The Elevator (1983)

Directed by: Dick Maas | 95 minutes | comedy, horror, fantasy, science fiction, thriller | Actors: Huub Stapel, Willeke van Ammelrooy, Josine van Dalsum, Liz Snoyink, Wiske Sterringa, Huib Broos, Pieter Lutz, Paul Gieske, Johan Hobo, Dick Scheffer, Matthias Maat, Ger van Groningen, Jan Anne Drenth, Emma Onrust, Sydney Kuyer

The Dutch horror film is doing well. During the 26th Netherlands Film Festival there is a real Nederhorror program and there is interest from abroad in a remake of ‘DoodEind’. A completely different situation than a year earlier, where the production ‘Wednesday’, despite success during the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival 2005, was unable to secure a distribution deal. Problems that didn’t bother Dick Maas before. His film ‘The Elevator’ was directed by Warner Bros. picked up, distributed worldwide and still seems to be regularly shown on foreign TV. The concept is simple. Take a movie like ‘Christine’, ‘The Car’ or even ‘Jaws’ and replace the killer object-cum-shark with an elevator. “So how does the elevator get close to its victims?” asks a concerned lender. ‘Don’t worry’, says Dick Maas, ‘leave that to me’. Brighten up the bare concept with a few sidelines and as many recognizable faces from the early 80s as possible and they have a plot that can’t be beaten. Admittedly, the idea behind ‘De Lift’ is simplistic, but its operation is anything but. ‘The Lift’ is a feast of recognition and contains all the elements that make a horror film work.

Dick Maas does not make in-depth art, but the fact that one must possess craftsmanship in order to make successful entertainment may be regarded as generally recognized and the director certainly does not lack this craftsmanship. The characters are especially well put together. As we are used to from later work, the main character Felix (Huub Stapel) is the stereotypical worker. He’s a mechanic, runs checks for 90 minutes, and when his wife tells him she’s saving up 100 bottle caps in hopes of winning a trip to Hawaii, his response is, “What are you doing in Hawaii, we’re last year. already been to Texel?’ Simplicity, joy. As usual in the Dick Maas universe, rich people and intellectuals are portrayed as a bunch of complaining and domineering idiots. Doesn’t matter, Felix doesn’t get hot or cold. Maas gives the recognizable cast all the space they need to present their characters. The camera is solid and mounting is only used when there is absolutely no other option. An aesthetic suspiciously similar to John Carpenter’s, but the motto ‘better stolen well than badly conceived’ seems appropriate here.

The best thing about ‘De Lift’ is that everything comes together. With its synthesizer sound, the music perfectly supports the overflowing colors that are typical of the 80s horror film and Huub Stapel’s economic acting style is an excellent addition to the equally economical camera and editing work. It goes without saying that the tempo may require too much patience from the modern viewer, but it probably says something more about the hollow visual spectacle that can be seen in cinemas these days than about the pace of the film. In any case, the film itself cannot be blamed, given its year of birth. Both popcorn-eating and throwing scum as the serious – not to be confused with pretentious – movie viewer can indulge in a film that may initially appear to be nothing but entertainment, but turns out to be so in the second place. What lifts ‘De Lift’ above the hollow commercial entertainment of today, however, is the talent to portray characters without directly offending the viewer’s intelligence. Something the ‘Costa’s and related junk can learn from.