarious manner. But

(08:38):
for example, the detective in The Who, his English dubbed
voice sounds like somebody doing audio book tracks for an
Encyclopedia Britannica. So there's like a when we first meet him,
he's talking about why he doesn't like elevators. He says,
I prefer the stairs suffer from claustrophobia. That's why I

(08:59):
became a leaseman. Would much rather put others in cells
than wind up myself in prison. Yeah, yeah, it's the
dub is very enjoyable. But I think that dubbing in general, uh,
it kind of it lends itself to a sort of
dry humor at times. You know, yes, um, so I
can only imagine what the original language of this would

(09:22):
have would have felt like if if one is a
you know, an actual Dutch viewer of the film, and yeah,
I should I should drive that home. This is uh,
I think our first Dutch movie that we've looked at
on Weird House Cinema. Though we have discussed films with
that have involved Dutch directors. We've also of course discussed
Dutch actors Rugger Howard as of course probably the most
famous Dutch actor of of of the twentieth century and beyond.

(09:48):
And then also I'm pretty sure that Hawaiian Werewolf movie
we watched had Dutch subtitles, because that's where we got
work beast. Yes, that the version that we found on
YouTube had Dutch titles. Um though it was itself not
a Dutch film, but that but that was another foray
into the Dutch world on this this podcast. I apologize

(10:10):
I interrupted your flow though what was What was the
other thing you were going to say? Oh? I was
just gonna reiterate that their first true killer appliance movie.
Oh okay, Yeah, absolutely. I would say that chopping Mall
does not count. Ghost in the Machine does not count
because ghost in the Machine is more in the maximum
overdrive vein chopping Mall. Those are killer robots anyway, they

(10:30):
just started attacking the wrong people. Now, sometimes killer appliance
movies And when I say appliance, I'm going to use
that very broadly to apply to everything from a bad
to an elevator. Um. But a lot of times it
is something like a bad something that you don't think
of is being dangerous at all. But I think the
elevator is a very interesting pick because for it's an

(10:50):
amazing technological advancement um and one that you know, it's
like all in like all technological inventions, you know, you
had maybe rocky or start at times, but you know,
for the most part, I don't think I really hesitate
when I board an elevator, or at least that wasn't
the case in pre pandemic times. I might think about
that more now, like how many people are going to
be on this, are they masked? Etcetera. But generally I

(11:13):
have a lot of compidence in the technology and the
regulation surrounding that technology. And yet at the same time
I know that I have these on and off dreams
about boarding strange elevators that are in varying stages of disrepair.
So I feel like underneath the surface of of my consciousness, uh,

(11:34):
there are a lot of more complicated thoughts about the
elevator and what the elevator is capable of. Oh, it
sounds like you're a kindred Soul with the Inspector in
this film. Well, but that's the thing I'm not I'm
not afraid of elevators at all. I'm perfectly comfortable getting
on and I just have the dreams where you inhabit
his frame of mind, right, which makes me me think

(11:55):
that you know, with all of us, and part of
it probably comes from movies, right, I mean, we we
ride of elevators, and for the most part, I think
we're you know, most of us out there probably don't
encounter much in the way of mishaps involving elevators. Um
though I could see where that would that would certainly
impact your appreciation of the technology if if it happened
that way. But otherwise, we're watching all these movies, and

(12:17):
in movies, elevators very often get stuck and people have
to climb through them and on top of them, or
they plummet, etcetera. And in this movie, elevators will do
all of those things. Yes, yes, and well, But another
thing is that I can't tell how much of the
weirdness of the way elevators are treated in this movie
is due to this being a movie from the early eighties.

(12:39):
In the Netherlands, or if it's just like weird about elevators,
because the characters in this movie talk about elevators like
they are a kind of new and dangerous thing, and
I don't think they were particularly new or dangerous in
in the Netherlands in the nineteen eighties. Is I don't know?
It could be wrong. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't get
a chance to really research that. But there there's at

(13:01):
least a time or two where a character makes a
seemingly outrageous claim about elevator safety at the time. Um,
I mean, I'm happy to be corrected on the matter.
But we'll discuss that in a bit. There's some scene
we're like, they're like, did you know that seven million
people are decapitated by elevators? Everyone? Yeah, it's it's almost
that ridiculous. I have it in the notes, So goog.

(13:22):
We'll get to that stat But first, Joe, would you
would would you go ahead and give us an elevator
pitch for this elevator movie. Oh, I think here's one
where we were obligated to say pun not intended. But
when an elevator in a Dutch tower building starts attacking
and killing random people, it is up to intrepid elevator
repairman Felix Adler to debug the death lift. All right, well,

(13:46):
let's go ahead and listen to that trailer. Inside this
vertical city, a machine has come to life, a machine
with a terrible secret wash. Modern technology gave burn to

(14:15):
the lift, but the lip has made itself smarter, stronger,
and deadly. Earn, take the stairs, Take the stairs, for

(14:40):
God's sake, Take the stairs now. I don't know if
the audio we just featured included the tagline, but if not,
it is take the stairs, Take the stairs, for God's say,

(15:00):
Take the stairs. Excellent classic heart you know is it's
very don't awesome? Yeah? I have to admit I usually
watched the trailer for a film before I view it,
but in this case, I just, uh, you know, you
you you were you were convinced that this was a
movie to watch. I looked at the IMDb listing for it.

(15:21):
I said, let's do it. But I went ahead and
skipped watching the trailer completely so I could go into it,
uh you know, rather fresh. Well, sometimes it's good to
go into fresh, but in this case, I just say,
you know what, watch the trailer now. I guess to

(15:42):
talk about the real creative forces behind the lift. Uh.
Number one has got to be Old Dick Moss. That's right,
Dick Moss. Uh the last name spelled m A A
S director, writer and also compose the music on this film, uh,
which which I have to say is I thought was

(16:03):
rather pleasant. It's a nice atmospheric electronic score. Um, you know,
nothing that I need to seek out on vinyl necessarily,
but but but I thought it was solid and did
its job well. Uh. No acoustic instruments to get your
hackles up right right, No, no stirring piano pieces. Uh.
So I say, good, good job. Dick Moss. Now Dick Moss,

(16:24):
Uh yeah, Dutch film director, screenwriter, film producer and film
composer who has produced quite a filmography of TV and
screen credits between nine and two thousand sixteen. His first
feature was a comedy called Rigor Mortis in one, and
this film from eight three was the follow up, and
it was apparently something of a hit, at least in

(16:46):
the long run, earning sort of a B movie following
over time. It's it's listed in the Psychotronic Video Guide
and allegedly Dick Moss was offered the chance to direct
both a Nightmare on Elm Street movie after this, as
well as a Gean Claude van Dam film. One assumes
that these are two separate films and not the same film,
but any rate, he declined and instead went on to

