Customer Reviews

The Shaft [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Remember, folks, this movie was made before the awful disaster on 9/11. Wisely, the movie got held until later. So, if you consider that, the terrorist implication and the jokes about Bin Laden perhaps formed a sort of foreshadowing or warning. At any rate, I found "The Shaft" rather enjoyable. It has several really disturbing scenes: the death of the skateboarder was incredibly paced and filmed; the floor dropping out was mindboggling; and even the decapitated security guard's death was nerve-wracking. Add some really "humorous" asides: the foul mouthed day care teacher was way out of left field. The performances were adequate. Take Naomi Watts off of her post-Shaft pedestal (Mulholland Drive/The Ring) and you get a young actress doing the best with what she had. James Marshall who also worked with Lynch on Twin Peaks is effective, not great. Eric Thal did a nice job as his friend Jeffrey; Michael Ironside, Ron Pearlman and Dan Hedaya were effective in their almost cameo roles. Even Edward Hermann looking more and more like a younger Rudy Vallee captured the right amount of commercialism in his role. Maybe they did use the f word a little too much, but have you noticed that if the f word gets used a lot in a critically acclaimed movie (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, etc.) no one gripes about that.
Take THE SHAFT for what it is--an above average thriller that delivers.

This movie does for elevators what The Legend of Boggy Creek 2 did for Mad Dog attacks. It's all about elevators with human brains that force women into premature labor, teach skaters not to smoke pot, pose as terrorists and kill men, women, children, the blind and their seeing eye dogs. James Marshall stars as an ex-marine elevator repairman that plays air guitar. He's really come a long way since his Twin Peaks days-this is the male equivalent of being spit out of the bottom of the porn industry. Naomi Watts' portrayal of the smut journalist rivals that of James Earl Jones in The Ambulance. I must warn you that she is much, much less naked than she is in Mulholand Dr. It boggles the mind that she made Lynch's Oscar nominated tribute to ambiguity, The Ring and The Shaft all in the same year. The rest of the cast is a duck gallery of B-movie actors: Ron Perlman (the brilliantly played retarded/perverted monk Salvatore in The Name of the Rose as well as Konstantine Konali in Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow), Dan Hedaya (Karla's ex-husband on Cheers, Richard Nixon in Dick and Alicia Silverstone's father in Clueless), Edward Herrmann (the head, middle-age single mother chasing vampire in The Lost Boys), Michael Ironside (from Starship Troopers, and Seaquest fame) and many more that I'm tired of looking up. Martin McDougall and John Cariani star as a pair of porn-obsessed night watchman that are salute to the bumbling law enforcers in Plan 9 from Outer Space. Well...maybe they are. The movie works on many levels, e.g., most of the people who rent or buy this movie end up feeling like they got The Shaft. I really can't figure out if it's good or bad. It's either very, very clever or one of the worst I've ever seen. Nonetheless, I'm buying the DVD.

So the Millennium building in NYC has a killer elevator. Why is it killing people you ask? An elevator repairman and a newspaper reporter(Naomi Watts) are hot on the case. And hot definitely describes Naomi Watts. I got a real kick out of these two. They're very entertaining, and there's some fun elevator kills to boot.

Yes this movie is cheesy. If you're expecting something like The Exorcist or Alien, you might want to check the cover of the DVD box - it's a killer elevator movie for chrissakes. If you're in the mood for a cheesy good time, you'll probably enjoy the heck out of it. I know I did. And yes, they did figure out a way to fit Aerosmith's Love in an Elevator into the perfect closing credits scene.

"The Shaft" is definitely one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. The premise about an elevator with demonic powers is just plain silly. It's difficult to believe that someone actually pitched this idea to a studio, and it was green-lighted. It's as bad as any desperate attempt by Irwin Allen to make a disaster movie back in the 1980s.

