Elevated

I saw Elevated and was immediately reminded of a movie I had recently enjoyed, Cube. After a check on IMDB, I was pleasantly surprised to find out they both had the same director. Like Cube, Elevated is a movie that bears thinking about in the days after the viewing. I'd recommend it to anyone who liked Cube, as well as movies like Dead Calm, and Death and the Maiden, which have a small cast and limited set changes.

A woman is taking an elevator to her parking garage. A burly workman joins her, and shortly thereafter a second man enters the elevator, only this guy is covered in blood and in a state of panic. He claims monsters or possibly aliens have invaded the building and they must remain in the elevator to stay alive. Pretty soon, it becomes a battle of wits among the trio. David Hewlett, a familiar face from British and American movies and TV, plays the bloodied man. This short horror film is tense and scary, and a model for no-budget flicks. From the man who brought us CUBE. Warning: this is not a film for the squeamish. I haven't seen this much blood since I worked in a hospital emergency room on Saturday nights.

I saw this film on the IFC at two thirty in the morning, and I didn't see any introduction for it, just the opening shot. The entire film was quite excellent and very suspenseful, with a killer climax. I doubt this is available commercially, but if you see it on tv, be sure to check it out. When I checked the other user comments I noticed it's by Cube's director - knowing that makes the similarities between the two quite obvious (set of people in one room with no clear directive).

Actually I have no idea how much this cost, but in terms of location economy you can't beat a lift, a corridor and a car park! This short has distinctive characters, humour, paranoia, gore and a double-barrel twist, plus it comes in at under 20 minutes - very restrained. It also underlines (or foreshadows, I suppose) why David Hewlett has gone on to make a well deserved niche for himself. He gets far and away the best line, one to be only truly appreciated by real cult horror/sci-fi fans no doubt - the specifics went over my head even if the meaning and delivery didn't. Elevated found its way onto a French (or at least French-language) DVD release of CUBE, along with a nice variety of Cube extras incidentally, and was well worth the price alone. Go on, seek it out...

Two people get into a lift and are met by a madman who claims the monsters from the ALIEN movies are taking over the block . What can two people alone in a lift with a madman do to protect themselves ?

It's said if you have a zero budget for a movie you can still write a script featuring three people in a lift . Guess what ? ELEVATED has a zero budget and features three people in a lift . Well maybe that's slightly untrue because a car park and a few walk ons appear in the last scene but this is a pretty good example of what can be done with no budget . The story itself is absolute nonsense and like most horror shorts we the audience are given no explanations whatsoever as to how the events came about but this doesn't really diminish the film itself , after all many short films are made for the simple reason to get the director and writer noticed at film festivals

I saw ELEVATED for the first and only time several years ago when it was broadcast on channel 4 . The fact that I could remember the title and be able to write a review off the top of my head says something about its quality