Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And is this
Speaker 1: our first killer appliance movie? I sure think so. The
Speaker 1: only thing that I was thinking could possibly compete with
Speaker 1: it is when we did Chopping Mall, which is about
Speaker 1: some some like security robots in a shopping mall that
Speaker 1: go mad and try to murder a bunch of party teens.
Speaker 1: But I think this may well be our first, our
Speaker 1: first film more in the in the zone of consumer
Speaker 1: or or domestic appliances that go hay wire and seek blood.
Speaker 1: I think you're probably right. The only other film that
Speaker 1: we've looked at on Weird How Cinema that comes close
Speaker 1: would be Ghost in the Machine, which wasn't about like
Speaker 1: the appliances or the or the or any kind of
Speaker 1: AI going going hey wire. It was about like a
Speaker 1: spirit uh, an entity of mind possessing all of these things.
Speaker 1: And and that is the thing that causes say, a
Speaker 1: microwave to malfunction and microwave an entire room. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a serial killer whose brain gets sucked into the
Speaker 1: telephone wires and then it can inhabit any machine. But
Speaker 1: but but oh yeah, yeah, okay, so that's a good point.
Speaker 1: That is kind of a killer appliance movie. But I
Speaker 1: think you have to break killer appliance horror movies down
Speaker 1: into two very distinct camps. There is one in which
Speaker 1: multiple appliances can be commondered by an evil spirit, or
Speaker 1: multiple appliances are attacking, so goes to the machine would
Speaker 1: be one. Maximum overdrive is another one. I think there's
Speaker 1: some alien force in that that turns I think maximum
Speaker 1: overdrive should be our terminology for a full blown all
Speaker 1: appliances attack, all human scenario, right exactly. Yes, So so
Speaker 1: that's like all your soda machines, all your hair dryers,
Speaker 1: they're they're all on the attack. But the other camp
Speaker 1: is the movie in which there is a single appliance
Speaker 1: or machine or an animate object that seeks human blood.
Speaker 1: And there are your examples would be something like Deathbed,
Speaker 1: the bed that eats people, or or the movie we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about today, the Lift from nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: a Dutch killer elevator movie. And based on what I've
Speaker 1: been able to determine, I think this may be the
Speaker 1: first real killer elevator movie that that either inspired other
Speaker 1: elevate killer elevator movies or at least beat them to
Speaker 1: the punch. Are there really other killer elevator movies? I
Speaker 1: feel like I looked up a list of elevator horror movies,
Speaker 1: but they're just like they just take place in an
Speaker 1: elevator or feature an elevator. Um. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess some of these would would would require getting
Speaker 1: to the like the spoiler point to find out is
Speaker 1: this an elevator or is there is there like an
Speaker 1: evil psychopath controlling the elevator. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: you know, the particular twist is going to be, but
Speaker 1: this is definitely a killer elevator movie. Uh, absolutely to
Speaker 1: its core. Oh wait, I just remembered something. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you did. You ever see Speed, you know,
Speaker 1: the nineties Kiana Reeves Sandra, Yeah, that begins with a
Speaker 1: and it's sort of a killer elevator scenario. The elevator
Speaker 1: has been hijacked by Dennis Hopper and it smashes An
Speaker 1: Esteves right before he waited. An Estevez does no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're there. You're confusing it with the nineteen nineties Mission
Speaker 1: Impossible movie. And there that's an elevator that I don't
Speaker 1: know if, I don't know if there's a psychopath behind it,
Speaker 1: but that John goes haywire and it smashes an Estevez.
Speaker 1: Are you telling me an Estevez is not smashed in Speed? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I think someone is killed, but it's no. The problem
Speaker 1: in Speed is that Dennis Hopper commandeers an elevator. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: he it's his it's his trial run of the bus plan. Basically,
Speaker 1: he puts a bunch of bombs on an elevator and
Speaker 1: he okay, and it does not kill. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think there is an Esteves in Bead. Okay. There's Jeff
Speaker 1: Daniels in Speed? Is there? Yeah? Okay? Man, it's Keanu
Speaker 1: and Jeff Daniels or the cops um and and Sandra
Speaker 1: Bullock is the bus passenger who ends up driving. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's been a while since I've seen I've clearly fused
Speaker 1: it together with at least two other films. Well, we're
Speaker 1: off to a great start here. But okay, let's just
Speaker 1: name some other movies you can think of that have
Speaker 1: elevator scenes. And well, I mean that's That's one of
Speaker 1: the things about elevators. I think they're an interesting subject
Speaker 1: for a film like like this because there's something about elevators,
Speaker 1: uh that resonate with us. You think of all the
Speaker 1: various elevator scenes in various films, and sometimes it's an
Speaker 1: action centerpiece, other times it's just a situation. Very often
Speaker 1: was just a place for two characters to have a
Speaker 1: conversation between scenes, but they're often very memorable. Like just
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: what are some of the key elevator scenes I think of.
Speaker 1: I think of Big Trouble and Little China. Uh, they're
Speaker 1: not they're basically just standing around in there. But it's
Speaker 1: a great scene. Um, I'm kind of feeling good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful, wonderful scene, even though they're just they're
Speaker 1: just using it like normal people us an elevator as
Speaker 1: a way. Well. Actually, there are multiple elevator scenes in
Speaker 1: that movie that are great because there's a flooding elevator
Speaker 1: they have to escape. Yeah, but then you have you
Speaker 1: have some real action centerpieces, uh, particularly in two different
Speaker 1: James Cameron films. You've got aliens and you've got Terminator
Speaker 1: to both of which involved people flinging into an elevator
Speaker 1: and then a superpowered uh enemy prying the elevator open,
Speaker 1: only to be blasted with a shotgun. What do you know?
Speaker 1: You're right? Yes, so in one case it's Robert Patrick
Speaker 1: as the liquid metal and then the other case is
Speaker 1: just an alien warrior. Yeah. And I don't think until today,
Speaker 1: I'd ever put it together that those two scenes are
Speaker 1: essentially the same scene. Uh, but they're both great. Other
Speaker 1: key elevator scenes that come to mind. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: got like the shining with the blood flowing out of it.
Speaker 1: You've got that wonderful switchero that takes place in the
Speaker 1: Silence the Lambs. Uh, there's a really bloody reveal in
Speaker 1: the Untouchables from Brian to Palma. Uh. So those are
Speaker 1: just some of the ones that come to mind. Like,
Speaker 1: there's something about the elevator that just works great for theater.
Speaker 1: It has its own curtains that open and close. Um,
Speaker 1: it goes up and down, it smashes that you can
Speaker 1: climb on top of it. Their cables up there, Like
Speaker 1: we're just obsessed with the elevator. Oh yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that the elevator doors open in
Speaker 1: the same way that curtains open. Like you say, I
Speaker 1: think that has a natural revelatory quality that that calls
Speaker 1: to mind sort of an unveiling, because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of scenes in movies, even beyond what you mentioned,
Speaker 1: where elevator doors peel back to reveal a scene that
Speaker 1: shocks someone who's there waiting for the elevator to arrive.
Speaker 1: So like and die Hard too, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a scene like that, and The Lift, of the
Speaker 1: movie we're gonna talk about today, I would say has
Speaker 1: at least five scenes where we don't immediately see what's
Speaker 1: in the elevator, but we see the doors open, and
Speaker 1: then someone is there waiting for the elevator and they
Speaker 1: react with horror to whatever they see inside. You know,
Speaker 1: they react like they're looking at the security footage from
Speaker 1: event Horizon. Yeah, and uh, you know what is we'll
Speaker 1: get into. I think, you know, you you might well
Speaker 1: go into a movie like The Lift and think, all right, um,
Speaker 1: elevators work well, like a small dose here and there,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of elevator scenes in the film, But
Speaker 1: if you build an entire movie based on the elevator.
Speaker 1: Are you going to be able to maintain that level
Speaker 1: of interest in the elevator? You can be able to
Speaker 1: define all these interesting ways to use it. And I
Speaker 1: think the answer is yes. I think this movie pulls
Speaker 1: it off well yeah, and I think it partially does
Speaker 1: so by having a sense of humor. I mean, one
Speaker 1: thing I was kind of surprised by was the trailer
Speaker 1: made me think that this movie would be uh dryer,
Speaker 1: and that more of the absurdity of it would just
Speaker 1: kind of flow out of an understated realization of its
Speaker 1: absurd core premise. But in fact, this is a fairly
Speaker 1: juicy camp e move v. It's it's more along the
Speaker 1: lines of chopping Mall or something like that. I can
Speaker 1: only suspect that this is even more the case if
Speaker 1: one is um he's watching it in the original language,
Speaker 1: because I watched it dubbed into English and this was
Speaker 1: the only option available to me, and the dub is
Speaker 1: very good. But the dub is also like, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've heard these same dub voices before in some cases,
Speaker 1: you know, it feels like the same sort of American
Speaker 1: dub you'd get on any number of Italian films from
Speaker 1: the same time period. Oh, but I absolutely loved the
Speaker 1: dub because some of the casting, or at least I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was like that they just cast
Speaker 1: people who sound this way, or if they made conscious
Speaker 1: choices to deliver their lines in this hilarious manner. But
Speaker 1: for example, the detective in The Who, his English dubbed
Speaker 1: voice sounds like somebody doing audio book tracks for an
Speaker 1: Encyclopedia Britannica. So there's like a when we first meet him,
Speaker 1: he's talking about why he doesn't like elevators. He says,
Speaker 1: I prefer the stairs suffer from claustrophobia. That's why I
Speaker 1: became a leaseman. Would much rather put others in cells
Speaker 1: than wind up myself in prison. Yeah, yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: dub is very enjoyable. But I think that dubbing in general, uh,
Speaker 1: it kind of it lends itself to a sort of
Speaker 1: dry humor at times. You know, yes, um, so I
Speaker 1: can only imagine what the original language of this would
Speaker 1: have would have felt like if if one is a
Speaker 1: you know, an actual Dutch viewer of the film, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I should I should drive that home. This is uh,
Speaker 1: I think our first Dutch movie that we've looked at
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema. Though we have discussed films with
Speaker 1: that have involved Dutch directors. We've also of course discussed
Speaker 1: Dutch actors Rugger Howard as of course probably the most
Speaker 1: famous Dutch actor of of of the twentieth century and beyond.
