Down



AKA: The Shaft

An elevator repairman and a sleazy tabloid writer are increasingly drawn to a case regarding the malfunctioning express elevators located inside the Millennium Tower in New York City. The elevators in question seem to be acting up with no discernible cause, almost as if they had a mind of their own. But what was initially assumed to be some sort of electronic malfunction quickly grows much worse, when several people end up either grievously injured or dead. The police and tower owners are increasingly convinced that the events are related to some form of terrorism. But the journalist and her cohort have uncovered evidence that actually suggests that all the tragedy may all be connected to a conspiracy involving the elevator company and a disgraced scientist obsessed with something he calls “bio-chips.”


As you can see, he’s very attached to the idea of them.

Down, and occasionally (and quite unfortunately) titled The Shaft, is an American and Norwegian Sci-fi horror co-production from 2001, and is a remake of the similarly titled Dutch film, The Lift, from 1983. The movie is directed by Dick Maas, who just so happens to be the director of The Lift, meaning you can add his name to the relatively short list of directors who went on to remake their own films. Since his original film was so popular in his home country, Warner Brothers was apparently pretty gung-ho about him making an English adaptation, since we all know most Americans are lazy and don’t like to read subtitles. So naturally when Maas finally got around to it, they gave him a much bigger budget than the original film had to work with. But, as we all know, or perhaps as we all should know, when it comes to Hollywood, bigger is not always better. And indeed, that is the case here. Because while I believe Maas did fix a couple of annoyances I had with the original film, he also added a few new ones to the mix, making this effort a bit of a mixed bag.


Weird Movie has weird ideas. News at 11.

To start with though, I’ll begin with the changes I like. With the bigger budget came bigger effects. So this film has a lot more blood, and a lot more bodies, and a couple people die in particularly gruesome ways. Yes, some deaths are the same as the original film, and some of them look better than others (this is still 2001 we’re talking about). But overall I think most of them were a big improvement and in some cases more…eh… bombastic and impactful than their original counterparts, shall we say. In particular there is a very nice birds-eye-view shot of a victim falling to their death from the top of the tower before going “splat!” at the bottom. So not only are things a lot bloodier (quite a bit, in fact), but it also looks like Maas was also able to get a bit more creative with parts of the film as well. So that’s nice.


AIEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee……!

Another improvement, do you perhaps remember me complaining about all the weird relationship nonsense in the first film regarding Felix and his estranged and jealous wife? You know, that part of the plot that felt completely unimportant and unnecessary? Well, that’s gone now. Marshall the repairman is single, so his relationship with the journalist is completely on the up-and-up, and we’re not forced to watch some douchebag contend with his angry wife due to an awkward series of misunderstandings. We may get to see Marshall act like a bit of a douchebag in other ways, but thankfully awkward and unnecessary marital issues due to busybody friends are not among them. Whew!


He does end up punched quite a bit though.

And the humor in this version? A lot more overt. There’s also more of it and it’s better spaced out. In the original the dark humor was a bit too front loaded, with the back half being more serious. But here, you get weirdness throughout, both from dark and outlandish deaths, and in the form of kookie characters. Some are more subtle and stranger than others. But the detective is fun, and the angry, chain-smoking daycare worker, who tells all the “little bastards” to shut up, and that half of them will be “drinking Drano” in a few years, is a psychotic joy to behold  (Dutch actress Hanneke Riemer, credited as “Ilsa, the Nanny From Hell”).


I love you Ilsa *wistful sigh*

Also on that note, while maybe not necessarily “better” but still a nice notation nonetheless, is that all the acting here is pretty top-notch. You’ve got Naomi Watts right before she really hit stardom, so she’s clearly putting in her best effort. But you’ve also got great character actors like Edward Herrmann, Dan Hedaya, Ron Perlman, and freaking Michael Ironside off in the periphery doing what they do best. And then Maas went and stacked the extras with famous Norwegian talent, so even some of the people who are barely on screen know what the hell they’re doing. I think the only chink in the chain is James Marshall, because he seems to be the only one taking things WAY to seriously considering he’s in a movie about a killer elevator. But other than him I have nothing to complain about.



