Séduit par la présence de Naomie Watts j'ai perdu mon temps en regardant ce...cette
in french ça s'appelle :L' ASCENSEUR (NIVEAU 2)
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Wow... uh, where to begin...
Author: michael h from Atlanta, GA
7 July 2008
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Just for kicks, let's pretend you're a disgraced military scientist. You want to create "bio-machines" that incorporate mechanical devices with human intelligence. However, your first attempts were always kind of hard to control and turned out a little, well, homicidal. So the military fired you... but of course you want to continue your research. Well why not continue your dangerous research on an elevator in a busy, New York skyscraper that's open to the public? Seems like a good plan. What could possibly go wrong?
That's the plot of this one. The elevator kills people because it is partially powered by human brain cells and is apparently evil for no good reason. Yep. Sound scary? Sound at all plausible? Didn't think so.
This might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The shocking thing is that Naomi Watts shows up as a newspaper reporter trying to get the scoop on the "killer elevator". What on earth is a real star doing in this thing? I realize it was earlier in her career, but one would think her standards were better than this. Did she read the script before taking the job? Ron Perlman shows up as well; maybe he failed to check out the script too.
The dialogue is so bad it's hard to even laugh at it. The acting is hard to stomach. This movie just goes to show that a bad script and bad direction can make any actor look terrible. James Marshall is particularly laughable as the leading man. He looks like a high school drama student trying to remember his lines for the big play.
The premise is so strange. Of all the things to experiment on, why would the scientist choose an elevator? Do we really need a super-intelligent elevator? With such a bad premise, one can certainly imagine how the half-baked plot plays out.
It's hard to think of one good thing about this movie. It did make me laugh occasionally with its overall amateurish look and terrible dialogue. However, it's not a fun, campy B-movie. Down (aka The Shaft) is just plain boring, formulaic and doesn't make much sense.
Elevator from hell
Author: thomas stavland from Norway
3 June 2011
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Okey, where to begin... This is one of the worst films ever made.. I cant believe this movie ever got the budget it needed to get made.
Spoilers!!
It is about an elevator who kills the people who rides it. And the only way to "Kill" or destroy the elevator is to destroy its hart.. i repeat, its HART.. The story is bad, the acting is bad and the movie should be listed as a comedy because with the storyline in the movie, it is very hard to take it seriously as a horror film.
I do not recommend anybody to watch this because its awful.. Just awful..
1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
It's like the Godfather if the Godfather would have stunk
Author: "Sparky" Fike (meatwadlives@hotmail.com) from Oakland, Maryland, United States
14 March 2006
"Down" is the "story" of an elevator shaft that is killing people. I watched it under the thought that it was somehow related to the movie "Shaft" with Richard Roundtree boy was I wrong.
Let me start with what this movie does right. Now that that's out of the way how this movie strayed into the land of "From Justin to Kelly"It does everything a bad Horror movie does nudity at the beginning for no reason, more cursing than a ship full of sailors, and the death scenes are lame that add nothing to the movie.
The story is like class on the "Jerry Springer Show" non-existence. At first I think the killer is Indians, Germans, or Dolphins. Yes dolphins. Flipper hates big buildings. This move tries to build suspense but try after try just left me disappointed not shocked.
The acting was the things "Razzies" are made of. During the movie I wished Sinbad would come and save the movie.
To summarize I don't know what is sadder this movie or the fact that I sat though it. If you have an hour and fifty-five minutes to kill by watching this movie please don't.
1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Pure stupidity
Author: rodjon from Stockholm, Sweden
8 October 2003
This has got to be the worst movie I've witnessed for years! I thought John Carpenter's "Ghosts of Mars" would hold that nomination for quite some time, but this romp makes Carpenter's movie shine. Pure waste of time. Avoid at all cost!
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Did This Movie Really Get Made?
Author: Jonathan Funke from NYC
31 July 2006
So let's play Management Consultant Interview and do some quick math. Let's assume 15 million folks in the LA area, each of whom writes at least a screenplay every two years, and, what, like, another 15 mil around NYC...let's say only one in three in NY actually spends every waking moment writing screenplays, but that they're a lot more disciplined about it -- so say one per year.
So that's, like, 12.5 million screenplays PER YEAR -- and they decided to make this one? No new ideas, no script to speak of, no OLD ideas, no obedient tribute to past flicks in the genre, no budget in evidence, no clever way to say "look, ma-no budget!" -- and not even awful in that fun-to-watch way.
Check out my other reviews. I prefer to give praise where it's due. This was a straight-up waste all around.
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
The elevator isn't the only thing wrong here!
Author: thewakinghour from Japan
2 March 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Now, a personal note, I will not write truly negative reviews, no matter how bad the film. I really am astounded at the people who take the time to write about why they think "Citizen Kane" or "Ikiru" or whatever isn't simply "over-rated" but "awful" or "stupid" enough that they have to warn other people NOT to watch them.
Actually, I don't even understand people bother to rate a movie under a "5," even if they don't write a comment.
That said, any "1" from me is meant to reflect an odd sort of applause!
This is a really, really, really bad movie. In the best sense!
The premise, of a bio-engineered elevator system designed by an obsessive ex-military weapons program mad scientist, is, well, pretty lame, however laudably weird, and the script and the acting manage to press every possible drop of the lameness by pretty much every bad-movie device possible: over-acting; poorly-conceived characters with insufficient motivation; ridiculous, yet lame, stereotyping; dull use of excessive profanity; ridiculous direction and cinematography.
