Feature film
The Lift
De lift
Dick Maas · 1983
Synopsis
Amsterdam, a new office tower. After a dinner on the fifteenth floor, a few slightly merry guests ride down in the lift; lightning strikes, the cabin stops and the ventilation cuts out. Other accidents follow, always in the same lift: a blind man falls into the shaft, a night watchman loses his head in it. Felix Adelaar, the repairman, finds no fault, and a journalist convinces him that something is being kept from him.
Context
The shoot took thirty days, on a budget of about three hundred and thirty thousand dollars, and the electronic music is by the director himself, played on two Roland synthesizers; the producer had first wanted another. Warner Brothers bought the rights for the rest of the world. A scene was reused the following year in a music video by the same director for a rock band, in which the lead actor reappears as a repairman. The film was restored in 2017 under the supervision of the director and his editor.
Who it is for
About one hour forty in Dutch, the sources differing on the running time. It is worth knowing that the subtitled version is better than the English dubbing.
Prizes and reception
Golden Calf for best direction in 1983; the most-watched Dutch horror film, the first from the country bought for worldwide release, and remade in 2001.