(17:08):
make the Dutch action flick Amster Damned instead, a film
that I haven't seen but was already familiar with due
to it's um it's following. And of course that's just
ridiculous title that was so well chosen. Having seen the lift,
I would love to see what his Nightmare on Elm
Street movie would have been like, Yeah, I mean I can,

(17:29):
I can, I can see it, I can see it.
Where would you have if you could, you could put
him in there, put him in the mix? Where which
which director would you take out? And uh and slot
Dick mosson. Oh, that's a good question. I don't know.
I might replace part five the dream Child. That one's
not a lot of fun, okay. And do you think
you could also fit Jean Claud van Damm in there

(17:49):
as well? Yes, Jean Claude Vandam would play let's see,
he would play Freddie Krueger's twin brother. Uh No, no
explanation on that will just you know, put him in
another sweater. It'll work. Okay, sounds go alright. Dick Moss
also had a lot of success with the Flatterer comedy series,
which I'm to understand is kind of a politically incorrect

(18:12):
satire series that was controversial at the time but also
generated a big following. And while his comedy seem more
aimed at a Dutch audience, his action in horror films
seemed to have a broader aim in mind, and he
eventually made a few films with more American star power,
which includes Do Not Disturb starring William Hurt, Jennifer Tilley,

(18:35):
Michael Chiklis, and Dennis Leary. Weird okay, and he of
course also helmed an American remake of this movie, The
Lift in two thousand and one, a film titled either
Down or The Shaft, depending on where you're acquiring it
where where you might have seen it? Um it is.
So it's not a film that I've watched in its entirety,

(18:56):
but I I signed up for the full Moon Channel
to watch The Lift, and uh, the remake is also
on the full Moon Channel, so I I watched a
little of it and skipped around, and it's not a
it's not in an it's not in its entirety a
shot for shot remake, but sections of it are definitely
seemed to be a shot for shot remake with say

(19:18):
c g I assisted effects instead of practical effects. Oh bummer.
Though I'm sure that is safer, there's there so I Uh.
The main reading about the production I did was on IMDb,
which has, you know, some users submitted content. You can't
always be sure about that, but it does sound like
some of the some of the effects may have had
people a little bit worried while they were shooting them,

(19:40):
like at least at some point. It is alleged that
they filmed the scene where a guy gets decapitated by
an elevator by actually sort of putting a guy's head
under an elevator, but they did in reverse. Uh So
I don't know that is a that is a legitimately
horrifying scene, and I and I will say it is
horrifying in BO the remake UM and the original. Even

(20:03):
though I'm going to lean towards the practical effects versus
the c G I, I still have to have to
say it's it's pretty hard fine to watch in both cases. Well,
I guess I'd say my preferences. Yes, I always prefer
practical effects pretty much. They look better. But you can
do you can build like a fake elevator that has
no weight, you know, right, But I think that probably
wasn't within the budget of what right. I definitely like

(20:25):
knowing that nobody almost got actually decapitated in a film
that I'm watching. UM now that that update. That two
thou one Uh remake also had a pretty great cast.
It had Naomi Watts. This is Naomi Watts pre Mulholland Drive.
By the way, UM featured a villainous role played by

(20:45):
Michael Ironside, who is of course always tremendous. You have
Ron Pearlman in there, Edward Herman and Dan hideya oh.
And also this is funny. The main character in the remake,
by the way, I did not know that that this
guy remade the Lift for American audiences when I picked
this movie. But the main character in the remake is

(21:06):
James Marshall, who was the biker boy in Twin Peaks
and he he was also one of the kids in
what's it called A Few Good Men. He's the kind
of not too bright of the two accused. Well, um, yeah,
I barely remember that that film, but I'll tell you this, Uh,

(21:27):
it's not really weird. How cinema material? Yeah yeah, I
love a good sanctimonious courtroom drama. Uh at any rate. Um,
it looks like the remake is is enjoyable on its
own terms as well. Um, but but it it is
definitely you definitely get that American eye sense, like from

(21:48):
the get go. There are more curse words. Uh, there's
there's more nudity. Uh. And and there's also a bazooka
and an Aerosmith song in there. An Aerosmith song? Which song?
Oh you know which song? It's an elevator movie, which
which one? Are they going to put it? Oh? Of course? Okay,
I was thinking maybe don't want to miss a thing. No,
this is playing as the guy gets decapitated by an elevator.

(22:12):
I think it's the club. I think it's the credit song.
Actually all right, well, Moss was He was not done there.
Dick Moss also went on to direct the two thousand
ten film scent Or. I think it's sometimes released as
The Saint, and this was his return to the horror genre.
It is a film about a killer Satanic uh center

(22:32):
clause figure a um like a like an evil punishing
Dutch Santa Clause, which was something of a hit at
the time. Apparently it was kind of controversial but had
been garnered an audience like I think I've been noticing
the box for this film at video Drome for many years,
but I just haven't seen it. Mass's most recent film

(22:53):
was two thousand Sixteens Prey, and this was about a
killer c G I lion rampaging through Amsterdam star English
actor Mark Frost. And while this was his last film
to date, uh, Dick Moss was the subject of the
documentary did Dick Moss Method, which I was looking around.
I don't know that this is available um to us yet,

(23:15):
but I'm I'm kind of interested to see it. What
is the Dick Moss method. I'm not sure, but it's
it seems to be have been a successful method because
he was, by by all accounts, a pretty successful filmmaker,
especially uh, you know, with within the Netherlands, uh you know,
and uh and clearly was able to to reach beyond it.

(23:36):
I mean, we're talking about him here today, okay, But
it is at least a method. The method is a
method of filmmaking. I was trying to imagine, is this
like an alternative to the Heimlich maneuver? Like, no, I
assume I'm I'm assuming it's about his his approach to filmmaking. Okay, alright,
so that is the creative force behind the scenes. We

(23:56):
should get into the cast a little bit though. This
is definitely only one of those cases where a lot
of people were involved in this and just about everybody
in it is is great in their own way. But
how many Dutch actors, you know, can we really mentioned
on the show if there aren't a lot of real
connections to be made, especially for a largely uh, you know,
English speaking audience. Apologies in in advance on our attempts

(24:20):
to pronounce these Dutch names, But we should talk about
the guy who plays the protagonist hub Stopple Staple. Yeah,
he plays what Felix Adlar and yeah and so yeah.
Otolar is our elevator technician hero uh. He was born
n four Dutch actor who has popped up in a

(24:41):
number of Dick Moss pictures, often in the lead. So
he's in Flatterer, He's also in He's the lead in
Amsterdamned and he's also the evil Nicholas in the Scent movie,
so he plays the evil Santa Claus figure in that.
This would explain. So in in the Lift, he's got
very boyish good looks, so I kept comparing. Actually he

(25:03):
looks a lot like Paul McCartney in a way. He does. Yeah,
I mean he's he's got a great look um. And
and he's and he's a solid actor. Yeah yeah, yeah
he so, yeah, he's he's got a good kind of
stoic screen presence. He's good looking. He looks kind of
like a Paul McCartney with a little dash of Oscar
Isaac in there as well. Yeah yeah, I could see that. Yeah.