The dialogue is so laughable and the acting is so wooden, it's amazing that Naomi Watts's career survived. I have been a big fan of Naomi Watts ever since I saw her in "King Kong" and "21 Grams." I'm glad I saw those films before seeing this one on a late-night cable channel.

While "The Shaft" is a stupid movie, it's not without its redeeming qualities. There are some good if gruesome special effects involving the elevator decapitating a security guard and the elevator racing to the roof of the building with its passengers meeting their doom.

And since everything seems to be played tongue-in-cheek, the filmmakers don't expect us to take any of it seriously, so we can laugh at this movie without claiming that the humor is unintentional.

My complaint is not that the humor is unintentional, only that it is unfunny and flat.

The Shaft (Dick Maas, 2001)

The Shaft, also known as Down, is one of those incredible train wrecks that makes you wonder how so very many recognizable people found themselves attached to such a godawful movie. Dutch director Maas (probably best known on this side of the pond for Amsterdamned) revisits his own De Lift (1983), but with a much more ambitious scope and an American setting.

The plot: Mark Newman (Twin Peaks' criminally underutilized James Marshall), an elevator repairman, begins to suspect something's hinky, when the elevators in New York's Millennium Building start acting weird. Accompanied by perky reporter Jennifer Evans (Ring's Naomi Watts), he has to figure out what's going on. Yeah, that's pretty much it, with most of the movie dedicated to the elevator's antics, goin' 'round killin' anyone who gets in its path, and a few others just for fun.

But what's really crazy about this movie is the cast. Watts would be nominated for an academy award two years later for 21 Grams, and won the AFI Best Actress award the same year this came out for Mulholland Dr.. Marshall's partner is played by Eric Thal (Snow Falling on Cedars). His boss is Ron Perlman (Hellboy, and a Golden Globe winner for his TV work in Beauty and the Beast). The bad guy is played by Michael Ironside (Scanners). Dan Hedaya, who also showed up in Mulholland Dr., is the lieutenant the police assign to the case. This is not a trivial cast by any means. And somehow Maas manages, Uwe Boll-like, to pull the worst possible performance out of each of these characters. Perlman comes off ham-handed, Watts ineffective. And Ironside? This is the guy who played Daryl Revok? Oh, how the mighty have fallen-- at least for this one flick.

Amusing, in a horrifying sort of way. But avoid unless you have absolutely nothing else to do. * ½

The first thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that the acting is not good at all. Not even Naomi Watts (whom I enjoyed in 'The Ring') could deliver a line like she really meant it. You don't realize how annoying bad acting is until you see an entire movie full of it.

The second thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that every other word spoken by anyone is the F word. At first, it was cute. After the 600th time I heard it, I decided to give up swearing for good. The only other thing more annoying than bad acting? Over-use of the F word.

The third thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that the elevators are evil! I've heard of people being evil. I've even heard of buildings being evil. But...an elevator? Actually, it may be more than just one elevator, but something freaky is happening in the Millennium Building in New York, and people are dying. Naomi plays a reporter who thinks there's a lot more to these deaths than just a malfunction. So, she teams up with an elevator repairman to get to the the bottom of it. Is it terrorists? Is the building built over an Indial burial ground? (yes, believe it or not, that was mentioned as a possibility.) Or is the elevator just a quick way to travel to hell? A couple of the scenes in the elevators reminded me of the elevator scene in 'Speed', and I wished I was watching that instead. I will admit that a couple of the evil elevator scenes were kinda cool, but the ending was just downright silly (and not well-explained).

The fourth thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that it could have had potential - not to be a box office horror hit, but to at least be a decent straight-to-video release. Of course, they would have had to recast the entire cast, rewrite the script and explain themselves a little better in the end. If the movie had been done correctly, it should have made me scared to death to ever set foot in an elevator again (I've never liked elevators at all), but I'll still take my chances if it's 4 or more floors I have to travel up.