Speaker 1: And then also I'm pretty sure that Hawaiian Werewolf movie
Speaker 1: we watched had Dutch subtitles, because that's where we got
Speaker 1: work beast. Yes, that the version that we found on
Speaker 1: YouTube had Dutch titles. Um though it was itself not
Speaker 1: a Dutch film, but that but that was another foray
Speaker 1: into the Dutch world on this this podcast. I apologize
Speaker 1: I interrupted your flow though what was What was the
Speaker 1: other thing you were going to say? Oh? I was
Speaker 1: just gonna reiterate that their first true killer appliance movie.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Yeah, absolutely. I would say that chopping Mall
Speaker 1: does not count. Ghost in the Machine does not count
Speaker 1: because ghost in the Machine is more in the maximum
Speaker 1: overdrive vein chopping Mall. Those are killer robots anyway, they
Speaker 1: just started attacking the wrong people. Now, sometimes killer appliance
Speaker 1: movies And when I say appliance, I'm going to use
Speaker 1: that very broadly to apply to everything from a bad
Speaker 1: to an elevator. Um. But a lot of times it
Speaker 1: is something like a bad something that you don't think
Speaker 1: of is being dangerous at all. But I think the
Speaker 1: elevator is a very interesting pick because for it's an
Speaker 1: amazing technological advancement um and one that you know, it's
Speaker 1: like all in like all technological inventions, you know, you
Speaker 1: had maybe rocky or start at times, but you know,
Speaker 1: for the most part, I don't think I really hesitate
Speaker 1: when I board an elevator, or at least that wasn't
Speaker 1: the case in pre pandemic times. I might think about
Speaker 1: that more now, like how many people are going to
Speaker 1: be on this, are they masked? Etcetera. But generally I
Speaker 1: have a lot of compidence in the technology and the
Speaker 1: regulation surrounding that technology. And yet at the same time
Speaker 1: I know that I have these on and off dreams
Speaker 1: about boarding strange elevators that are in varying stages of disrepair.
Speaker 1: So I feel like underneath the surface of of my consciousness, uh,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of more complicated thoughts about the
Speaker 1: elevator and what the elevator is capable of. Oh, it
Speaker 1: sounds like you're a kindred Soul with the Inspector in
Speaker 1: this film. Well, but that's the thing I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid of elevators at all. I'm perfectly comfortable getting
Speaker 1: on and I just have the dreams where you inhabit
Speaker 1: his frame of mind, right, which makes me me think
Speaker 1: that you know, with all of us, and part of
Speaker 1: it probably comes from movies, right, I mean, we we
Speaker 1: ride of elevators, and for the most part, I think
Speaker 1: we're you know, most of us out there probably don't
Speaker 1: encounter much in the way of mishaps involving elevators. Um
Speaker 1: though I could see where that would that would certainly
Speaker 1: impact your appreciation of the technology if if it happened
Speaker 1: that way. But otherwise, we're watching all these movies, and
Speaker 1: in movies, elevators very often get stuck and people have
Speaker 1: to climb through them and on top of them, or
Speaker 1: they plummet, etcetera. And in this movie, elevators will do
Speaker 1: all of those things. Yes, yes, and well, But another
Speaker 1: thing is that I can't tell how much of the
Speaker 1: weirdness of the way elevators are treated in this movie
Speaker 1: is due to this being a movie from the early eighties.
Speaker 1: In the Netherlands, or if it's just like weird about elevators,
Speaker 1: because the characters in this movie talk about elevators like
Speaker 1: they are a kind of new and dangerous thing, and
Speaker 1: I don't think they were particularly new or dangerous in
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands in the nineteen eighties. Is I don't know?
Speaker 1: It could be wrong. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't get
Speaker 1: a chance to really research that. But there there's at
Speaker 1: least a time or two where a character makes a
Speaker 1: seemingly outrageous claim about elevator safety at the time. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm happy to be corrected on the matter.
Speaker 1: But we'll discuss that in a bit. There's some scene
Speaker 1: we're like, they're like, did you know that seven million
Speaker 1: people are decapitated by elevators? Everyone? Yeah, it's it's almost
Speaker 1: that ridiculous. I have it in the notes, So goog.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that stat But first, Joe, would you
Speaker 1: would would you go ahead and give us an elevator
Speaker 1: pitch for this elevator movie. Oh, I think here's one
Speaker 1: where we were obligated to say pun not intended. But
Speaker 1: when an elevator in a Dutch tower building starts attacking
Speaker 1: and killing random people, it is up to intrepid elevator
Speaker 1: repairman Felix Adler to debug the death lift. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and listen to that trailer. Inside this
Speaker 1: vertical city, a machine has come to life, a machine
Speaker 1: with a terrible secret wash. Modern technology gave burn to
Speaker 1: the lift, but the lip has made itself smarter, stronger,
Speaker 1: and deadly. Earn, take the stairs, Take the stairs, for
Speaker 1: God's sake, Take the stairs now. I don't know if
Speaker 1: the audio we just featured included the tagline, but if not,
Speaker 1: it is take the stairs, Take the stairs, for God's say,
Speaker 1: Take the stairs. Excellent classic heart you know is it's
Speaker 1: very don't awesome? Yeah? I have to admit I usually
Speaker 1: watched the trailer for a film before I view it,
Speaker 1: but in this case, I just, uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: you you were you were convinced that this was a
Speaker 1: movie to watch. I looked at the IMDb listing for it.
Speaker 1: I said, let's do it. But I went ahead and
Speaker 1: skipped watching the trailer completely so I could go into it,
Speaker 1: uh you know, rather fresh. Well, sometimes it's good to
Speaker 1: go into fresh, but in this case, I just say,
Speaker 1: you know what, watch the trailer now. I guess to
Speaker 1: talk about the real creative forces behind the lift. Uh.
Speaker 1: Number one has got to be Old Dick Moss. That's right,
Speaker 1: Dick Moss. Uh the last name spelled m A A
Speaker 1: S director, writer and also compose the music on this film, uh,
Speaker 1: which which I have to say is I thought was
Speaker 1: rather pleasant. It's a nice atmospheric electronic score. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: nothing that I need to seek out on vinyl necessarily,
Speaker 1: but but but I thought it was solid and did
Speaker 1: its job well. Uh. No acoustic instruments to get your
Speaker 1: hackles up right right, No, no stirring piano pieces. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I say, good, good job. Dick Moss. Now Dick Moss,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, Dutch film director, screenwriter, film producer and film
Speaker 1: composer who has produced quite a filmography of TV and
Speaker 1: screen credits between nine and two thousand sixteen. His first
Speaker 1: feature was a comedy called Rigor Mortis in one, and
Speaker 1: this film from eight three was the follow up, and
Speaker 1: it was apparently something of a hit, at least in
Speaker 1: the long run, earning sort of a B movie following
Speaker 1: over time. It's it's listed in the Psychotronic Video Guide
Speaker 1: and allegedly Dick Moss was offered the chance to direct
Speaker 1: both a Nightmare on Elm Street movie after this, as
Speaker 1: well as a Gean Claude van Dam film. One assumes
Speaker 1: that these are two separate films and not the same film,
Speaker 1: but any rate, he declined and instead went on to
Speaker 1: make the Dutch action flick Amster Damned instead, a film
Speaker 1: that I haven't seen but was already familiar with due
Speaker 1: to it's um it's following. And of course that's just
Speaker 1: ridiculous title that was so well chosen. Having seen the lift,
Speaker 1: I would love to see what his Nightmare on Elm
Speaker 1: Street movie would have been like, Yeah, I mean I can,
Speaker 1: I can, I can see it, I can see it.
Speaker 1: Where would you have if you could, you could put
Speaker 1: him in there, put him in the mix? Where which
Speaker 1: which director would you take out? And uh and slot
Speaker 1: Dick mosson. Oh, that's a good question. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I might replace part five the dream Child. That one's
Speaker 1: not a lot of fun, okay. And do you think
Speaker 1: you could also fit Jean Claud van Damm in there
Speaker 1: as well? Yes, Jean Claude Vandam would play let's see,
Speaker 1: he would play Freddie Krueger's twin brother. Uh No, no
Speaker 1: explanation on that will just you know, put him in
Speaker 1: another sweater. It'll work. Okay, sounds go alright. Dick Moss
Speaker 1: also had a lot of success with the Flatterer comedy series,
Speaker 1: which I'm to understand is kind of a politically incorrect
Speaker 1: satire series that was controversial at the time but also
Speaker 1: generated a big following. And while his comedy seem more
Speaker 1: aimed at a Dutch audience, his action in horror films
Speaker 1: seemed to have a broader aim in mind, and he
Speaker 1: eventually made a few films with more American star power,
Speaker 1: which includes Do Not Disturb starring William Hurt, Jennifer Tilley,
Speaker 1: Michael Chiklis, and Dennis Leary. Weird okay, and he of
Speaker 1: course also helmed an American remake of this movie, The
Speaker 1: Lift in two thousand and one, a film titled either
Speaker 1: Down or The Shaft, depending on where you're acquiring it
Speaker 1: where where you might have seen it? Um it is.