(25:24):
But but but the thing about the same, this would
explain why we found this hilarious. When we first looked
him up, the picture that came up was a picture
of him dressed as Father Christmas with like scary looking
shadows around him, right, and an inverted cross on the
big Santa Paul pat. Yeah, the Bishop's hat very good.

(25:47):
So uh. Staple has been in a number of Dutch films,
so it's you know, very active. Um. So I'm not
going to mention everything, but I have to miss mention
this one. Uh, he was in the t V movie
about Anne Frank, starring Mary Steinbergen, Paul Scofield, and Tom Wilkinson. Actually,

(26:07):
I think Tom Wilkinson had a smaller role, but he's
in it. I don't think I ever saw this. I
didn't either. But the interesting thing about it, it's it's again.
It's titled The Attic The Idea, The Hiding of Anne Frank,
and I'm not sure that's, you know, good or bad.
I have no information about the quality of the picture,
but it featured the cinematography talents of one Peter Jackson.

(26:30):
And it launched on the Craft Golden Showcase Network, Yes,
a television network that was created by Craft Foods, and
I think ultimately lasted in one form or another almost
a decade with the dramatization about Anne Frank. Yeah, that
is a weird venue for I was not able to

(26:51):
find any other information about this TV network that perhaps
comes from another dimension, but I I'm very interested, like,
how did what else was on there? I think there
were like two different movies that I saw credited as
having been a Craft Golden Showcase Network production. But clearly
you gotta have more than that, especially if you're on

(27:12):
the air in some form or another for for many years. Wow. Well,
as far as I know, I've never heard of that. Okay,
let's move on to our next. Our next actor. Um,
this is the the actor Villa Cave van amil Roy
who plays Mickey de Beer. She is this character is
essentially our scrappy news reporter. You know, you've gotta have

(27:33):
a scrappy news reporter in a picture like this is
all about getting in there finding the answers. Yeah. She.
In fact, I would say that this movie sort of
has two protagonists that that uh huge staple as as
the elevator repairman is one, and she sort of comes
in later to become the the other lead, and she's
pursuing forbidden knowledge and sort of spurs our our young

(27:55):
Paul McCartney hero to to to to dive deeper. Right. Yeah.
So the interesting thing here is that Villik is a
major Dutch actor and director who appeared in films during
the nineteen seventies opposite such actors as Rugger hower Uh
in the films The Year of the Cancer and a
film by the name of H. Gritstra and d gere Uh.

(28:19):
And then she's also worked with with other major actors
of of Dutch cinema and international cinema, such as Rick
de Gour and Telly Savalis that uh in the film
Killer The Killer is on the Phone from two. That's
the one with Telly Seplas in it. She also appeared
in the one atte de young film A Flight of

(28:41):
rain Birds starring Jerome Crabby. Uh. Aute DeJong of course
directed Highway to Hell. Oh that's funny. Yeah, but this
is just just working up to our Probably her most
famous film credit, she appeared in um uh because this
one was a major hit. She has the lead role
in the Marlene Gorris film Antonia's Line, which is about

(29:06):
a Dutch matron. This is a movie that won an
Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. And if you're not
familiar with Marlene Gorris, she was a noted Dutch feminist
and LGBT director and writer. Um ye uh yeah it
was a it was a huge hit and it's supposed
to be just a great film. Well I've never seen
any of her good movies, but she's great in this

(29:26):
B movie. She she's got a great sense of human like.
I think she gets what this movie is about. She
gets the tone, She gets the vibe um and has
the right kind of sense of mischief about about pursuing
the plot. Yeah, yeah, totally, she nails it and she's
I think still active. Um Uh. A film that some

(29:46):
viewers slash listeners may be familiar with UH is that
Villiki was in the two thousand six film The Lake
House that started Kano Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Christopher Plummer
never saw that either. Now, once again, they're various other
actors in this who are all all great. A number
of them seem to have been Dick Moss regular players, uh,
and and any number of them have connections to you know,

(30:08):
to folks like Rudger Howard and Rick de gour Um
and and and into each other of course. But I
think that'll that'll that'll have to do it. But if
you're if you were more familiar with Dutch cinema than
we are, definitely take a look at the listing for
the Lift on IMDb and you may find some amusing connections. Well,

(30:36):
are you ready to talk about the plot. Let's get
into the plot. You know, this movie lets you know
what it's about at the very beginning, because it begins
with a pan over a passing elevator that mimics the
Star Destroyer at the beginning of Star Wars. Yes, so
that comes along with the credits. But when we first

(30:57):
meet some humans and and uh and have some rama,
we get into something that is a regular feature of
killer appliance movies, in fact, not just killer appliance movies,
because killer appliance movies have something in common with creature features,
slasher movies, uh, a lot of monster movies, and other
horror subgenres, which is that the film must begin with

(31:19):
an attack by the antagonist, whether that's human, animal, monster,
or even an inanimate object on a random person or
group of random people before we meet our protagonist. Absolutely.
I mean you see this rule and play probably most
famously in Jaws, but you can you can probably pinpoint
it in just about anything. Um. Like, one prime example

(31:41):
that comes to mind is u is the Game of
Thrones franchise. I think both the first novel and the
Sea It series begin with just a little prologue in
which people are slaughtered by whitewalkers. Oh yeah, that's right,
what's a I can almost remember one of their names,
like Waymar Royce I think is one of them. And
they are up north of the wall or something, and yeah,

(32:02):
I remember get them. I remember reading it for the
first time, and I was doing that thing that you
sometimes do with books, were like, all right, this is
my guy. All right, I got his name down. Yep,
I'm picturing what he looks like. And then George R.
Martin like kills him in one chapter. Oh did yeah?
All of them? Oh no, one of them survives the
pro lingue to be beheaded in the following chapter. Okay, okay,

(32:25):
but anyway, anyway, the lift adheres to form on the
on this matter. So we begin the movie in a
restaurant on the top floor of an office slash apartment building.
I guess this would technically be a mixed use development
to use. I don't know if they use that term
back then, but that's what it is. It's this tower building,
it's got apartments, it's got offices, and it's got a

(32:47):
restaurant on the top floor. And there are four rowdy,
drunk people who are overstaying their welcome after clothes at
a restaurant on the top floor that we later find
out it's called restaurant Chorus, which is interesting choice. I
did not notice that in my viewing of the film
this morning. So that's that's wonderful, wonderfully. On the notes,

(33:08):
it's like, if we try to earn a Michelin star,
we will we will soar too high and then crash
into the waves outbreaks of listeria. Oh and by the way,
regarding this scene, get up on my my as someone
with restaurant experienced soapbox. Uh, Folks, please don't overstay your
welcome at a restaurant after close. If you come in late,

