Review of Abwärts

Abwärts (1984)
6/10
confined space, small cast, fair thriller
4 February 2005
In 1983, there was a Dutch movie about a killer elevator called De Lift (which was remade by the director in 2001). Here's a German movie from 1984 about a killer elevator. Funny how that happens. Anyway, the one in De Lift was evil, but this one is just poorly designed and maintained.

Four people get stuck in an elevator: a couple, a younger guy, and an older man with a suitcase. The night watchman doesn't notice the problem since the alarm had been turned off for the repairman who'd been there earlier. They try to get out, hurting themselves and smashing up the elevator in the process. They bicker a lot. The hand-held video-game playing, walkman-wearing young man is annoying, and the woman is surprisingly slutty. The actress is rather unusual-looking, with eyebrows tweezed away to almost nothing, and hair in a style that emphasizes how high her hairline is and how thin her hair is. Whoever did that to her should never have gotten the job!

When repairmen come, they give the security guard a hard time. He has a German accent (the video I watched was dubbed in English), which they mock, and they complain about foreigners. I thought that was weird, since the movie was German. Did he have an American accent in the German-language version? I was also surprised that they try to raise the elevator car, rather than lower it; I wonder if that is the procedure in real life?

Still, I enjoyed this. It's not great, but is entertaining enough.

I wonder if the elevator horror subgenre is played out. Someone ought to have one involving a paternoster lift (look it up) - those are pretty unusual; a friend of mine had ridden one and told me about it.

Incidentally, the Worst Case Scenario Handbook writers have evidently advised the best way to survive a plummeting elevator is to lie down flat on the floor.
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