Elevator Game

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.

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.

I think this movies biggest problem is its opening 10 minutes., and if I was reviewing based on that only, it would have got 1 star. There are too many obnoxious characters, over acting in the featured, fictional, online show, and I agree, was poorly acted for the most part. However, the two main characters are not to bad, and carry the story through. And I do think the acting in general improves as the film progresses. This obviously wasn't a big budget movie, so don't go expecting big budget CGI, but I liked the plot and the suspense, the effects had an almost eighties kind of vibe to them. While I understand this not appealing to all tastes, I enjoyed iot for what it was. Just get past the opening sequence and enjoy the ride.

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.

This is not terrible by any means. I can imagine that with someone like Sam Raimi at the helm this might have become a decent, scary little horror film. However what we have is TikTok driven fan fiction.

There are one or two jump scares here and there but none of it makes any sense.

The major problem is the acting or rather the over acting, the over emoting, the actors and their total lack of talent. Everyone is absolutely awful. So bad that we end up rooting for the elevator demon type thingy.

There may be another one, who can say. It was obviously filmed on a small budget however it didn't crack a million at the box office.