(33:29):
you know, that's fine, But people are trying to close up.
Just just try to get done with what you're doing
as quickly as possible and get out of there. People
got things to do when they're closing up a restaurant.
You gotta bus dishes, you gotta clean the dining room.
A lot of times people can't do that until you're gone.
So just don't don't hang around if it's after clothes.
I remember a pizza hut that I went to when
I was a kid. What they would do is they

(33:50):
would flip the lights on and off. I don't know
if that's standard operating procedure at restaurants. I like that.
That's a good assertive manager. Trying to get you out
of there. Well, that flies at pizza, but this is
restaurant acres, so there, I can't do that. This is
a fancy place though. So this is a fancy place
with like a matre d in a in a you know,

(34:11):
fancy little outfit. I think, uh, the matre d here
might be the guy we saw in the credits whose
name was Johann Hobo. It is it is definitely okay,
um but so but but but despite this being a
fancy place, these diners are I don't know, they're up
to no good. I'm not sure exactly what's going on
with them, but they're clearly u drunk and getting into trouble.

(34:33):
They are cavorting around with sloppy jokes that very much
reminded me of the guy in the five Hundred Little
Wigs sketch, and I think you should leave. You remember
the he's comfortable in his skin because he can go
bald gracefully. I know I do not remember that one specifically,
but I totally get you on the the general Tim

(34:55):
Tim Robinson vibe here, because yeah, they're just ridiculously outrageous
a drunk, these four we're embarrassed for them. We're embarrassed
for the people who have to watch them and are
waiting for them to leave. Right. So, anyway, they get
showed out of the restaurant and they're taking the elevator
down to meet their cab. But while they're in the elevator,

(35:15):
lightning strikes and the power goes out, and then they
they're fooling around in the elevator doing all kinds of stuff,
and then something starts happening and it is as if
they are being ambient lee attacked by like the air
in the elevator. I really did not understand what was
going on here. They react almost as if they are

(35:37):
being attacked with some kind of sonic weapon or psychic
pain ray. Yeah, we're too, I guess we're to understand
that that something goes seems to go wrong with both
the the movement of the elevator and also the air circulation,
like and and also and also suddenly they're heating up,
so it's like, yeah, it's like they're being microwaved in
the elevator somehow, yes, like raise or hitting them and

(36:00):
using agonizing pain. Uh. And also but there's like a
kind of grating noise which made me think sonic weapons.
Somebody's aiming, so I'm kind of like, do you do
you kind of thing at them? But no, it turns out.
Oh and also I was sure they were dead when
the power came. Yeah, I thought so too, because you see,
like you have a p o V shot from one
of the women in there, as like everybody else falls out,

(36:20):
and then her vision blurs and goes dark exactly. And
so then the doors open to reveal a gaggle of
dumbfounded waiters and they look inside the elevator in horror.
But then the next scene lets us onto the facts
that they were not killed. They were nearly killed, and
the problem was that the air conditioning failed, which just

(36:41):
does not I don't know, it doesn't really comport with
what we were seeing. But okay, but that's our prologue,
that's our our attack before we meet the protagonist. So
the next thing you gotta do is meet the protagonist.
We meet him with his family, and again this is
a Hube Stopple or Hube Staple who plays this character
named Felix ad Or, our stoic elevator repair man. Again,

(37:02):
he looks kind of like Paul McCartney, um, and we
get some foreshadowing of some family dynamics that are going
to go on later in the movie, because when we
first meet him, he is nursing a black eye that
he received apparently because he smiled at some lady and
her husband punched him in the face. Yeah, and this
is like the first kind of red flag with this character. Um,

(37:26):
we end up spending a lot of time with the family.
And I think one of the things that I'm I've
been thinking about with this movie is that generally in
a film like this, the film of this caliber, you know,
essentially a B film that's a horror film, you're gonna
go by just widely in one direction or another with
a character like this, like either he's a great family man,

(37:48):
you know, put in a um an unnatural situation, or
he's a complete dog put in an unnatural situation. He's
not really either here. No, And in fact, there's a
fair amount of ambiguity regarding like what what's really wrong
in this relationship with his wife. Uh, they've where we
find out later they've been together like ten years or

(38:09):
nearly ten years, and um, you know, there's not I
don't know, it's it's almost like within this killer Elevator movie. Um,
Dick Moss was also making this kind of more subtle
family meditation, you know, and a sort of a look
at like what happens with relationships over time. I don't know.
So we get more information about this as we move on.

(38:31):
But but we begin with this breakfast scene, family breakfast scene,
and UM, I think it's actually a really admirable sequence
because there's a lot going on in this scene. We're
establishing the characters that, you know, getting a hint of
this family dynamic we've been discussing, we're you know, entering
into the plot. Uh, and there's still time for some
family humor in there. There's some like legitimately kind of

(38:53):
like you know, some funny stuff that's discussed. And then
in the background at the end, there's a cat scratching
at the sliding glass door trying to get in. Um. So,
I don't know, I just felt like it was a
very competent scene for for a horror movie. Plus you
also have a toy ambulance gag that's really great. Like
after that whole business happened with the with the elevator
and the four drunks, we cut slat you know, just

(39:16):
a flash cut to an ambulance seemingly going down the road,
and then you're watching it and you're like, oh, I
think that's a toy. And then you're like, no, no,
I don't think it's a toy at all, and it's
it's a real ambulance and then it runs into somebody's
foot and your, guys, it is a toy. It is
the Sun's toy. Yeah, that one got me too. I
I thought that was a really good visual gag. And
then one of the funny things is that immediately, uh,

(39:37):
the mom is like, couldn't you get our son a
quieter toy, like a book? And and he's like, no,
you know, loud toys are good. That doesn't seem like
a very common parental opinion. But right, they have very
very different opinions on this, and and there doesn't seem
to be a lot of room to compromise. So another
another problem signed for this relationship. Well, anyway, feel Lix

(40:00):
gets a call to go check out the lift and
so begins the investigation that will define the rest of
the film. But he he gets a call, you know,
he owe some people nearly suffocated and in an elevator
last night. You gotta go figure out what's wrong with it.
So we see him drive to the office tower and
he gets into a consultation with Uh is this with

(40:22):
the building superintendent or with a different guy. It's with
the guy named Bush, the really tall, chatty guy. Yes. Uh.
And so he he meets with Bush and starts trying
to figure out what's going on with the elevator. And
I thought one of the first things that was funny
was he goes he goes in there and he just
kind of fiddles with one button or switch real quick,
and then he's like, looks like nothing's wrong to me. Yeah,

(40:43):
They're able to tell so much from just that one
little switch, which isn't it. I don't know, maybe there
was something in the dub on this, because I feel like,
for the most part, this is a movie that seems
to take elevators very seriously. Uh, Like we're using a
lot of like legitimate elevator show uh you know, uh locations.