Speaker 1: So it's not a film that I've watched in its entirety,
Speaker 1: but I I signed up for the full Moon Channel
Speaker 1: to watch The Lift, and uh, the remake is also
Speaker 1: on the full Moon Channel, so I I watched a
Speaker 1: little of it and skipped around, and it's not a
Speaker 1: it's not in an it's not in its entirety a
Speaker 1: shot for shot remake, but sections of it are definitely
Speaker 1: seemed to be a shot for shot remake with say
Speaker 1: c g I assisted effects instead of practical effects. Oh bummer.
Speaker 1: Though I'm sure that is safer, there's there so I Uh.
Speaker 1: The main reading about the production I did was on IMDb,
Speaker 1: which has, you know, some users submitted content. You can't
Speaker 1: always be sure about that, but it does sound like
Speaker 1: some of the some of the effects may have had
Speaker 1: people a little bit worried while they were shooting them,
Speaker 1: like at least at some point. It is alleged that
Speaker 1: they filmed the scene where a guy gets decapitated by
Speaker 1: an elevator by actually sort of putting a guy's head
Speaker 1: under an elevator, but they did in reverse. Uh So
Speaker 1: I don't know that is a that is a legitimately
Speaker 1: horrifying scene, and I and I will say it is
Speaker 1: horrifying in BO the remake UM and the original. Even
Speaker 1: though I'm going to lean towards the practical effects versus
Speaker 1: the c G I, I still have to have to
Speaker 1: say it's it's pretty hard fine to watch in both cases. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'd say my preferences. Yes, I always prefer
Speaker 1: practical effects pretty much. They look better. But you can
Speaker 1: do you can build like a fake elevator that has
Speaker 1: no weight, you know, right, But I think that probably
Speaker 1: wasn't within the budget of what right. I definitely like
Speaker 1: knowing that nobody almost got actually decapitated in a film
Speaker 1: that I'm watching. UM now that that update. That two
Speaker 1: thou one Uh remake also had a pretty great cast.
Speaker 1: It had Naomi Watts. This is Naomi Watts pre Mulholland Drive.
Speaker 1: By the way, UM featured a villainous role played by
Speaker 1: Michael Ironside, who is of course always tremendous. You have
Speaker 1: Ron Pearlman in there, Edward Herman and Dan hideya oh.
Speaker 1: And also this is funny. The main character in the remake,
Speaker 1: by the way, I did not know that that this
Speaker 1: guy remade the Lift for American audiences when I picked
Speaker 1: this movie. But the main character in the remake is
Speaker 1: James Marshall, who was the biker boy in Twin Peaks
Speaker 1: and he he was also one of the kids in
Speaker 1: what's it called A Few Good Men. He's the kind
Speaker 1: of not too bright of the two accused. Well, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I barely remember that that film, but I'll tell you this, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not really weird. How cinema material? Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 1: love a good sanctimonious courtroom drama. Uh at any rate. Um,
Speaker 1: it looks like the remake is is enjoyable on its
Speaker 1: own terms as well. Um, but but it it is
Speaker 1: definitely you definitely get that American eye sense, like from
Speaker 1: the get go. There are more curse words. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: there's more nudity. Uh. And and there's also a bazooka
Speaker 1: and an Aerosmith song in there. An Aerosmith song? Which song?
Speaker 1: Oh you know which song? It's an elevator movie, which
Speaker 1: which one? Are they going to put it? Oh? Of course? Okay,
Speaker 1: I was thinking maybe don't want to miss a thing. No,
Speaker 1: this is playing as the guy gets decapitated by an elevator.
Speaker 1: I think it's the club. I think it's the credit song.
Speaker 1: Actually all right, well, Moss was He was not done there.
Speaker 1: Dick Moss also went on to direct the two thousand
Speaker 1: ten film scent Or. I think it's sometimes released as
Speaker 1: The Saint, and this was his return to the horror genre.
Speaker 1: It is a film about a killer Satanic uh center
Speaker 1: clause figure a um like a like an evil punishing
Speaker 1: Dutch Santa Clause, which was something of a hit at
Speaker 1: the time. Apparently it was kind of controversial but had
Speaker 1: been garnered an audience like I think I've been noticing
Speaker 1: the box for this film at video Drome for many years,
Speaker 1: but I just haven't seen it. Mass's most recent film
Speaker 1: was two thousand Sixteens Prey, and this was about a
Speaker 1: killer c G I lion rampaging through Amsterdam star English
Speaker 1: actor Mark Frost. And while this was his last film
Speaker 1: to date, uh, Dick Moss was the subject of the
Speaker 1: documentary did Dick Moss Method, which I was looking around.
Speaker 1: I don't know that this is available um to us yet,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm kind of interested to see it. What
Speaker 1: is the Dick Moss method. I'm not sure, but it's
Speaker 1: it seems to be have been a successful method because
Speaker 1: he was, by by all accounts, a pretty successful filmmaker,
Speaker 1: especially uh, you know, with within the Netherlands, uh you know,
Speaker 1: and uh and clearly was able to to reach beyond it.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about him here today, okay, But
Speaker 1: it is at least a method. The method is a
Speaker 1: method of filmmaking. I was trying to imagine, is this
Speaker 1: like an alternative to the Heimlich maneuver? Like, no, I
Speaker 1: assume I'm I'm assuming it's about his his approach to filmmaking. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: so that is the creative force behind the scenes. We
Speaker 1: should get into the cast a little bit though. This
Speaker 1: is definitely only one of those cases where a lot
Speaker 1: of people were involved in this and just about everybody
Speaker 1: in it is is great in their own way. But
Speaker 1: how many Dutch actors, you know, can we really mentioned
Speaker 1: on the show if there aren't a lot of real
Speaker 1: connections to be made, especially for a largely uh, you know,
Speaker 1: English speaking audience. Apologies in in advance on our attempts
Speaker 1: to pronounce these Dutch names, But we should talk about
Speaker 1: the guy who plays the protagonist hub Stopple Staple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he plays what Felix Adlar and yeah and so yeah.
Speaker 1: Otolar is our elevator technician hero uh. He was born
Speaker 1: n four Dutch actor who has popped up in a
Speaker 1: number of Dick Moss pictures, often in the lead. So
Speaker 1: he's in Flatterer, He's also in He's the lead in
Speaker 1: Amsterdamned and he's also the evil Nicholas in the Scent movie,
Speaker 1: so he plays the evil Santa Claus figure in that.
Speaker 1: This would explain. So in in the Lift, he's got
Speaker 1: very boyish good looks, so I kept comparing. Actually he
Speaker 1: looks a lot like Paul McCartney in a way. He does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's got a great look um. And
Speaker 1: and he's and he's a solid actor. Yeah yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: he so, yeah, he's he's got a good kind of
Speaker 1: stoic screen presence. He's good looking. He looks kind of
Speaker 1: like a Paul McCartney with a little dash of Oscar
Speaker 1: Isaac in there as well. Yeah yeah, I could see that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but but the thing about the same, this would
Speaker 1: explain why we found this hilarious. When we first looked
Speaker 1: him up, the picture that came up was a picture
Speaker 1: of him dressed as Father Christmas with like scary looking
Speaker 1: shadows around him, right, and an inverted cross on the
Speaker 1: big Santa Paul pat. Yeah, the Bishop's hat very good.
Speaker 1: So uh. Staple has been in a number of Dutch films,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, very active. Um. So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to mention everything, but I have to miss mention
Speaker 1: this one. Uh, he was in the t V movie
Speaker 1: about Anne Frank, starring Mary Steinbergen, Paul Scofield, and Tom Wilkinson. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think Tom Wilkinson had a smaller role, but he's
Speaker 1: in it. I don't think I ever saw this. I
Speaker 1: didn't either. But the interesting thing about it, it's it's again.
Speaker 1: It's titled The Attic The Idea, The Hiding of Anne Frank,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that's, you know, good or bad.
Speaker 1: I have no information about the quality of the picture,
Speaker 1: but it featured the cinematography talents of one Peter Jackson.
Speaker 1: And it launched on the Craft Golden Showcase Network, Yes,
Speaker 1: a television network that was created by Craft Foods, and
Speaker 1: I think ultimately lasted in one form or another almost
Speaker 1: a decade with the dramatization about Anne Frank. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is a weird venue for I was not able to
Speaker 1: find any other information about this TV network that perhaps
Speaker 1: comes from another dimension, but I I'm very interested, like,
Speaker 1: how did what else was on there? I think there
Speaker 1: were like two different movies that I saw credited as
Speaker 1: having been a Craft Golden Showcase Network production. But clearly
Speaker 1: you gotta have more than that, especially if you're on
Speaker 1: the air in some form or another for for many years. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, I've never heard of that. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on to our next. Our next actor. Um,
Speaker 1: this is the the actor Villa Cave van amil Roy
Speaker 1: who plays Mickey de Beer. She is this character is
Speaker 1: essentially our scrappy news reporter. You know, you've gotta have
Speaker 1: a scrappy news reporter in a picture like this is
Speaker 1: all about getting in there finding the answers. Yeah. She.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would say that this movie sort of
Speaker 1: has two protagonists that that uh huge staple as as
Speaker 1: the elevator repairman is one, and she sort of comes
Speaker 1: in later to become the the other lead, and she's
Speaker 1: pursuing forbidden knowledge and sort of spurs our our young
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney hero to to to to dive deeper. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing here is that Villik is a
Speaker 1: major Dutch actor and director who appeared in films during
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies opposite such actors as Rugger hower Uh
Speaker 1: in the films The Year of the Cancer and a
Speaker 1: film by the name of H. Gritstra and d gere Uh.