Do not waste your time on this. If you want to see Naomi in a better-acted, better-scripted movie, get 'The Ring'. If you want to watch a movie about an evil building, try 'The Shining'. But if you want my advice, I'd suggest taking the stairs.

"The Shaft" is one of those guilty pleasures you feel somewhat abashed at liking. I even feel embarrassed at giving this movie four stars. The plot is off the wall, some of the acting sucks like a Hoover vac, and the whole thing comes off like a bad C movie. But I gotta admit -- it's a helluva lot of fun to watch.

So here we are in New York City in the Millenium Building, 102 stories high, just like the Empire State Building which it may or may not be representing. There's a big bank of elevators servicing the building. Some of them, for some weird reason, seem to have developed a mind of their own and start acting out in all kinds of crazy, nasty, and just plain lethal ways.

One elevator suddenly turns into a sauna, trapping a dozen women in the end stages of pregnancy who have just left their Lamaze class and causing them to go into labor and give birth right there on the floor. Another elevator door opens into an empty shaft, down which plunges a blind man and his dog. A third elevator sucks in a skateboarder like a pneumatic tube, shoot him 86 stories up like a rocket taking off, and propels him out through the nearest window 86 floors down, leaving the poor guy splashed like an overripe melon all over the sidewalk. Yuck. Another elevator full of passengers zooms up the shaft while the floor drops out, dumping everybody to their deaths below before it finally zooms through the roof. A security guard is decapitated and a cop is cut in half. These elevators aren't kidding around.

A repairman, somewhat woodenly played by James Marshall, can't find a thing wrong with them but something's evidently out of wack with all these elevators doing their own thing and making all kinds of mayhem. An ambitious newspaper reporter (doesn't every horror movie have to have one of those?), played by Naomi Watts, thinks Somebody is hiding Something and goes off to investigate. Of course she's right. Turns out a mad scientist (another stock character) has been experimenting with bio-chips and planted them in the elevator shaft. You can figure the rest out for yourself.

There's a supporting cast that includes Michael Ironside as Dr. Demento and Ron Perlman as the guy who hired him and lived to regret it, and the cast give adequate performances for the most part, but the stars of this film, of course, are those crazy-creepy elevators. There's also a great scene with two teenagers in a breath-taking skateboarding race through the streets of midtown Manhattan into the garage of the Millenium Building, from which one emerges shouting "Beat ya!" and the other emerges shot like a cannonball from the elevator screaming bloody murder. Don't even think of taking this movie seriously. Just accept it for the cheesy camp it is and enjoy the ride.

Judy Lind

I say this a lot, but man ya gotta wonder what a lot of the most negative reviewers were thinking when they decided to watch the movie about the murderous elevator. It's corny, you say? Cheesy? Silly? It is really? Geez, thanks for the input. You'd hope that people would be expecting, nay, wanting something cheesy when they rent the killer elevator movie, but apparently this isn't necessarily the case.

So, obviously, 'The Shaft doesn't work as a straight horror film, but it is quite delightful as a camp horror film. I'm not 100% certain how we're supposed to take this film. It's definitely at least a horror-comedy but it might be an out and out parody. Personally, I get the impression that it is intentionally ambiguous as to its true nature in an attempt to appeal both to the pure camp crowd and the utterly indiscriminate horror fans. No matter what the case, I found it quite entertaining. Whether or not you'll like the film is a tougher call. I suspect the best way is just to ask yourself if the idea of a haunted elevator is amusing to you or not. If it is, go see this movie right now.

Sadly, this movie doesn't have as much elevator action as you'd anticipate. Certainly, it has it's share, perhaps enough for an 80-90 minute film, but this thing is like 110 minutes and really emphasizes the investigation. Now this stuff is still pretty cool and all, but we need more flaming death elevator. I also think it's cute how this movie is as long as it is, and yet it hardly explains anything. There are basically 3 questions you might have: Why are the elevator's sentient? Why do they have magical powers? And why do they wanna kill people? The film only answers the first question, and while I doubt they could've made intriguing answers to the next two ones I think it's funny that they don't even try.