(41:03):
They at one point we're in a we're in an
elevator factory or repair shop or something, so like it
really got in there and wanted to learn about elevators.
And there's a lot of talk about how elevators work,
so uh it feels a little weird that we have
this sequence where they're just flipping a switch and making
very broad statements about the functionality of this particular lift.
Now on the flip side of what you say, UM,

(41:25):
you know, I I feel like you and I are
usually pretty careful not to uh conclude things are really simple.
You know, you always assume that things might be more
complicated than they look at first. But I don't know
if elevators are really as electronically complicated as this movie
ultimately makes them. Soon because the next thing that happens

(41:47):
is he's like, well, okay, I gotta go up and
look at the control panel. And when they reach the
you know, the roof, I guess the I don't know,
the machine room at the top of the building where
the control panel is. They start talking about how there's
this other box, this blue box containing the micro processors
that guide the lift, and it's full of all these

(42:08):
chips and it's all this complicated computer stuff that's way
over his head. Again, I want to be fair, but
I don't know if elevators are really all that computationally complicated. Well,
they mentioned that you don't want all three elevators opening
on the same floor at the same time, and you've
got to have microprocess. You've gotta have chips to take
care of that. Joe, all right, Maybe I'm wrong here,

(42:31):
Maybe I'm wrong. There used to be a guy in
there controlling the elevator. Now it right by the way,
we're gonna get this is not the last we've heard
of chips in this movie. There's gonna be so much
about chips, and it's one of my favorite things about
the film. But while he's up there fiddling around with
the control panel trying to see if that gives any

(42:51):
indication of what went wrong the night before, uh, there's
some idle chit chat about the last guy, the last
elevator repair man, whose name was Brooker, and they're like, oh,
too bad. He went totally insane. He spent a really
long time on the last maintenance visit. But they said
he was great. They said this was why he was
like so competent he spent I'll spent a lot of
time on the last visit to this elevator, right. Uh. So,

(43:14):
Felix is not able to identify the problem. He says, well,
maybe it's just a short circuit, but ultimately he doesn't know,
so he goes back home and then we get some
more scenes at the home with the family discussing things. Uh.
Felix and his wife discuss how she is saving the
caps to some kind of brand of beverage bottle. I

(43:35):
think it might be just Seltzer or something. Um. And
she's saving the caps because if she collects a hundred
of them, she could win a trip to Hawaii. Right, Yeah,
And he's just kind of like, didn't we go to
an island last year? So the huge disconnect here where
like she wants to go to Hawaii. He's like, I've
been to an island. What could Hawaii possibly offer me? Yes? Uh?

(43:59):
And then all sides, I've done it. They have some
great exchange I don't remember exactly. It's something she's like,
you're not romantic anymore and he goes, I'm still that way.
I am still that thing he said. I will not
say it, but I am that thing. Uh. And then
so okay, from here, the movie continues according to the

(44:20):
Killer X movie format. So you've got your initial attack, check,
meet your protagonist, check, initial investigation turns up nothing. Check.
So now you're twenty minutes in, guess what, it's time
for one to three more Killer X attacks. In this
case it is the killer elevator and what do you know,
I think we get two of them in this case.

(44:41):
So in the first attack the elevator, the elevator murders
a blind man by opening the doors without a car
present and tricking him into and it tricks him into
walking into the shaft and falling to his death. And
this one felt especially awful. Yeah, this is one they
also did in the remake, so so fans of the
first film don't worry they did it again. But yeah,

(45:03):
I I did particularly like this one because I mean,
it felt kind of mean spirited, but also it runs
contrary to everything I've I've seen regarding um uh blind
or side challenge people navigating public spaces. Uh, you know,
like generally it seems like uh like like like people

(45:24):
like using a cane in these cases are more aware
of their physical around surroundings than sighted people who were
distracted by their phones and so forth. So I didn't
really buy for a minute that that he would have
just walked into that empty elevator shaft without like tapping
the floor of the elevator or in this case, the
the the the yawning absence in front of him. But

(45:46):
then the second attack feels more more sort of on
brand for a movie of this type. It is where
the elevator attacks a couple of night security guards. So
there are two guards who were there, I don't know,
you know, it's two in the more ing in in
the place the place should be deserted. Uh. And you've
got your two guards. You've got a young guard who's
very well behaved, he's an eagle scout type. You find

(46:08):
out he is engaged to be married, and he does
not drink on the job. And then there's an older
guard who very much advocates drinking on the job. Oh yeah, yeah,
not not only does he advocate drinking on the job,
he advocates just all matter of hell raising and brags
about the fact that he apparently caught so many STDs
when he was younger that he is now immune to penicillin.

(46:30):
That is what he says, yes, um, And then he
wouldn't you know it? You know that they start noticing
the elevators are acting weird, so that they've run up
and down the stairs, chasing the elevators that appeared to
be going up and down by themselves. And then eventually
the the jin guzzling guard goes up to an elevator
shaft and then the door slam shut on his head

(46:52):
and then the elevator just slides on down and decapitates
him like a square guillotine. It is a horrifying scene.
This the scene we were talking about earlier. Uh, there's
a version of it in both the original and the remake.
And like again it's this one where it's virtually shot
for shot remake with a c G I instead of practical.
But yeah, in this movie, you know, absolutely horrifying, uh

(47:15):
fake head falling down the elevator shaft and landing virtually
in the dead blind man's lap. I would say this
scene in particular is a is a strangely powerful combination
of actually horrifying and comedic at the same time. Yeah. Yeah,
And and like you've pointed out before on the show,
like having that that that that comedic element perhaps intensifies

(47:38):
what you're willing to buy, you know, in the sequence,
so it helps the helps make it work better. So anyway,
after this, we meet the bumbling detective who comes in
to explain that he doesn't like elevators prefers the stairs,
um and uh, and starts spitting like elevator elevator tragedy
facts that people. But this is also the guy I
mentioned earlier who sounds like he's he's doing the the

(48:00):
audiobook track for an encyclopedia. You know what. I realized
this may be way too niche, but for anybody who's
ever played the Mass Effect video games, he sounds like
the voiceover who reads all of the like encyclopedia entries
in that game for the aliens and stuff. Okay, now

(48:21):
this is the character that that has some some wonderful
sort of anti elevator facts and propaganda on hand. The
one that he he belts out that really astounded me
is is the idea that two hundred and fifty thousand
people per year get stuck in elevators in the Netherlands alone.

(48:42):
So this is three. I didn't research this, but that
just sounds like a very high number. Two hundred and
fifty thousand people per year in the Netherlands stuck in elevators.
Where are they getting their elevators? I don't know, I mean,
I would, I mean it just I want to see
a full breakdown on that like, how many elevators were
there in the Netherlands? How many people were getting stuck

(49:04):
on each one? Who's collecting? Yeah? How are they? How
are they getting this number? Do they have a government
task force that has to collect a report anytime somebody
gets stuck in an elevator? Yeah? So I don't know.
It felt it felt really high. Maybe it's accurate. Maybe
you know I'm the fool here, but I don't know.