Speaker 1: And then she's also worked with with other major actors
Speaker 1: of of Dutch cinema and international cinema, such as Rick
Speaker 1: de Gour and Telly Savalis that uh in the film
Speaker 1: Killer The Killer is on the Phone from two. That's
Speaker 1: the one with Telly Seplas in it. She also appeared
Speaker 1: in the one atte de young film A Flight of
Speaker 1: rain Birds starring Jerome Crabby. Uh. Aute DeJong of course
Speaker 1: directed Highway to Hell. Oh that's funny. Yeah, but this
Speaker 1: is just just working up to our Probably her most
Speaker 1: famous film credit, she appeared in um uh because this
Speaker 1: one was a major hit. She has the lead role
Speaker 1: in the Marlene Gorris film Antonia's Line, which is about
Speaker 1: a Dutch matron. This is a movie that won an
Speaker 1: Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. And if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with Marlene Gorris, she was a noted Dutch feminist
Speaker 1: and LGBT director and writer. Um ye uh yeah it
Speaker 1: was a it was a huge hit and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be just a great film. Well I've never seen
Speaker 1: any of her good movies, but she's great in this
Speaker 1: B movie. She she's got a great sense of human like.
Speaker 1: I think she gets what this movie is about. She
Speaker 1: gets the tone, She gets the vibe um and has
Speaker 1: the right kind of sense of mischief about about pursuing
Speaker 1: the plot. Yeah, yeah, totally, she nails it and she's
Speaker 1: I think still active. Um Uh. A film that some
Speaker 1: viewers slash listeners may be familiar with UH is that
Speaker 1: Villiki was in the two thousand six film The Lake
Speaker 1: House that started Kano Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Christopher Plummer
Speaker 1: never saw that either. Now, once again, they're various other
Speaker 1: actors in this who are all all great. A number
Speaker 1: of them seem to have been Dick Moss regular players, uh,
Speaker 1: and and any number of them have connections to you know,
Speaker 1: to folks like Rudger Howard and Rick de gour Um
Speaker 1: and and and into each other of course. But I
Speaker 1: think that'll that'll that'll have to do it. But if
Speaker 1: you're if you were more familiar with Dutch cinema than
Speaker 1: we are, definitely take a look at the listing for
Speaker 1: the Lift on IMDb and you may find some amusing connections. Well,
Speaker 1: are you ready to talk about the plot. Let's get
Speaker 1: into the plot. You know, this movie lets you know
Speaker 1: what it's about at the very beginning, because it begins
Speaker 1: with a pan over a passing elevator that mimics the
Speaker 1: Star Destroyer at the beginning of Star Wars. Yes, so
Speaker 1: that comes along with the credits. But when we first
Speaker 1: meet some humans and and uh and have some rama,
Speaker 1: we get into something that is a regular feature of
Speaker 1: killer appliance movies, in fact, not just killer appliance movies,
Speaker 1: because killer appliance movies have something in common with creature features,
Speaker 1: slasher movies, uh, a lot of monster movies, and other
Speaker 1: horror subgenres, which is that the film must begin with
Speaker 1: an attack by the antagonist, whether that's human, animal, monster,
Speaker 1: or even an inanimate object on a random person or
Speaker 1: group of random people before we meet our protagonist. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean you see this rule and play probably most
Speaker 1: famously in Jaws, but you can you can probably pinpoint
Speaker 1: it in just about anything. Um. Like, one prime example
Speaker 1: that comes to mind is u is the Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones franchise. I think both the first novel and the
Speaker 1: Sea It series begin with just a little prologue in
Speaker 1: which people are slaughtered by whitewalkers. Oh yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: what's a I can almost remember one of their names,
Speaker 1: like Waymar Royce I think is one of them. And
Speaker 1: they are up north of the wall or something, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember get them. I remember reading it for the
Speaker 1: first time, and I was doing that thing that you
Speaker 1: sometimes do with books, were like, all right, this is
Speaker 1: my guy. All right, I got his name down. Yep,
Speaker 1: I'm picturing what he looks like. And then George R.
Speaker 1: Martin like kills him in one chapter. Oh did yeah?
Speaker 1: All of them? Oh no, one of them survives the
Speaker 1: pro lingue to be beheaded in the following chapter. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: but anyway, anyway, the lift adheres to form on the
Speaker 1: on this matter. So we begin the movie in a
Speaker 1: restaurant on the top floor of an office slash apartment building.
Speaker 1: I guess this would technically be a mixed use development
Speaker 1: to use. I don't know if they use that term
Speaker 1: back then, but that's what it is. It's this tower building,
Speaker 1: it's got apartments, it's got offices, and it's got a
Speaker 1: restaurant on the top floor. And there are four rowdy,
Speaker 1: drunk people who are overstaying their welcome after clothes at
Speaker 1: a restaurant on the top floor that we later find
Speaker 1: out it's called restaurant Chorus, which is interesting choice. I
Speaker 1: did not notice that in my viewing of the film
Speaker 1: this morning. So that's that's wonderful, wonderfully. On the notes,
Speaker 1: it's like, if we try to earn a Michelin star,
Speaker 1: we will we will soar too high and then crash
Speaker 1: into the waves outbreaks of listeria. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: regarding this scene, get up on my my as someone
Speaker 1: with restaurant experienced soapbox. Uh, Folks, please don't overstay your
Speaker 1: welcome at a restaurant after close. If you come in late,
Speaker 1: you know, that's fine, But people are trying to close up.
Speaker 1: Just just try to get done with what you're doing
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible and get out of there. People
Speaker 1: got things to do when they're closing up a restaurant.
Speaker 1: You gotta bus dishes, you gotta clean the dining room.
Speaker 1: A lot of times people can't do that until you're gone.
Speaker 1: So just don't don't hang around if it's after clothes.
Speaker 1: I remember a pizza hut that I went to when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. What they would do is they
Speaker 1: would flip the lights on and off. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's standard operating procedure at restaurants. I like that.
Speaker 1: That's a good assertive manager. Trying to get you out
Speaker 1: of there. Well, that flies at pizza, but this is
Speaker 1: restaurant acres, so there, I can't do that. This is
Speaker 1: a fancy place though. So this is a fancy place
Speaker 1: with like a matre d in a in a you know,
Speaker 1: fancy little outfit. I think, uh, the matre d here
Speaker 1: might be the guy we saw in the credits whose
Speaker 1: name was Johann Hobo. It is it is definitely okay,
Speaker 1: um but so but but but despite this being a
Speaker 1: fancy place, these diners are I don't know, they're up
Speaker 1: to no good. I'm not sure exactly what's going on
Speaker 1: with them, but they're clearly u drunk and getting into trouble.
Speaker 1: They are cavorting around with sloppy jokes that very much
Speaker 1: reminded me of the guy in the five Hundred Little
Speaker 1: Wigs sketch, and I think you should leave. You remember
Speaker 1: the he's comfortable in his skin because he can go
Speaker 1: bald gracefully. I know I do not remember that one specifically,
Speaker 1: but I totally get you on the the general Tim
Speaker 1: Tim Robinson vibe here, because yeah, they're just ridiculously outrageous
Speaker 1: a drunk, these four we're embarrassed for them. We're embarrassed
Speaker 1: for the people who have to watch them and are
Speaker 1: waiting for them to leave. Right. So, anyway, they get
Speaker 1: showed out of the restaurant and they're taking the elevator
Speaker 1: down to meet their cab. But while they're in the elevator,
Speaker 1: lightning strikes and the power goes out, and then they
Speaker 1: they're fooling around in the elevator doing all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 1: and then something starts happening and it is as if
Speaker 1: they are being ambient lee attacked by like the air
Speaker 1: in the elevator. I really did not understand what was
Speaker 1: going on here. They react almost as if they are
Speaker 1: being attacked with some kind of sonic weapon or psychic
Speaker 1: pain ray. Yeah, we're too, I guess we're to understand
Speaker 1: that that something goes seems to go wrong with both
Speaker 1: the the movement of the elevator and also the air circulation,
Speaker 1: like and and also and also suddenly they're heating up,
Speaker 1: so it's like, yeah, it's like they're being microwaved in
Speaker 1: the elevator somehow, yes, like raise or hitting them and
Speaker 1: using agonizing pain. Uh. And also but there's like a
Speaker 1: kind of grating noise which made me think sonic weapons.
Speaker 1: Somebody's aiming, so I'm kind of like, do you do
Speaker 1: you kind of thing at them? But no, it turns out.
Speaker 1: Oh and also I was sure they were dead when
Speaker 1: the power came. Yeah, I thought so too, because you see,
Speaker 1: like you have a p o V shot from one
Speaker 1: of the women in there, as like everybody else falls out,
Speaker 1: and then her vision blurs and goes dark exactly. And
Speaker 1: so then the doors open to reveal a gaggle of
Speaker 1: dumbfounded waiters and they look inside the elevator in horror.