This movie has more people you might've heard of than you'd expect for an direct to DVD horror film. It's got a then unknown Naomi Watts, Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya, Edward Hermann and Michael Ironside. (Even if you don't know those names I bet you'll recognize some of the actors when you see them.) The performances are generally pretty over the top, as well they ought to be, and really bolster the amusing dialogue. (Also, Watts is pleasant to ogle, as usual. More so than usual, as a matter of fact.) A few of the deliberate jokes are almost painful, but it's got plenty of funny lines, regardless of whether they were all intended to be funny. Also, there's comes a point where if you say a single word enough times (in this case 'elevator', obviously) it becomes funny for no apparent reason. I also enjoyed the insensitive references to terrorists and the shots of the WTC. (This film was shot shortly before 9/11)

I also like that this film is a bit more juvenile and cruel than your average horror film. It's great that Maas kills a dog in the film. People always flip out when you hurt or kill an animal in film and I've always hated that reaction. It's loose enough this way that when the adorable little girl goes near the elevators, I actually believed that she might get wasted.

This movie is full frame, for some reason. What sorta company releases a film in full frame alone in the year 2003? They shouldn't be releasing them like that at all until all the stupid full framers just convert. This is especially annoying since this movie was apparently shot in 2.35:1 unlike most cheap horror films which are merely 1.85:1 and don't suffer nearly as much from being cropped. But oh well, I doubt it had any fantastic cinematography that I missed out on due to this. Also, the only extra this comes with is the trailer. It's a good one however. If you weren't excited to see the movie about the evil elevator before, you will be. Very soon. In fact, the trailer makes the movie look like it's gonna be more awesome than it is.

Well that's it. 'The Shaft' is just good campy fun. I'm surprised it's not better known than it is. This sorta wackiness if the kinda thing camp film lovers dream about. Ah well, maybe in a couple years...

Grade: C+

(Note, grades on camp films and good-bad films are generally pretty meaningless from me. I've never come up with a real system for it. Suffice to say I enjoyed this a lot.)

I caught this movie by mistake and the synopsis of the film sounded good. While the local video store was going out of buisness, I found it under drama. Well known actors like Naomi Watts (The Ring) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) star in this mess. The film is way to long and parts of it doesnt even make sense. The killings are bad as you can tell all were done poorly with CGI. The last death with the man getting his legs crushed did look pretty good. I do not recommend this to anyone. Killer elevators sounds like a good idea but trust me, this movie isnt worth the time.

THE SHAFT, (not to be comfused with the more well-known movie, "SHAFT"), is an interesting little thriller that holds your attentioin from beginning to end. An evil elevator wants to kill people in a NYC office building. There are thrills and chills. The acting, directing, production values, and background music are not spectacular -- but certainly better than average.

The best part of this movie, for me, was at the VERY end. I am not giving away any of the plot, (I don't think), when I say that two of the characters find their way to the rooftop of the building. Since this was shot in NYC, before 9/11, the panorama of the New York City skyline INCLUDES THE WORLD TRADE CENTER! For anyone who is, like myself, a native New Yorker who lived during the "lifetime" of the WTC -- and/or someone who came to visit NYC as a tourist, and saw these buildings, and what was inside them, first-hand, as well -- this last scene, truly, is THE highlight of this movie. Sadly, of course, no one who worked on this movie -- or who saw it in its initial theatrical release -- knew of the far greater horror/terror, lurking just a few years away, in deadly reality. I'm usually not one for colloquial language, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who would like to give "the shaft" to a certain Iranian gentleman with the initials: O.B.L.!

Until he gets his just desserts, enjoy this movie, "The Shaft", for it's thrills, credible storyline, dialogue, acting, music, and production details. And be sure to see that last scene. It's really a true winner...in more ways than one. :_(