Along with the bigger budget, however, came some new, and in some cases even bigger annoyances as well.

Issue 1: Damn it, Maas, I’m sorry but your movie is still WAY too long. You’ve gone and made a movie about a killer elevator and you’ve filled it with flashier deaths and more dark humor, AND cut out the useless melodrama mambo-jumbo from the original. And that’s GREAT! Yet there are STILL too many scenes filled with people just standing around and talking. Yes, some of that talking may be necessary for us to figure out what’s going on (Well, for other people to figure out what’s going on. I watched the original…), but I can count at least three scenes off the top of my head that could have been cut without losing anything other than some time. I mean, sure, I enjoyed watching Marshall getting slugged in the face as much as the next guy, but I still fail to see why watching him eat breakfast and get punched was wholly necessary for the plot.


He really needs to unify his design concept.

And Issue #2: What the hell was up with that entire final act? I get wanting to make everything more intense and all, and I guess I can see how linking the killer elevator to ‘terrorism’ could potentially do that. But the way the authorities go about everything, and the added time it takes Marshall to sneak around all of them just feels… I don’t know, bizarre.

Okay, so you think terrorists are to blame for the elevator shooting straight up, the floor falling apart at four corners as if it were constructed with hinges and held together with tape (which I’m still not sure how THAT worked, but whatever), and then going so fast that it almost shoots completely through the top of the building? I can see how you might come to that conclusion. So now you’re going to conduct some sort of investigation, right? Maybe try to figure out how that one dead guy you somehow think is involved ended up hanging in the elevator shaft, or who he was working with and what their motive might be and… Pardon, what was that? You’re not going to do any of that? You’re just going to inexplicably fill the whole building with S.W.A.T. teams and have them carry large crates of ammo and RPGs up to the building’s roof and then simply have the officers wander around, not even have them do sweeps of each floor individually as they go through the building? Um, alright, I guess I could maybe see how that might…eh…uh…. Actually, no I don’t see how any of that is helpful at all. Because none of what you’re doing makes any goddamn sense. WTF, guys?


No, really, why are you taking munitions to the roof? Like, walk me through this thought process.

I just…eh… I don’t know. Part of me likes this movie for all its dark humor and relative quirkiness. But another part of me is really puzzled by some of the story beats. I mean, yeah, the way they handled the terrorist thing seems way over-the-top and nonsensical. But another thing is, that after watching two different versions of this movie, I’m still trying to figure out how anyone adding a “bio-chip” to an elevator was supposed to in some way be beneficial. Like, what was the end goal there, evil scientific genius guy? It didn’t work on anything the first dozen or so times you tried using it for the military, so you decided to try to repurpose this already established faulty thing on something where people’s lives were possibly at stake? Couldn’t you have started with something a lot smaller and a little less lethal to try it on to work out all the kinks first? Like maybe a toaster oven or something? A fan perhaps? Why the elevator? I don’t know, and I guess I never will, because all we get is the implication that it’ll make them a lot of money. But we’re never told how that’s supposed to work for them, so I guess that part of the plot shall forever remain a mystery.


Though to be fair, I’m not really sure how THIS was supposed to have worked either, so…

Overall though, this is still a pretty average thriller. It’s got its high points, but the slower pacing and some questionable plot points keep it from being great. Which is a shame, because it really is filled with some very entertaining talent. So the original still ends up being a little bit better. But if you like weirdness and dark humor mixed into your thrillers, then this is probably worth at least one watch.

Oh, and one final, interesting note about the movie, is that while it was released straight to video in the United States, it was originally intended for theatrical run some time at the end of the year. But then September 11 happened and the theatrical release was scrapped. Not just because it involved terrorism at a New York City tower (though I’m sure that was a big part of it), but also because towards the end of the film there’s a throw-away line that makes mention of the Twin Towers terrorist attack 10 years prior to the movie’s release, AND Bin Laden’s involvement. So because of that prophetic oopsie of epic proportions, the movie only premiered at Cannes, had its title changed (and then changed back a couple years later), and then went straight to VHS.

Down is available on a variety of streaming services. It may also be listed under its alternate title of The Shaft (and occasionally it’s listed as both).

Down is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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