Speaker 1: But then the next scene lets us onto the facts
Speaker 1: that they were not killed. They were nearly killed, and
Speaker 1: the problem was that the air conditioning failed, which just
Speaker 1: does not I don't know, it doesn't really comport with
Speaker 1: what we were seeing. But okay, but that's our prologue,
Speaker 1: that's our our attack before we meet the protagonist. So
Speaker 1: the next thing you gotta do is meet the protagonist.
Speaker 1: We meet him with his family, and again this is
Speaker 1: a Hube Stopple or Hube Staple who plays this character
Speaker 1: named Felix ad Or, our stoic elevator repair man. Again,
Speaker 1: he looks kind of like Paul McCartney, um, and we
Speaker 1: get some foreshadowing of some family dynamics that are going
Speaker 1: to go on later in the movie, because when we
Speaker 1: first meet him, he is nursing a black eye that
Speaker 1: he received apparently because he smiled at some lady and
Speaker 1: her husband punched him in the face. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is like the first kind of red flag with this character. Um,
Speaker 1: we end up spending a lot of time with the family.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that I'm I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about with this movie is that generally in
Speaker 1: a film like this, the film of this caliber, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially a B film that's a horror film, you're gonna
Speaker 1: go by just widely in one direction or another with
Speaker 1: a character like this, like either he's a great family man,
Speaker 1: you know, put in a um an unnatural situation, or
Speaker 1: he's a complete dog put in an unnatural situation. He's
Speaker 1: not really either here. No, And in fact, there's a
Speaker 1: fair amount of ambiguity regarding like what what's really wrong
Speaker 1: in this relationship with his wife. Uh, they've where we
Speaker 1: find out later they've been together like ten years or
Speaker 1: nearly ten years, and um, you know, there's not I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's almost like within this killer Elevator movie. Um,
Speaker 1: Dick Moss was also making this kind of more subtle
Speaker 1: family meditation, you know, and a sort of a look
Speaker 1: at like what happens with relationships over time. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So we get more information about this as we move on.
Speaker 1: But but we begin with this breakfast scene, family breakfast scene,
Speaker 1: and UM, I think it's actually a really admirable sequence
Speaker 1: because there's a lot going on in this scene. We're
Speaker 1: establishing the characters that, you know, getting a hint of
Speaker 1: this family dynamic we've been discussing, we're you know, entering
Speaker 1: into the plot. Uh, and there's still time for some
Speaker 1: family humor in there. There's some like legitimately kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, some funny stuff that's discussed. And then
Speaker 1: in the background at the end, there's a cat scratching
Speaker 1: at the sliding glass door trying to get in. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just felt like it was a
Speaker 1: very competent scene for for a horror movie. Plus you
Speaker 1: also have a toy ambulance gag that's really great. Like
Speaker 1: after that whole business happened with the with the elevator
Speaker 1: and the four drunks, we cut slat you know, just
Speaker 1: a flash cut to an ambulance seemingly going down the road,
Speaker 1: and then you're watching it and you're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think that's a toy. And then you're like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a toy at all, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a real ambulance and then it runs into somebody's
Speaker 1: foot and your, guys, it is a toy. It is
Speaker 1: the Sun's toy. Yeah, that one got me too. I
Speaker 1: I thought that was a really good visual gag. And
Speaker 1: then one of the funny things is that immediately, uh,
Speaker 1: the mom is like, couldn't you get our son a
Speaker 1: quieter toy, like a book? And and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: you know, loud toys are good. That doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: a very common parental opinion. But right, they have very
Speaker 1: very different opinions on this, and and there doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be a lot of room to compromise. So another
Speaker 1: another problem signed for this relationship. Well, anyway, feel Lix
Speaker 1: gets a call to go check out the lift and
Speaker 1: so begins the investigation that will define the rest of
Speaker 1: the film. But he he gets a call, you know,
Speaker 1: he owe some people nearly suffocated and in an elevator
Speaker 1: last night. You gotta go figure out what's wrong with it.
Speaker 1: So we see him drive to the office tower and
Speaker 1: he gets into a consultation with Uh is this with
Speaker 1: the building superintendent or with a different guy. It's with
Speaker 1: the guy named Bush, the really tall, chatty guy. Yes. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so he he meets with Bush and starts trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on with the elevator. And
Speaker 1: I thought one of the first things that was funny
Speaker 1: was he goes he goes in there and he just
Speaker 1: kind of fiddles with one button or switch real quick,
Speaker 1: and then he's like, looks like nothing's wrong to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: They're able to tell so much from just that one
Speaker 1: little switch, which isn't it. I don't know, maybe there
Speaker 1: was something in the dub on this, because I feel like,
Speaker 1: for the most part, this is a movie that seems
Speaker 1: to take elevators very seriously. Uh, Like we're using a
Speaker 1: lot of like legitimate elevator show uh you know, uh locations.
Speaker 1: They at one point we're in a we're in an
Speaker 1: elevator factory or repair shop or something, so like it
Speaker 1: really got in there and wanted to learn about elevators.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of talk about how elevators work,
Speaker 1: so uh it feels a little weird that we have
Speaker 1: this sequence where they're just flipping a switch and making
Speaker 1: very broad statements about the functionality of this particular lift.
Speaker 1: Now on the flip side of what you say, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I I feel like you and I are
Speaker 1: usually pretty careful not to uh conclude things are really simple.
Speaker 1: You know, you always assume that things might be more
Speaker 1: complicated than they look at first. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if elevators are really as electronically complicated as this movie
Speaker 1: ultimately makes them. Soon because the next thing that happens
Speaker 1: is he's like, well, okay, I gotta go up and
Speaker 1: look at the control panel. And when they reach the
Speaker 1: you know, the roof, I guess the I don't know,
Speaker 1: the machine room at the top of the building where
Speaker 1: the control panel is. They start talking about how there's
Speaker 1: this other box, this blue box containing the micro processors
Speaker 1: that guide the lift, and it's full of all these
Speaker 1: chips and it's all this complicated computer stuff that's way
Speaker 1: over his head. Again, I want to be fair, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if elevators are really all that computationally complicated. Well,
Speaker 1: they mentioned that you don't want all three elevators opening
Speaker 1: on the same floor at the same time, and you've
Speaker 1: got to have microprocess. You've gotta have chips to take
Speaker 1: care of that. Joe, all right, Maybe I'm wrong here,
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong. There used to be a guy in
Speaker 1: there controlling the elevator. Now it right by the way,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get this is not the last we've heard
Speaker 1: of chips in this movie. There's gonna be so much
Speaker 1: about chips, and it's one of my favorite things about
Speaker 1: the film. But while he's up there fiddling around with
Speaker 1: the control panel trying to see if that gives any
Speaker 1: indication of what went wrong the night before, uh, there's
Speaker 1: some idle chit chat about the last guy, the last
Speaker 1: elevator repair man, whose name was Brooker, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: too bad. He went totally insane. He spent a really
Speaker 1: long time on the last maintenance visit. But they said
Speaker 1: he was great. They said this was why he was
Speaker 1: like so competent he spent I'll spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time on the last visit to this elevator, right. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: Felix is not able to identify the problem. He says, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just a short circuit, but ultimately he doesn't know,
Speaker 1: so he goes back home and then we get some
Speaker 1: more scenes at the home with the family discussing things. Uh.
Speaker 1: Felix and his wife discuss how she is saving the
Speaker 1: caps to some kind of brand of beverage bottle. I
Speaker 1: think it might be just Seltzer or something. Um. And
Speaker 1: she's saving the caps because if she collects a hundred
Speaker 1: of them, she could win a trip to Hawaii. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's just kind of like, didn't we go to
Speaker 1: an island last year? So the huge disconnect here where
Speaker 1: like she wants to go to Hawaii. He's like, I've
Speaker 1: been to an island. What could Hawaii possibly offer me? Yes? Uh?
Speaker 1: And then all sides, I've done it. They have some
Speaker 1: great exchange I don't remember exactly. It's something she's like,
Speaker 1: you're not romantic anymore and he goes, I'm still that way.
Speaker 1: I am still that thing he said. I will not
Speaker 1: say it, but I am that thing. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: so okay, from here, the movie continues according to the
Speaker 1: Killer X movie format. So you've got your initial attack, check,
Speaker 1: meet your protagonist, check, initial investigation turns up nothing. Check.
Speaker 1: So now you're twenty minutes in, guess what, it's time
Speaker 1: for one to three more Killer X attacks. In this
Speaker 1: case it is the killer elevator and what do you know,
Speaker 1: I think we get two of them in this case.
