Der Lift

Just writing to correct the previous reviewer (2002), who has put his review with the wrong film. He was reviewing Dick Maas's "De Lift" (1983), which is about a killer elevator.

"DER Lift" was a 1972 German made-for-television movie by George Tressler, synopsized below by Thomas Brandlmeier:

"Hermann is a young farmer, a laborer in a carpentry workshop, and too eager to waste time on a poorly profitable farm. When he is offered the opportunity to work as a ski instructor for the season, he doesn't hesitate for long: he quits his job, leaves his parents and the farm to themselves, and throws himself enthusiastically into the exciting life of a winter sports resort. And although he is overwhelmed by the new surroundings, with their "modern" customs and lack of commitment, he finds it difficult to return at the end of the season. Half-heartedly, he returns to his old routine - in the hope that the vague promise of a very rich German ski tourist to hire him as a chauffeur will turn into a concrete commitment and that a new life will begin for him far away from his homeland. {...} The Lift is about the tourist destruction of landscape and people. [...] Money, women, society, everything breaks over the farm boy like a storm surge. This person will never be the same again. Tressler shows this without any judgment, as an opportunity, as a risk, as a statement."

Just in case you were in doubt, this movie is indeed about an elevator.

(minor spoilage warning)

There really isn't much to say about this movie, it speaks for itself. To give you some examples of the thought and effort that went into Der Lift, the slogan of the elevator company is "Our Lifts Go Up And Down". The 'horror' part of the movie involves things like: people get into the elevator, the doors close, it goes up a floor, the doors open, the people are dead on the floor, ominous music plays. The climax of the movie hinges on the idea that evil sentient goo-dripping microchips ("chips!") can be killed (or something) with a few shots from a revolver. I feel obliged to mention that the person who shoots the "chips!" does so while standing inside the evil elevator, but despite the fact that the elevator killed people inside it, it is somehow incapable of doing so right then.

Budding movie-makers should watch this as proof that you can make a movie without money or ideas. Bad movie buffs should watch this to say that they've watched it (this is my excuse). NOBODY ELSE should watch this movie.