(49:26):
Well anyway, So the police are investigating these elevator attacks,
and then Felix of course gets called back to the
building again because he's got to take another crack at
figuring out what went wrong. And while he's there, he
meets up with our secondary protagonist, Mickey de beer Uh,
the journalist who rights for the New Review. When she
mentions this to him, I don't know if this is

(49:47):
a real magazine or or paper, or if it's made
up for the film, But Felix reacts by saying, Oh,
the New Review, Huh. I see it sometimes in my
neighbor's bird cage. That was a good line. So that
makes me wonder, Oh, is the New Review supposed to
be something of tabloid? It's like the weekly World News
for maybe so for for the Netherlands. I don't know.

(50:09):
But she is there because she's got up. She's got
a hunch. She's investigating this company called Rising Sun that
makes the microprocessors we mentioned that are in that blue
box that supposedly controls the elevator that guides it. And
uh and of course Bush, the guy from the office,
he's trying to get rid of her. He doesn't want

(50:30):
her sniffing around, so he throws them out. Felix still
can't find a problem with the lift, though, though it
seems to Beer has sort of caught his attention with
her weird hunches. Oh but from here we go onto
a tremendous bowling sequence at a place that I want
to go to called Klaus party House. Yeah. I mean,
in general, this film just does a great job with

(50:51):
with locations, like I'm interested in every minor location like
that that the house that the family lives in is
very interesting. And this is, you know, clearly a a
Dutch bowling alley from the nineteen the early eighties, and uh,
it's I'm instantly just all into the background here. Uh
there's a banner that says Closs party House. Um, so,

(51:13):
which I'm assuming is the name of the bowling alley.
And then as they go to the bar and they're
they're ordering a drink that the characters and they're talking,
I'm not really listening to them all that much because
I'm noticing that the score panels above each of the
bowling lanes. Um, you know, we're used to sing the
score up there, uh, in a bowling alley, but here

(51:33):
it seems to be some sort of projection method because
you see scorecards up there, but then the silhouettes of
hands manually altering the scorecard. Oh, they're like those projectors,
like classroom projectors, being right on the transparency. But here
you're writing the scores, which I I just had no
idea that this was ever a thing like I've I've
mostly been to bowling alleys that have the you know,

(51:55):
the electronic scoring system and it scores it for you.
And I've also been to at least unbowling alley where
there we had to do everything by hand on paper,
but it wasn't in any way projected for you. Well,
I did love that, and I also love other things
about the scene, which are the central premise the character
drama in the scene is that Felix is too preoccupied
with the lift and he can't focus on bowling because

(52:19):
it's a it's a it's a family affair. He's out
about bowling with this a double day. He's out bowling
with his wife and a couple of friends in theirs
and the friends who like the guy. He wants a beer,
but his wife's like, no, you'll have Tonic. Tonic is
pretty good. I'm I've become a fan of Tonic. Yeah,
you gotta get your coin on you. Uh. And then

(52:46):
from here the middle section of the movie, we might
skip over a little more lightly. It's sort of transitions
into more investigation investigation mode. He and also um family
drama mode. But but Felix and UH and Mickey de Beer,
they start figuring out something strange is going on to
this elevator. Could it have something to do with this

(53:07):
company with this ominous name of Rising Sun. You know
that sounds like it could be sinister in some way.
And so one of the leads that they get into
is that Felix is at his office and he has
some uh banter with like weird crass co workers, and
then he finds out the guy they referenced earlier the

(53:28):
former maintenance man at this tower who had worked on
the elevator before, who is now committed to a sanitarium. Uh.
Felix is wondering could it be that he sabotaged the elevator,
But everybody talks to is like, no, that doesn't seem right. Elevators,
he would never do this elevator um. And so eventually
Felix goes to visit Brooker at the sanitarium, where Brooker

(53:52):
appears near catatonic. Apparently he badly lacerated his hands when
he uh when he previous attack to television after seeing
something on it he didn't like. And the question is
what did he see on the TV that that made
him smash the screen in But you know, he can't
get an answer. Um. And then meanwhile there's another elevator

(54:14):
attack or a nearer elevator attack. Unfortunately, this movie would
not pass the Gene Ciscle test for does this movie
depict a child in peril because it's manipulates you by
suggesting that the elevator might kill a child, who, by
the way, is she's like hanging out in the lobby
of the office building because her mom is having an

(54:35):
affair with the building superintendent. But fortunately the child is unharmed. Uh,
the elevator does injure her doll. So first of all, yeah,
this is this is ultimately a good sequence, one that
they again recreated almost shot for shot in the remake.
But I'm not as familiar with Gene Siskel's rule here.
Did was this something where like if if you depict

(54:56):
a child in peril, it's like an automatically a thumbs
down for him, or automatically ah, you know, lose the star.
Well he I don't think he actually had a formalized rule,
but I recall from a number of his reviews this
was often something he would pick out that he didn't
like about a movie was that it had a scene
where children were in peril. I don't it seems it

(55:17):
seems to me like he thought that maybe that was
in bad taste, or that it was manipulative or something. Well,
I'll let everybody know that no dogs or cats are
killed by elevators in this movie, though it apparently loves
to kill rats. So yeah, yeah, and no children are
actually harmed either. There is just there's just the implication. Yeah, though,
oh god, the but the Stanard to this. The scene though,

(55:40):
is that it like mangles her doll. Like basically, the
thing with the Killer Elevator is that it has to
be very patient, and it has to it doesn't have
that very it doesn't have very many ways to influence
the outside world, so it's not always gonna gonna actually
score a hit. In this case, it was probably trying
to kill a child. It just had to mangle a doll.

(56:01):
And then when her mom comes out of the from
the affair situation and finds out what's happened, she slaps
the child across the face. Oh god, yeah that was weird. Yeah, yeah,
I've forgotten about that. We were like what Yeah, and
then she leaves and we never see those characters again. Yeah,
very weird warning on that. Well, anyway, after this attack,

(56:24):
we get back into the investigation, and so we've got
we've got Felix into beer and there they're they're trying
to figure out what's going on. And oh and there's
a breakthrough I think when they're sitting around talking. Well,
first of all, there's a funny I don't remember exactly
where this happened, but there was one exchange that had
Rachel and me laughing really hard, which was when Felix

(56:44):
says something like, uh, this lift does things it shouldn't
and Beer says, I've done things I shouldn't all right,
good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So she's like taking out
for the elevator. It's like, come on people, um but
but but the thing they get to is that they

(57:06):
start talking about Rising Sun, that manufacturer of computer chips,
and de Beer fills Felix in on the fact that
actually this company was featured on a science program on
television last week. So I think we're supposed to recall,
oh that maybe when Brooker the previous elevator and punched
the TV tap to television. Yeah. So from at this