Speaker 1: So in the first attack the elevator, the elevator murders
Speaker 1: a blind man by opening the doors without a car
Speaker 1: present and tricking him into and it tricks him into
Speaker 1: walking into the shaft and falling to his death. And
Speaker 1: this one felt especially awful. Yeah, this is one they
Speaker 1: also did in the remake, so so fans of the
Speaker 1: first film don't worry they did it again. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I I did particularly like this one because I mean,
Speaker 1: it felt kind of mean spirited, but also it runs
Speaker 1: contrary to everything I've I've seen regarding um uh blind
Speaker 1: or side challenge people navigating public spaces. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like generally it seems like uh like like like people
Speaker 1: like using a cane in these cases are more aware
Speaker 1: of their physical around surroundings than sighted people who were
Speaker 1: distracted by their phones and so forth. So I didn't
Speaker 1: really buy for a minute that that he would have
Speaker 1: just walked into that empty elevator shaft without like tapping
Speaker 1: the floor of the elevator or in this case, the
Speaker 1: the the the yawning absence in front of him. But
Speaker 1: then the second attack feels more more sort of on
Speaker 1: brand for a movie of this type. It is where
Speaker 1: the elevator attacks a couple of night security guards. So
Speaker 1: there are two guards who were there, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, it's two in the more ing in in
Speaker 1: the place the place should be deserted. Uh. And you've
Speaker 1: got your two guards. You've got a young guard who's
Speaker 1: very well behaved, he's an eagle scout type. You find
Speaker 1: out he is engaged to be married, and he does
Speaker 1: not drink on the job. And then there's an older
Speaker 1: guard who very much advocates drinking on the job. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not not only does he advocate drinking on the job,
Speaker 1: he advocates just all matter of hell raising and brags
Speaker 1: about the fact that he apparently caught so many STDs
Speaker 1: when he was younger that he is now immune to penicillin.
Speaker 1: That is what he says, yes, um, And then he
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know it? You know that they start noticing
Speaker 1: the elevators are acting weird, so that they've run up
Speaker 1: and down the stairs, chasing the elevators that appeared to
Speaker 1: be going up and down by themselves. And then eventually
Speaker 1: the the jin guzzling guard goes up to an elevator
Speaker 1: shaft and then the door slam shut on his head
Speaker 1: and then the elevator just slides on down and decapitates
Speaker 1: him like a square guillotine. It is a horrifying scene.
Speaker 1: This the scene we were talking about earlier. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a version of it in both the original and the remake.
Speaker 1: And like again it's this one where it's virtually shot
Speaker 1: for shot remake with a c G I instead of practical.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in this movie, you know, absolutely horrifying, uh
Speaker 1: fake head falling down the elevator shaft and landing virtually
Speaker 1: in the dead blind man's lap. I would say this
Speaker 1: scene in particular is a is a strangely powerful combination
Speaker 1: of actually horrifying and comedic at the same time. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and like you've pointed out before on the show,
Speaker 1: like having that that that that comedic element perhaps intensifies
Speaker 1: what you're willing to buy, you know, in the sequence,
Speaker 1: so it helps the helps make it work better. So anyway,
Speaker 1: after this, we meet the bumbling detective who comes in
Speaker 1: to explain that he doesn't like elevators prefers the stairs,
Speaker 1: um and uh, and starts spitting like elevator elevator tragedy
Speaker 1: facts that people. But this is also the guy I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier who sounds like he's he's doing the the
Speaker 1: audiobook track for an encyclopedia. You know what. I realized
Speaker 1: this may be way too niche, but for anybody who's
Speaker 1: ever played the Mass Effect video games, he sounds like
Speaker 1: the voiceover who reads all of the like encyclopedia entries
Speaker 1: in that game for the aliens and stuff. Okay, now
Speaker 1: this is the character that that has some some wonderful
Speaker 1: sort of anti elevator facts and propaganda on hand. The
Speaker 1: one that he he belts out that really astounded me
Speaker 1: is is the idea that two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: people per year get stuck in elevators in the Netherlands alone.
Speaker 1: So this is three. I didn't research this, but that
Speaker 1: just sounds like a very high number. Two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people per year in the Netherlands stuck in elevators.
Speaker 1: Where are they getting their elevators? I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I would, I mean it just I want to see
Speaker 1: a full breakdown on that like, how many elevators were
Speaker 1: there in the Netherlands? How many people were getting stuck
Speaker 1: on each one? Who's collecting? Yeah? How are they? How
Speaker 1: are they getting this number? Do they have a government
Speaker 1: task force that has to collect a report anytime somebody
Speaker 1: gets stuck in an elevator? Yeah? So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It felt it felt really high. Maybe it's accurate. Maybe
Speaker 1: you know I'm the fool here, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well anyway, So the police are investigating these elevator attacks,
Speaker 1: and then Felix of course gets called back to the
Speaker 1: building again because he's got to take another crack at
Speaker 1: figuring out what went wrong. And while he's there, he
Speaker 1: meets up with our secondary protagonist, Mickey de beer Uh,
Speaker 1: the journalist who rights for the New Review. When she
Speaker 1: mentions this to him, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: a real magazine or or paper, or if it's made
Speaker 1: up for the film, But Felix reacts by saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: the New Review, Huh. I see it sometimes in my
Speaker 1: neighbor's bird cage. That was a good line. So that
Speaker 1: makes me wonder, Oh, is the New Review supposed to
Speaker 1: be something of tabloid? It's like the weekly World News
Speaker 1: for maybe so for for the Netherlands. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But she is there because she's got up. She's got
Speaker 1: a hunch. She's investigating this company called Rising Sun that
Speaker 1: makes the microprocessors we mentioned that are in that blue
Speaker 1: box that supposedly controls the elevator that guides it. And
Speaker 1: uh and of course Bush, the guy from the office,
Speaker 1: he's trying to get rid of her. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: her sniffing around, so he throws them out. Felix still
Speaker 1: can't find a problem with the lift, though, though it
Speaker 1: seems to Beer has sort of caught his attention with
Speaker 1: her weird hunches. Oh but from here we go onto
Speaker 1: a tremendous bowling sequence at a place that I want
Speaker 1: to go to called Klaus party House. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: in general, this film just does a great job with
Speaker 1: with locations, like I'm interested in every minor location like
Speaker 1: that that the house that the family lives in is
Speaker 1: very interesting. And this is, you know, clearly a a
Speaker 1: Dutch bowling alley from the nineteen the early eighties, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's I'm instantly just all into the background here. Uh
Speaker 1: there's a banner that says Closs party House. Um, so,
Speaker 1: which I'm assuming is the name of the bowling alley.
Speaker 1: And then as they go to the bar and they're
Speaker 1: they're ordering a drink that the characters and they're talking,
Speaker 1: I'm not really listening to them all that much because
Speaker 1: I'm noticing that the score panels above each of the
Speaker 1: bowling lanes. Um, you know, we're used to sing the
Speaker 1: score up there, uh, in a bowling alley, but here
Speaker 1: it seems to be some sort of projection method because
Speaker 1: you see scorecards up there, but then the silhouettes of
Speaker 1: hands manually altering the scorecard. Oh, they're like those projectors,
Speaker 1: like classroom projectors, being right on the transparency. But here
Speaker 1: you're writing the scores, which I I just had no
Speaker 1: idea that this was ever a thing like I've I've
Speaker 1: mostly been to bowling alleys that have the you know,
Speaker 1: the electronic scoring system and it scores it for you.
Speaker 1: And I've also been to at least unbowling alley where
Speaker 1: there we had to do everything by hand on paper,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't in any way projected for you. Well,
Speaker 1: I did love that, and I also love other things
Speaker 1: about the scene, which are the central premise the character
Speaker 1: drama in the scene is that Felix is too preoccupied
Speaker 1: with the lift and he can't focus on bowling because
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a family affair. He's out
Speaker 1: about bowling with this a double day. He's out bowling
Speaker 1: with his wife and a couple of friends in theirs
Speaker 1: and the friends who like the guy. He wants a beer,
Speaker 1: but his wife's like, no, you'll have Tonic. Tonic is
Speaker 1: pretty good. I'm I've become a fan of Tonic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta get your coin on you. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: from here the middle section of the movie, we might
Speaker 1: skip over a little more lightly. It's sort of transitions
Speaker 1: into more investigation investigation mode. He and also um family
Speaker 1: drama mode. But but Felix and UH and Mickey de Beer,
Speaker 1: they start figuring out something strange is going on to
Speaker 1: this elevator. Could it have something to do with this
Speaker 1: company with this ominous name of Rising Sun. You know
Speaker 1: that sounds like it could be sinister in some way.
Speaker 1: And so one of the leads that they get into
Speaker 1: is that Felix is at his office and he has
Speaker 1: some uh banter with like weird crass co workers, and
Speaker 1: then he finds out the guy they referenced earlier the
Speaker 1: former maintenance man at this tower who had worked on
Speaker 1: the elevator before, who is now committed to a sanitarium. Uh.
Speaker 1: Felix is wondering could it be that he sabotaged the elevator,
Speaker 1: But everybody talks to is like, no, that doesn't seem right. Elevators,
Speaker 1: he would never do this elevator um. And so eventually
Speaker 1: Felix goes to visit Brooker at the sanitarium, where Brooker
Speaker 1: appears near catatonic. Apparently he badly lacerated his hands when
Speaker 1: he uh when he previous attack to television after seeing
Speaker 1: something on it he didn't like. And the question is
Speaker 1: what did he see on the TV that that made
Speaker 1: him smash the screen in But you know, he can't
Speaker 1: get an answer. Um. And then meanwhile there's another elevator
Speaker 1: attack or a nearer elevator attack. Unfortunately, this movie would
Speaker 1: not pass the Gene Ciscle test for does this movie
Speaker 1: depict a child in peril because it's manipulates you by
Speaker 1: suggesting that the elevator might kill a child, who, by
Speaker 1: the way, is she's like hanging out in the lobby
Speaker 1: of the office building because her mom is having an
Speaker 1: affair with the building superintendent. But fortunately the child is unharmed. Uh,
Speaker 1: the elevator does injure her doll. So first of all, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is ultimately a good sequence, one that
Speaker 1: they again recreated almost shot for shot in the remake.
Speaker 1: But I'm not as familiar with Gene Siskel's rule here.
