El juego del ascensor

Another unimaginative, sub-mid shovel-ware movie. Nothing really stands out, the acting was lethargic and absolutely nothing stood. This is the kind of movie you throw out when you are vacuuming and folding laundry. That's probably the best thing I can say about it.

This movie feels like another low-effort offering for 12 to 14 year olds that want to get into Horror movies and this movie will gently hold their hand and ease them into things. The antagonist is simply called "The 5th Floor Woman", and that's fine. I didn't really care to invest enough brain cells thinking too hard about how this movie pandered to kids who think the Back Rooms or Slenderman are scary.

I call this kind of offering "Sesame Street Horror" because it basically spoon feeds you mild jump scares for an hour and a half.

Again with this tacky social media challenge/investigator horror movie formula. Shudder wiffed on this one. The setup in the first few minutes was probably the best part, and that's not saying much. The next 30-45 minutes of a bunch of social media hucksters banter back and forth is quite dull. I was not interested in anything they had to say, and no interest watching them stumble through their pitiful plight on their devices. Sometime after that we get a frightening scene, more pointless dialogue, and then we get to watch someone sift through web pages for a while.. and then I think I dozed off. I gave it a star for some ok-but-sparse tense scenes, but I couldnt come up with anything else worth mentioning. Bottom of the barrel stuff for Shudder flicks.

It is becoming a trend, the self aware horror. Ever since the original Scream, can't believe I have to say "original Scream" but ok, counting down to movies like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Final Girls, Fear Street, Talk to me, and so on, movie characters don't act like movie characters anymore.

If they are in a zombie movie, they know what zombies are, and the same happen here: characters that quickly accept their situation and try to find a way out. How do they do it? Well exactly like you would see in a horror film, by going back to the beginning, seeing how it all started and finding the way to end it.

Elevator Game is somewhat fun and sort of smart but it doesn't reach the heights of an original masterpiece. Characters are overall bland and boring, the plot is easy to predict and sadly...they went with a lot of bone cracking. I think this technique is overused and it just doesn't impress anymore. Should have done something different with our main killer.

It's no Grudge, no The Ring, the villain has very little screen time and whenever it does appear, its presence has no impact.

For a one time view, I think you should definitely try it. It's out there with Countdown (2019), Come play (2020) or Megan (2022). Close to something great, but not quite there.

Cheers!

From the jump you can tell this is going to be your quintessential, un-self-aware indie horror with questionable acting, script and plot.

For the first 45 minutes it is exactly that, but in an unoffending way. You have your expected token characters with their quippy banter that isn't as clever as they think it is and some community theater like acting... and it's fine for the most part. It then hits a climax scene and it is... jarring to say the least. I don't know why literally anyone on set didn't tell the actor playing Kris that he was not in an off broadway production of The Shining, but I was literally sitting on my couch actively cringing throughout that entire scene... and honestly at that point I blame direction. From then on it pretty steadily goes down hill. I would say it was riddled with plot holes but Swiss cheese is just made that way so we will let it go...

On a positive note, I will say when the creep factor hit, it was pretty solid at times. A lot of the kills and the gore were pretty cool and I was surprisingly impressed with the sfx/cgi. I will say however, the makeup for the ghost/demon was unsuccessful and was serving up Party City body paint unfortunately. The movie also looked quite nice in general. Good picture quality and solid shots/editing. As far as acting went, the folks who played Chloe and Matty had some potential, but everything just felt so stilted and unintentionally campy that there wasn't much room for success regardless. It felt like maybe this was a first go around for the majority of the cast and in the least patronizing way possible, everything is a learning experience and not everything is always going to be your best work and that's okay.

At large, while still retaining some positive attributes, this movie didn't hit the way they wanted it to. I wouldn't say it was unsuccessful per se, but there were many variables that added up to a very amateurish fruition. I think that the cast and crew should still be proud of what they accomplished but as far as recommendation goes, I would probably have to say to pass on this one.

So I was born in the early 80s and, as a result, I grew up in a time when video rentals were a thing. Back then, if you rented a horror movie, it could fall into one of three categories: Big-budget film that had had a major cinema release, small-budget indie that was made by creative people with limited resources, or small-budget cash grab, made by people who just viewed making films as a way to make some money, with no real creativity or imagination involved; make the box look interesting and someone will pay to watch it.

Movies are distributed differently nowadays but, had it been released back then, The Elevator Game would fall into the latter category.

The plot is formulaic and unimaginative, locking on to a particular idea that the filmmakers thought was current and popular (It's already out-dated). It tries to incorporate modern tropes, such as YouTube videos and influencers, but does it so ineptly that it just shows how little actual knowledge the people at the helm have of these things, resorting to exaggerated and inaccurate stereotypes.

The characters are all stereotypical horror archetypes with zero depth, and the casting of some characters defies belief (why does the "high-school intern" look older than his colleagues?)

The make-up and effects are about the level you'd expect from a mediocre Halloween party.

The acting is generally poor but, to be fair, I think there is some real talent here. The problem is the capable actors are stifled by awful scripting and direction. I won't single anyone out but there are actors in this film who I really can see - and hope I will see - going on to bigger and better things.

Ultimately, this just felt like an unimaginative, made-to-order movie that was created solely to pad out Shudder's library of original films and earn someone, somewhere a few extra bucks.