(57:28):
point in the film we get into like full blown
investigation mode, research and also some family drama sprinkled in there. Um,
this makes sense, right, you can't just have constant elevator attacks.
You've gotta pad things out just just right. I feel
like in a lesser film this would have been a
really boring slog you know. But the performances in this

(57:48):
are all really good. Uh, the locations are great. All
that helps to pull it along. Yes, And I another
thing is my single favorite scene in the entire movie
is in this section, which is the scene where Felix
and de Beer go to a professor in his like
college classroom who explains what chips are to them and

(58:09):
the microchips, but he just keeps He says the word
chips like four hundred times and starts telling all these
bizarre anecdotes. They're all things like once there was a
chip that went insane and acquired a soul. They had
to launch the chip into space, and that is the
story of chips. And then you know, once there was
a chip that rewrote its own program and it became

(58:32):
evil and they were forced to incinerate it in a
nuclear bomb, and that is how chips work. Now, he
does say something about like there's a they went there
was this computer they went badman, he just bury in
the ground. They had like seal it away, right, yes, yeah, yeah,
it's this is a scene that I liked it as well,
because it kind of felt like a like a scene
from a David Cronenberg film of the time period where

(58:54):
characters go to a professor or scientist who then proceeds
to say crazy things that you don't really buy um
and then ultimately I guess in the context of the film,
like our protagonist, our our main character, the elevator repairman.
He's like, like, are you sure that guy knew what
he was talking about, and and she's like, yeah, yeah,
he's an expert, you know, Yeah, he's brilliant. Yeah, he

(59:16):
knows all about chips. He's one of the world's leading
authorities on chips. Uh oh, and also one of the Oh.
But the crucial fact we learned in the scene that
will come into play later is that, according to this professor,
sometimes chips are made out of living tissue and like
their proteins and organic cells to create chips. But they

(59:37):
stopped making chips out of things that are alive because
the chips started growing too fast or something and could
be influenced by radiation or magnets, and that became too dangerous. Yeah.
And I mean this is where we're kind of getting
into Cronenbergie territory here, where suddenly this film is beginning
to feel like it's not entire really in the real world,

(01:00:01):
that it is in a slightly science fiction version of
the early nineteen eighties, which which I like very much. No, No, Rob,
I think you're wrong. I mean, lest you forget that
that uh episode from Real History where Bell Labs made
a computer chip out of a ferret's brain and then
it had to be sent into the core of the

(01:00:22):
Earth or else it would have taken over all of
the telephone lines. Alright, fair enough anyway, So we mentioned
earlier that there was some some foreshadowing of like uh
family strife and relationship drama between Felix and his wife
and and h fears about adultery that that comes up

(01:00:42):
later where there is I don't know. I was talking
to Rachel about this. She she felt that this subplot
was sort of unnecessary, and I can see why you
would go there, because so what happens is Felix and
de Beer while they're investigating everything, or like sitting at
a cafe talking about their investigation, and some friends see
them and then tell his wife and they convince his

(01:01:04):
wife that he is having an affair. And you can
file this under a thing that happens in a lot
of movies and I always find really annoying, and it
is it is this. It's plot conflicts that are the
result of a misunderstanding, which the protagonist could easily fix
if they would just explain things but for some reason

(01:01:25):
they don't explain it right. So Felix's wife is like,
you're you are committing adultery, you are cheating on me,
And he could say, no, I'm not. I'm trying to
figure out when elevator keeps killing people, But for some reason,
he just doesn't explain himself and and she leaves him.
I find this a very annoying writing tick, and it's
in a lot of movies, and I don't know exactly

(01:01:47):
why that is so common. It might just be a
a problem where like, I don't know, like the writer
realizes that it would be tedious to have a scene
where the character explains themselves, so you just skip over it.
But like it doesn't really make sense that a character
would not bother to explain themselves. I don't know, Yeah, yeah,

(01:02:08):
I mean, I mean, obviously they're trying to get at
the fact that these two have clearly have some communication problems,
and uh, you know, but to this level where he's
not going to just be like, no, no, there's like
legit people dying at this building. Look, here's the newspaper clipping,
or yeah, or just explain the situation more. But instead
things escalate to the next level of him of him,

(01:02:31):
like walking in going to that little container where she
keeps all the little uh pop tops and she's collecting
for that to enter to win a trip to Hawaii,
and low and behold it is. It is empty and
his family is gone. Yes, they have gone to Hawaii
without him. You collect the one soda pop and you
and your and your loved ones uh and you can

(01:02:52):
choose if your husband goes as well. Are magically transported
to Hawaii and there's no coming back, right, And he
but he didn't want to go to Hawaii anyway, remember,
because he'd been to an island. But he's been to
an island, yes, he's he's familiar with it. He's like,
maybe we could go to peninsula. I don't know, but
I've done an island. I would like to go to
a butte. Well, anyway, the investigation continues, so uh de

(01:03:16):
Beer and Felix go to the Rising Sun headquarters, the
company that makes the chips, the chips that control the elevator.
And a couple of things to point out about the
Rising Sun headquarters actually more than a couple uh interesting
location by the way, very barren. Yeah, this is another
just a real coup of a location. Fine, because it

(01:03:37):
feels like it's it was this is they filmed this
in the swamp lands of Mordor or something like. I
don't know if this is like maybe an area of
like reclaimed land in the Netherlands and this is like
the first industrial building built out there something. But it
looks just suitably desolate for a suspicious technology company to
have its headquarters. Like when you drive into the location today,

(01:04:01):
your navigation apps which is its voice over to Andy
Circus and starts just saying this way, precious and and
so they're they're driving up on this barren swamp and
there's a sign out front this. I know this is
just regular Dutch, but to an English speech speaker, it
looks amazing. It says verboden toe gang, which means no

(01:04:23):
no trespassing. But Rob, I don't know if you notice
the other interesting thing about this building where they manufacture
these chips, these chips, it's only two stories. Oh, they
might not have an elevator in there at all. Yeah,
no need for an elevator in this building. They go,
they go wide and low. So they come here and

(01:04:45):
they meet with a Mr. Crone, a head of research
that they don't really turn up anything interesting. In fact,
I don't even really recall much what they talked about
in this scene. Basically he's just trying to blow him off.
He's like, I don't have time for you. Um. They're like,
what's that is that? Because you go into you go
into this this office and immediately to your left is
the room where they're doing the top secret stuff. Um,

(01:05:08):
but not tough so top secret that there's any security
in place or anything. So uh, and he's just basically like,
I don't have time for this. You've got to leave.
And uh, this this room that's bathed in red light. Yeah. Yeah.
We are told that most of the chips are made
in Japan these days, but they apparently make some of
them here and they're they're mostly doing maintenance. But but

(01:05:28):
they're also like, yeah, we don't have anything to do
with anything going wrong at a at a plant, Like
we have our name on the line here, like we're
we're a professional organization. We're not an evil corporation. Uh,
why don't you get out of here? Did you get
the message that the chips that are made in Japan
or just like those are the normal chips, those are
the ones that aren't going to start killing people, but
the ones they make here, and these might be a problem.