Speaker 1: Did was this something where like if if you depict
Speaker 1: a child in peril, it's like an automatically a thumbs
Speaker 1: down for him, or automatically ah, you know, lose the star.
Speaker 1: Well he I don't think he actually had a formalized rule,
Speaker 1: but I recall from a number of his reviews this
Speaker 1: was often something he would pick out that he didn't
Speaker 1: like about a movie was that it had a scene
Speaker 1: where children were in peril. I don't it seems it
Speaker 1: seems to me like he thought that maybe that was
Speaker 1: in bad taste, or that it was manipulative or something. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll let everybody know that no dogs or cats are
Speaker 1: killed by elevators in this movie, though it apparently loves
Speaker 1: to kill rats. So yeah, yeah, and no children are
Speaker 1: actually harmed either. There is just there's just the implication. Yeah, though,
Speaker 1: oh god, the but the Stanard to this. The scene though,
Speaker 1: is that it like mangles her doll. Like basically, the
Speaker 1: thing with the Killer Elevator is that it has to
Speaker 1: be very patient, and it has to it doesn't have
Speaker 1: that very it doesn't have very many ways to influence
Speaker 1: the outside world, so it's not always gonna gonna actually
Speaker 1: score a hit. In this case, it was probably trying
Speaker 1: to kill a child. It just had to mangle a doll.
Speaker 1: And then when her mom comes out of the from
Speaker 1: the affair situation and finds out what's happened, she slaps
Speaker 1: the child across the face. Oh god, yeah that was weird. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've forgotten about that. We were like what Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then she leaves and we never see those characters again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very weird warning on that. Well, anyway, after this attack,
Speaker 1: we get back into the investigation, and so we've got
Speaker 1: we've got Felix into beer and there they're they're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on. And oh and there's
Speaker 1: a breakthrough I think when they're sitting around talking. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, there's a funny I don't remember exactly
Speaker 1: where this happened, but there was one exchange that had
Speaker 1: Rachel and me laughing really hard, which was when Felix
Speaker 1: says something like, uh, this lift does things it shouldn't
Speaker 1: and Beer says, I've done things I shouldn't all right,
Speaker 1: good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So she's like taking out
Speaker 1: for the elevator. It's like, come on people, um but
Speaker 1: but but the thing they get to is that they
Speaker 1: start talking about Rising Sun, that manufacturer of computer chips,
Speaker 1: and de Beer fills Felix in on the fact that
Speaker 1: actually this company was featured on a science program on
Speaker 1: television last week. So I think we're supposed to recall,
Speaker 1: oh that maybe when Brooker the previous elevator and punched
Speaker 1: the TV tap to television. Yeah. So from at this
Speaker 1: point in the film we get into like full blown
Speaker 1: investigation mode, research and also some family drama sprinkled in there. Um,
Speaker 1: this makes sense, right, you can't just have constant elevator attacks.
Speaker 1: You've gotta pad things out just just right. I feel
Speaker 1: like in a lesser film this would have been a
Speaker 1: really boring slog you know. But the performances in this
Speaker 1: are all really good. Uh, the locations are great. All
Speaker 1: that helps to pull it along. Yes, And I another
Speaker 1: thing is my single favorite scene in the entire movie
Speaker 1: is in this section, which is the scene where Felix
Speaker 1: and de Beer go to a professor in his like
Speaker 1: college classroom who explains what chips are to them and
Speaker 1: the microchips, but he just keeps He says the word
Speaker 1: chips like four hundred times and starts telling all these
Speaker 1: bizarre anecdotes. They're all things like once there was a
Speaker 1: chip that went insane and acquired a soul. They had
Speaker 1: to launch the chip into space, and that is the
Speaker 1: story of chips. And then you know, once there was
Speaker 1: a chip that rewrote its own program and it became
Speaker 1: evil and they were forced to incinerate it in a
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb, and that is how chips work. Now, he
Speaker 1: does say something about like there's a they went there
Speaker 1: was this computer they went badman, he just bury in
Speaker 1: the ground. They had like seal it away, right, yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this is a scene that I liked it as well,
Speaker 1: because it kind of felt like a like a scene
Speaker 1: from a David Cronenberg film of the time period where
Speaker 1: characters go to a professor or scientist who then proceeds
Speaker 1: to say crazy things that you don't really buy um
Speaker 1: and then ultimately I guess in the context of the film,
Speaker 1: like our protagonist, our our main character, the elevator repairman.
Speaker 1: He's like, like, are you sure that guy knew what
Speaker 1: he was talking about, and and she's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's an expert, you know, Yeah, he's brilliant. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: knows all about chips. He's one of the world's leading
Speaker 1: authorities on chips. Uh oh, and also one of the Oh.
Speaker 1: But the crucial fact we learned in the scene that
Speaker 1: will come into play later is that, according to this professor,
Speaker 1: sometimes chips are made out of living tissue and like
Speaker 1: their proteins and organic cells to create chips. But they
Speaker 1: stopped making chips out of things that are alive because
Speaker 1: the chips started growing too fast or something and could
Speaker 1: be influenced by radiation or magnets, and that became too dangerous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean this is where we're kind of getting
Speaker 1: into Cronenbergie territory here, where suddenly this film is beginning
Speaker 1: to feel like it's not entire really in the real world,
Speaker 1: that it is in a slightly science fiction version of
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, which which I like very much. No, No, Rob,
Speaker 1: I think you're wrong. I mean, lest you forget that
Speaker 1: that uh episode from Real History where Bell Labs made
Speaker 1: a computer chip out of a ferret's brain and then
Speaker 1: it had to be sent into the core of the
Speaker 1: Earth or else it would have taken over all of
Speaker 1: the telephone lines. Alright, fair enough anyway, So we mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that there was some some foreshadowing of like uh
Speaker 1: family strife and relationship drama between Felix and his wife
Speaker 1: and and h fears about adultery that that comes up
Speaker 1: later where there is I don't know. I was talking
Speaker 1: to Rachel about this. She she felt that this subplot
Speaker 1: was sort of unnecessary, and I can see why you
Speaker 1: would go there, because so what happens is Felix and
Speaker 1: de Beer while they're investigating everything, or like sitting at
Speaker 1: a cafe talking about their investigation, and some friends see
Speaker 1: them and then tell his wife and they convince his
Speaker 1: wife that he is having an affair. And you can
Speaker 1: file this under a thing that happens in a lot
Speaker 1: of movies and I always find really annoying, and it
Speaker 1: is it is this. It's plot conflicts that are the
Speaker 1: result of a misunderstanding, which the protagonist could easily fix
Speaker 1: if they would just explain things but for some reason
Speaker 1: they don't explain it right. So Felix's wife is like,
Speaker 1: you're you are committing adultery, you are cheating on me,
Speaker 1: And he could say, no, I'm not. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out when elevator keeps killing people, But for some reason,
Speaker 1: he just doesn't explain himself and and she leaves him.
Speaker 1: I find this a very annoying writing tick, and it's
Speaker 1: in a lot of movies, and I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: why that is so common. It might just be a
Speaker 1: a problem where like, I don't know, like the writer
Speaker 1: realizes that it would be tedious to have a scene
Speaker 1: where the character explains themselves, so you just skip over it.
Speaker 1: But like it doesn't really make sense that a character
Speaker 1: would not bother to explain themselves. I don't know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, obviously they're trying to get at
Speaker 1: the fact that these two have clearly have some communication problems,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, but to this level where he's
Speaker 1: not going to just be like, no, no, there's like
Speaker 1: legit people dying at this building. Look, here's the newspaper clipping,
Speaker 1: or yeah, or just explain the situation more. But instead
Speaker 1: things escalate to the next level of him of him,
Speaker 1: like walking in going to that little container where she
Speaker 1: keeps all the little uh pop tops and she's collecting
Speaker 1: for that to enter to win a trip to Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and low and behold it is. It is empty and
Speaker 1: his family is gone. Yes, they have gone to Hawaii
Speaker 1: without him. You collect the one soda pop and you
Speaker 1: and your and your loved ones uh and you can
Speaker 1: choose if your husband goes as well. Are magically transported
Speaker 1: to Hawaii and there's no coming back, right, And he
Speaker 1: but he didn't want to go to Hawaii anyway, remember,
Speaker 1: because he'd been to an island. But he's been to
Speaker 1: an island, yes, he's he's familiar with it. He's like,
Speaker 1: maybe we could go to peninsula. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I've done an island. I would like to go to
Speaker 1: a butte. Well, anyway, the investigation continues, so uh de
Speaker 1: Beer and Felix go to the Rising Sun headquarters, the
Speaker 1: company that makes the chips, the chips that control the elevator.