In other words: you name it; it's bad.
The final perfection of the lameness here (and, no, I rarely use that particular word in general conversation) is that the monster - some sort of bio-engineered living humanoid braincell larva - is killed at what is supposed to be the climax of the film, before revealing whatever-the-hell form it was about to metamorphose into!
You don't even get to see the monster!?!?!!!
If you have time that's really in need of killing, and this happens to be on TV, watch it. At least until you find something better to do!
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Waste of time and money
Author: Rena from here
6 March 2002
Bad movies either become cult movies very quickly or sink into oblivion. I hope this one will never be heard of again. I voted a clear 1 out of 10. It's so bad, it's hilarious (all for the wrong reasons of course). Oh, by the way: Mr Dick Maas, please, for the sake of all movie-loving people think about opting for a new career. Like selling cars, or refrigerators, or shoes for that matter ... Why oh why did anybody ever invest any money in your script when there are so many wonderful, brilliantly written scripts out there just waiting to be turned into films!
3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Was this a comedy?
Author: miceli123 from United States
3 October 2006
I can't comprehend this movie. It was so ridiculous that I thought it might be a parody, but as time wore on, I realized that there was no sense of humor to it. There were some reasonably big names and it seemed like there was a lot of money behind it. But a horror movie based on a murdering elevator? Just don't go in there.
I also noticed that many of the performers looked downright embarrassed. There is a certain dead eyed expression an actor gets when they realize that they are involved in a real piece of garbage. Just pause this movie once or twice during a close up and you'll see exactly what I mean.
This was just painful in every respect. I can't believe that this was done by professionals. This was basically a movie written by an elevator repairman and meant for the enjoyment of other elevator repairmen. EVERYONE else should stay the hell away.
3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
This movie is so insipid it will blow your mind.
Author: herrtitenfisch02 from United States
6 May 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Holy crap! Who is in charge of green-lighting horror movies these days, a cage full of retard, blind chimps or Hollywood cheesmoes who don't care about quality as long as they make another million? I hope, for humanity's sake, that it is the former because this movie is so stupid, so retarded, so insane, that I can't imagine a room full of people saying "Yes, this movie is good. I'll will help produce it." Unless that dialog was followed by "I am also very drunk and high on crack and have only seen half this movie."
Here's the story- haunted elevator shaft and weird things happen in the elevator and around the building. What's causing it? Ancient Indian burial ground? Vengeful ghost of someone who died in the elevator and whose demise was covered up? Satanist? Aliens? Westinhaus the evil Babylonian god of elevators? Nope. It's a "high tech" new elevator maintenance system that runs off of living human tissue. For no reason. I think they may have mentioned why once or maybe twice in the movie but I was too busy laughing at the cheesiness or crying at the fact that this movie was made to pay close attention. Here come or brave heroes, the New York City elevator maintenance men. I'm not kidding. Our hero- macho- renegade- rag- tag- elevator- maintenance- man- guy investigates the spooky things that happen and finds out that the elevators were invented by some big- shot Yale/ Harvard crazy introvert who was kicked out of the ranks of military engineers because he did spooooky things with technology and living human tissue. So he made the obvious jump from military hardware to elevator technician. Oh, and he's evil. They never explain why, guy's just a bastard, I guess. And to help save the day is Naomi Watts who is apparently trying desperately to chuck all her dignity as an actress right down the toilet. She plays one of those dumb blondes with big breast that dresses like a twelve- year old slut but is also somehow a college- educated feminist with the clichéd radical 'I'm not going to take crap from my male superiors' attitude. Oh, and she has the same exact job that she had in 'The Ring' - the dashing investigative reporter. Figures, that.
Listen- I'm not going to bore on anymore details. Just know this: if your in the mood for a movie that is so incredibly badly retarded it's funny skip this movie and go rent 'Deep Blue Sea' or 'Leprechaun.' If your in the mood for a movie that is so beyond bad to the point that it hurts your head thinking how such utter crap like this ever even got written down on paper and is so stupid it's depressing, however, then this film might be up your alley but you will still hate yourself for renting it. And if you do rent it, try to get someone else to pay for it. What a piece of crap. Oh, yeah one other thing: You were probably wondering this and yes, the movie does play Aerosmith's 'Love in an elevator.' Twice. Ouch.
4 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
What the #!***!
Author: nycrules
5 December 2005
It was actually disturbing how bad this film was. It wasn't even bad in a funny way and at times I wondered if the filmmakers intended certain scenes to be. Either way, they need professional help. I was most disturbed by the fact the beautiful and talented Ms. Watts was in this. Boy did the next object of King Kong's obsession come a long way from this pile of stool! I couldn't believe she was in this wretched mess but even in such grotesque toxic waste she shined through. I couldn't make any sense out of much of anything in this film. Another part that disturbed me was the reference to Bin Laden and the eerie 9/11-like feel during the President's speech. Was 9/11 the reason this cinematic fiasco went straight to video or was it maybe Ms. Watts' agent who made sure it was kept pretty hush hush. Of course now Ms. Watts is about to appear in King Kong, the movie pops up again on cable. This travesty deserves to get "THE SHAFT" and flushed "DOWN" the toilet!