(01:05:50):
I suspect because we're basically leading up to a big
reveal here. But I suspect they're making not a normal
type of chip here, They're making some sort of a
uh it previously established dangerous cronin burgery bergee type of chip,
some sort of bio chip. That's right. So here we're
going to get to our final showdown. I guess this
is after after Felix's family has left him, you know,

(01:06:12):
he has nothing left to live for really. Uh, he decides, Okay,
I'm going to go in and I'm going to face
the elevator. Yeah, and this is this is like the yeah,
the last leg of the film. And I thought it
was tremendous that was very well done. I was legitimately
concerned that Felix was going to be killed by this
elevator at times, which of course is is what you're
supposed to feel as a as a viewer. Uh, it

(01:06:34):
really had me on edge, like crawling, you know, in
and out of this thing as the elevator is, of
course moving around with a will of its own, a
murderous will of its own. Uh you know. It's kind
of like the Showdown in two thousand and one of
Space Odyssey, except it's it's all elevator, but it never talks.
The elevator never gets to tell Felix like stop, don't

(01:06:54):
do that, It doesn't sing Daisy, It just tries to
crush him in various ways. Yeah, and it's yeah, it's
it's a great sequence. It's it's well shot, um and
then we we we lead up to the like the
final part of the showdown essentially is oh, I don't
know if we mentioned this earlier, but one of the
first things he tries to do is to get into
that blue box and cut off the ships. But it's empty.

(01:07:16):
There's nothing in it. It turns out the like the
the the the computer center for this elevator system is
somewhere else, and in this final sequence he finds it
in the elevator shaft itself, in this um this compartment
in the wall of the shaft that's leaking some sort
of a glowing ectoplasm type substance. He has to crawl

(01:07:38):
up there and he's opening it up and there is
the bio chip, this kind of slimy ectoplasm, cronin burgery,
mixture of circuitry, and I don't know, like brain fluid
or something. I was calling it command slime. There is
command slime at the core and and he tries to
disrupt the command slime with a wrench. He yeah, and

(01:08:00):
it's really great because of course it also adds the
lighting of the sequence. So yeah, he's trying to slam
it with a wrench, and then the whole time the
elevator is basically going up and down, I think something
like hitting his body at times, trying to like rip
him in half, and it's legitimately terrifying. Um. Yeah, great sequence.
In the remake they do the same thing, except the
brain chip stuff is pink and bigger and kind of

(01:08:23):
looks a little bit like crane. Does it have a face?
No face, but but very crany Okay. Basically in the
original it looks like Ghostbusters one slime, and in the
remake it looks like Ghostbusters to slime, you know what
I'm saying. Yeah, ohh And there's a great rescue scene
actually where the elevator, the elevator is gonna crush him

(01:08:46):
and it looks like our our protagonist is doomed. But
then uh, Mickey de Beer shows up at the last
moment and pulls him out of the shaft just just
in time. I thought it was yeah, yeah, I was like,
that's it for Felix, Who's going to repair the kid's
toy ambulance now and make it even louder than it
was before. Mom's new boyfriend can't do that. Um. But

(01:09:09):
but no, no, he's rescued and and uh and so
together they it seems like maybe they've saved the day
and defeated the machine. But then we get then we
get a twist. Uh, the guy from the lab that's
bathed in red light comes back, the guy from Rising Sun.
And so what does he explain at the end, He's like, well,
this chip isn't working like it's supposed to. Yeah, he

(01:09:31):
doesn't explain much, which I like, like, Basically, he shows up,
he pulls a gun and you're like, oh, he's come
to protect the chip and to silence these people. But
instead he goes over to the shaft and shoots the
bio chip a few more times. That's are again already
been like hit with a ranch or screwdriver or whatever. Um.
And then he says something. The fact of it was sick.
It was very sick. He was very sick. And he

(01:09:53):
doesn't get much of a chance to explain anything else
because then what happens h with his back turn to
the elevator shaft. One of the elevator cables, which had
snapped earlier, comes comes out like a tentacle, wraps itself
around his his neck and pulls him into the elevator
shaft and strangles him to death. Now I think they're
pushing it a little bit here, because I don't know

(01:10:14):
how an elevator cable would do that, even if the
command chip wanted it to do that, even if the
command slide was like go go reach out and get
that guy, there's no mechanism to do that. But you
know what, right there at the end, our our disbelief
is suspended. That got us that they can get away
with it. Yeah, I totally bought it. And then of

(01:10:34):
course we have a wonderful credit sequence where what are
they doing. They're taking the stairs. Uh, they're taking the
stairs down from whatever floor this was on where we
had the show down. I also like to imagine at
the end that that the beer ends up writing about
this incident in her tabloid. It's like right next to
a story about bat Boy or whatever. Yeah, it turns

(01:10:55):
out nobody actually takes this story seriously because she doesn't
represent reputable journalistic uh publication. And that's the Lift. Uh yeah,
I have to say this one, This one is a
lot of fun. Yeah. Now you you might be wondering, well, hey,
I want to get in on this, uh this action.
Where can I watch Three's the Lift? Well, you can

(01:11:18):
do like I did. You can simply sign up for
the full Moon channel. Uh. That way you have access
to a number of B movies. But in my case, anyway,
you got access to both The Lift and the remake.
So that's pretty good. But I believe there was also Yeah,
there was a Blu ray that came out, um, and

(01:11:39):
you can pick this up. This up, This one, uh
is out from Blue Underground, who have excelled with putting
out some some sort of you know, a cult following
B movie type fair Apparently the the Blu ray for
this has auto commentary from Dick Moss, so uh that
sounds pretty good, along as some other extress. All right,

(01:12:01):
so check it out if you're interested. All right, if
you'd like to listen to other episodes of Weird House Cinema.
We put this out every Friday and the Stuff to
Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily a science podcast,
but on Friday's we put most of the serious matters
aside and just discuss a weird film. And hey, if
you if you dig Weird House Cinema, we now have

(01:12:22):
uh an Instagram account for Weird House Cinema. It's just
weird how cinema one word, no no brakes or anything.
You can go look that up. And also, uh I
if you go there, you can find the links for
this in the link tree. But I maintain a blog
titled Some Mood of Music and I basically just use
that as a place to put a little blog posts
about the episodes as they come out. Uh So, if

(01:12:44):
there's a trailer, I'll include it there. If there's some
additional media that we've discussed that needs to go there,
like I don't know the trailer for Hamster Damned, uh,
then I will put that in there as well. Huge
things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other. To suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

(01:13:04):
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.