Speaker 1: And a couple of things to point out about the
Speaker 1: Rising Sun headquarters actually more than a couple uh interesting
Speaker 1: location by the way, very barren. Yeah, this is another
Speaker 1: just a real coup of a location. Fine, because it
Speaker 1: feels like it's it was this is they filmed this
Speaker 1: in the swamp lands of Mordor or something like. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is like maybe an area of
Speaker 1: like reclaimed land in the Netherlands and this is like
Speaker 1: the first industrial building built out there something. But it
Speaker 1: looks just suitably desolate for a suspicious technology company to
Speaker 1: have its headquarters. Like when you drive into the location today,
Speaker 1: your navigation apps which is its voice over to Andy
Speaker 1: Circus and starts just saying this way, precious and and
Speaker 1: so they're they're driving up on this barren swamp and
Speaker 1: there's a sign out front this. I know this is
Speaker 1: just regular Dutch, but to an English speech speaker, it
Speaker 1: looks amazing. It says verboden toe gang, which means no
Speaker 1: no trespassing. But Rob, I don't know if you notice
Speaker 1: the other interesting thing about this building where they manufacture
Speaker 1: these chips, these chips, it's only two stories. Oh, they
Speaker 1: might not have an elevator in there at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no need for an elevator in this building. They go,
Speaker 1: they go wide and low. So they come here and
Speaker 1: they meet with a Mr. Crone, a head of research
Speaker 1: that they don't really turn up anything interesting. In fact,
Speaker 1: I don't even really recall much what they talked about
Speaker 1: in this scene. Basically he's just trying to blow him off.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't have time for you. Um. They're like,
Speaker 1: what's that is that? Because you go into you go
Speaker 1: into this this office and immediately to your left is
Speaker 1: the room where they're doing the top secret stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but not tough so top secret that there's any security
Speaker 1: in place or anything. So uh, and he's just basically like,
Speaker 1: I don't have time for this. You've got to leave.
Speaker 1: And uh, this this room that's bathed in red light. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We are told that most of the chips are made
Speaker 1: in Japan these days, but they apparently make some of
Speaker 1: them here and they're they're mostly doing maintenance. But but
Speaker 1: they're also like, yeah, we don't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with anything going wrong at a at a plant, Like
Speaker 1: we have our name on the line here, like we're
Speaker 1: we're a professional organization. We're not an evil corporation. Uh,
Speaker 1: why don't you get out of here? Did you get
Speaker 1: the message that the chips that are made in Japan
Speaker 1: or just like those are the normal chips, those are
Speaker 1: the ones that aren't going to start killing people, but
Speaker 1: the ones they make here, and these might be a problem.
Speaker 1: I suspect because we're basically leading up to a big
Speaker 1: reveal here. But I suspect they're making not a normal
Speaker 1: type of chip here, They're making some sort of a
Speaker 1: uh it previously established dangerous cronin burgery bergee type of chip,
Speaker 1: some sort of bio chip. That's right. So here we're
Speaker 1: going to get to our final showdown. I guess this
Speaker 1: is after after Felix's family has left him, you know,
Speaker 1: he has nothing left to live for really. Uh, he decides, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go in and I'm going to face
Speaker 1: the elevator. Yeah, and this is this is like the yeah,
Speaker 1: the last leg of the film. And I thought it
Speaker 1: was tremendous that was very well done. I was legitimately
Speaker 1: concerned that Felix was going to be killed by this
Speaker 1: elevator at times, which of course is is what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to feel as a as a viewer. Uh, it
Speaker 1: really had me on edge, like crawling, you know, in
Speaker 1: and out of this thing as the elevator is, of
Speaker 1: course moving around with a will of its own, a
Speaker 1: murderous will of its own. Uh you know. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the Showdown in two thousand and one of
Speaker 1: Space Odyssey, except it's it's all elevator, but it never talks.
Speaker 1: The elevator never gets to tell Felix like stop, don't
Speaker 1: do that, It doesn't sing Daisy, It just tries to
Speaker 1: crush him in various ways. Yeah, and it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a great sequence. It's it's well shot, um and
Speaker 1: then we we we lead up to the like the
Speaker 1: final part of the showdown essentially is oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know if we mentioned this earlier, but one of the
Speaker 1: first things he tries to do is to get into
Speaker 1: that blue box and cut off the ships. But it's empty.
Speaker 1: There's nothing in it. It turns out the like the
Speaker 1: the the the computer center for this elevator system is
Speaker 1: somewhere else, and in this final sequence he finds it
Speaker 1: in the elevator shaft itself, in this um this compartment
Speaker 1: in the wall of the shaft that's leaking some sort
Speaker 1: of a glowing ectoplasm type substance. He has to crawl
Speaker 1: up there and he's opening it up and there is
Speaker 1: the bio chip, this kind of slimy ectoplasm, cronin burgery,
Speaker 1: mixture of circuitry, and I don't know, like brain fluid
Speaker 1: or something. I was calling it command slime. There is
Speaker 1: command slime at the core and and he tries to
Speaker 1: disrupt the command slime with a wrench. He yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's really great because of course it also adds the
Speaker 1: lighting of the sequence. So yeah, he's trying to slam
Speaker 1: it with a wrench, and then the whole time the
Speaker 1: elevator is basically going up and down, I think something
Speaker 1: like hitting his body at times, trying to like rip
Speaker 1: him in half, and it's legitimately terrifying. Um. Yeah, great sequence.
Speaker 1: In the remake they do the same thing, except the
Speaker 1: brain chip stuff is pink and bigger and kind of
Speaker 1: looks a little bit like crane. Does it have a face?
Speaker 1: No face, but but very crany Okay. Basically in the
Speaker 1: original it looks like Ghostbusters one slime, and in the
Speaker 1: remake it looks like Ghostbusters to slime, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Yeah, ohh And there's a great rescue scene
Speaker 1: actually where the elevator, the elevator is gonna crush him
Speaker 1: and it looks like our our protagonist is doomed. But
Speaker 1: then uh, Mickey de Beer shows up at the last
Speaker 1: moment and pulls him out of the shaft just just
Speaker 1: in time. I thought it was yeah, yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: that's it for Felix, Who's going to repair the kid's
Speaker 1: toy ambulance now and make it even louder than it
Speaker 1: was before. Mom's new boyfriend can't do that. Um. But
Speaker 1: but no, no, he's rescued and and uh and so
Speaker 1: together they it seems like maybe they've saved the day
Speaker 1: and defeated the machine. But then we get then we
Speaker 1: get a twist. Uh, the guy from the lab that's
Speaker 1: bathed in red light comes back, the guy from Rising Sun.
Speaker 1: And so what does he explain at the end, He's like, well,
Speaker 1: this chip isn't working like it's supposed to. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: doesn't explain much, which I like, like, Basically, he shows up,
Speaker 1: he pulls a gun and you're like, oh, he's come
Speaker 1: to protect the chip and to silence these people. But
Speaker 1: instead he goes over to the shaft and shoots the
Speaker 1: bio chip a few more times. That's are again already
Speaker 1: been like hit with a ranch or screwdriver or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: And then he says something. The fact of it was sick.
Speaker 1: It was very sick. He was very sick. And he
Speaker 1: doesn't get much of a chance to explain anything else
Speaker 1: because then what happens h with his back turn to
Speaker 1: the elevator shaft. One of the elevator cables, which had
Speaker 1: snapped earlier, comes comes out like a tentacle, wraps itself
Speaker 1: around his his neck and pulls him into the elevator
Speaker 1: shaft and strangles him to death. Now I think they're
Speaker 1: pushing it a little bit here, because I don't know
Speaker 1: how an elevator cable would do that, even if the
Speaker 1: command chip wanted it to do that, even if the
Speaker 1: command slide was like go go reach out and get
Speaker 1: that guy, there's no mechanism to do that. But you
Speaker 1: know what, right there at the end, our our disbelief
Speaker 1: is suspended. That got us that they can get away
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, I totally bought it. And then of
Speaker 1: course we have a wonderful credit sequence where what are
Speaker 1: they doing. They're taking the stairs. Uh, they're taking the
Speaker 1: stairs down from whatever floor this was on where we
Speaker 1: had the show down. I also like to imagine at
Speaker 1: the end that that the beer ends up writing about
Speaker 1: this incident in her tabloid. It's like right next to
Speaker 1: a story about bat Boy or whatever. Yeah, it turns
Speaker 1: out nobody actually takes this story seriously because she doesn't
Speaker 1: represent reputable journalistic uh publication. And that's the Lift. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to say this one, This one is a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Yeah. Now you you might be wondering, well, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to get in on this, uh this action.
Speaker 1: Where can I watch Three's the Lift? Well, you can
Speaker 1: do like I did. You can simply sign up for
Speaker 1: the full Moon channel. Uh. That way you have access
Speaker 1: to a number of B movies. But in my case, anyway,
Speaker 1: you got access to both The Lift and the remake.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty good. But I believe there was also Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a Blu ray that came out, um, and
Speaker 1: you can pick this up. This up, This one, uh
Speaker 1: is out from Blue Underground, who have excelled with putting
Speaker 1: out some some sort of you know, a cult following
Speaker 1: B movie type fair Apparently the the Blu ray for
Speaker 1: this has auto commentary from Dick Moss, so uh that
Speaker 1: sounds pretty good, along as some other extress. All right,
Speaker 1: so check it out if you're interested. All right, if
Speaker 1: you'd like to listen to other episodes of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: We put this out every Friday and the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but on Friday's we put most of the serious matters
Speaker 1: aside and just discuss a weird film. And hey, if
Speaker 1: you if you dig Weird House Cinema, we now have
Speaker 1: uh an Instagram account for Weird House Cinema. It's just
Speaker 1: weird how cinema one word, no no brakes or anything.
Speaker 1: You can go look that up. And also, uh I
Speaker 1: if you go there, you can find the links for
Speaker 1: this in the link tree. But I maintain a blog
Speaker 1: titled Some Mood of Music and I basically just use
Speaker 1: that as a place to put a little blog posts
Speaker 1: about the episodes as they come out. Uh So, if
Speaker 1: there's a trailer, I'll include it there. If there's some
Speaker 1: additional media that we've discussed that needs to go there,
Speaker 1: like I don't know the trailer for Hamster Damned, uh,
Speaker 1: then I will put that in there as well. Huge
Speaker 1: things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other. To suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.