Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

domino1003 "Down", (A.K.A. The Shaft) was both funny and scary,and a delightful surprise. I caught this movie completely by accident on TV and it had me glued from the first few minutes. So glued that I ended up buying a copy less than a day later. It's THAT good. In a way it was a throwback to the 80's with cheesy dialog, characters, and implausible situations.Good old New York City has a very nice building called The Millennium Building, one of the most impressive views of the city and killer elevators...LITERALLY. Seems that these elevators have more than your typical "exceeds maximum weight" problems. This elevator does some VERY NASTY THINGS. How nasty? Very very VERY NASTY THINGS.Without revealing too much, my favorite scene had to do with Edward Herrmann, having just seen something so disturbing that he's crawling on his hands and knees. As he's doing this, a young lady is walking by, not tripping on this, says hi to him before SHE sees what he saw.Or was it the skateboarder? Or the pregnant women? Or the bad acting, script and direction? It's just a hoot to watch! It's bad and good, like a big piece of chocolate mousse pie in front a person on a diet. You know you shouldn't bite into it, but you can't help it.Naomi Watts (Before "The Ring" pulled her up a bit), Michael Ironside (And what is it with him and elevators? Remember him as Richter in "Total Recall?"), and even Ron Perlman (I would love to have a boss like him!)walk through this land of cheese and pretty much survive this experience.This is a good film to watch on a Saturday night, with beer and pizza. Enjoy a big hunk of cheese.

lastliberal Believe it or not this is actually a remake of a 1983 film called "The Lift." That title would not translate easily to America, so writer/director Dick Mass, who wrote and directed both films, renamed it The Shaft and set it in Manhattan instead of the Netherlands. Maybe he named it The Shaft as Shaft was already taken, who knows, but that name still wasn't good enough, so the renamed it "Down." What? It doesn't go up? It is really not as bad a film as many seem to think. I like original monsters, and a crazed elevator (or lift as they say in the old country) is interesting. You can certainly get some interesting kills, and we do here. We also get some interesting views from the top floors of the skyscrapers looking into apartment windows.Naomi Watts and James Marshall eventually join together to find the cause of these death, and wouldn't you know it, a mad scientist is involved. Kicked out of everywhere Dr. Gunter Steinberg (Michael Ironside) joins with an elevator repair company to install his microchips that are built with human flesh.Now, that is something I can use when writing reviews - a thinking microchip. "Hey, Ben, do you always have to comment on titties?" "Hey, Ben, you don't give enough credit to the monster." "Hey, Ben, how about a clever line on getting "shafted" in this movie." No, you won't get shafted, and I just have to do the work myself. The movie does have titties, but it also has Dan Hedaya, and I always like him.Check it out.

Lee Eisenberg For the most part Dick Maas's "Down" (alternately called "The Shaft") is your typical horror movie, with some people trying to stop a supremely evil force. But several aspects made this unlike any horror flick that I've ever seen.For starters, the building has that cool art deco look from the '30s. In fact, it looks very much like the edifice in "Ghost Busters" (especially that scene of the statue on the roof). But the truly eye-opening facet is two of the songs that get used in the movie. Not only do we hear "She's Not There" by The Zombies, but there's also the original version of "Come On", of which a later version was the VERY FIRST SONG released by The Rolling Stones! Oh, and later, we hear that someone blew his mind out in a car, just as The Beatles sang in "A Day in the Life".OK, so none of that really relates to the haunted elevator. But I found all that to be the neatest part of the movie. Otherwise it's a regular horror flick. We can forgive Naomi Watts for this one, as this was before she got really famous. In fact, just a few months before "Mulholland Drive". Also starring James Marshall, Michael Ironside, Edward Herrmann and Ron Perlman.PS: I notice that this got released in the Netherlands on September 6, 2001. Had they waited five days, a movie about unpleasant occurrences in a New York skyscraper would have no longer been acceptable.

Scarecrow-88 An elevator shaft, seemingly possessed by a malevolent force, is behind a string of violent attacks on innocents hitching a ride inside the prestigious American landmark Millennium building in New York City. Pleasant elevator repairman, Mark(James Marshall), always having the same troubles holding employment, is basically holding this current job thanks to pal Jeff(Eric Thal). Unfortunately, Mark comes across newspaper reporter Jennifer Evans(a pre-stardom Naomi Watts, who is horribly dressed in this film..it had to be some sort of gag)who misquotes him risking his job and causing the police to label him as a possible suspect behind the evil elevator's malfunction. Mark finds that his friend, and colleague, Jeff had a friend who died tragically..Jeff is also seen speaking with a lab-coated scientist named Steinberg(Michale Ironside)who was canned from a failed military project concerning bio-chip technology fused with the genetics of dolphins. The idea that you can cross computer technology with real living tissue could lead to quite a handsome profit. Could this be the cause of the shaft's going berserk? Joining forces with Jennifer, who shows him a collection of cataloged recordings showing that the supposed suicidal ride of a rollerblader being pulled into and thrown out of the wicked shaft was merely a matter of seconds, Mark will seek to find the truth. When Jeff turns up dead, and it seems a cover-up is taking place labeling him a deranged terrorist, Mark will be extra-motivated in discovering the truth regarding the elevator and how to stop it. The question is will Steinberg, who is passionate about his life-s work, let Mark destroy the evil causing the shaft to kill?A great cast squandered in this perfectly dreadful horror-comedy where it's clear from the get-go the director is winking at you that this hunk of waste is supposed to be giggled at as a tongue-in-cheek parody. If only it were entertaining or funny, but alas it isn't. Loaded with profanity, the film has an ugly streak amongst it's supposed good-natured humor. A B-movie failure that was a chore to sit through. It only has some gory bits, and that cast, going for it. Ron Pearlman is wasted as the head of Meteor Elevator Repair.