Elevator Game review.
Shudder release Elevator Game looks to find frights in an incredibly specific concept. The idea outweighs the execution.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Elevator Game
Directed by Rebekah McKendry
Written by Travis Seppala
Starring Gine Anania, Verity Marks, Alec Carlos, Nazariy Demkowicz, Madison MacIsaac. Bradley Sawatzky and Samantha Halas
Elevator Game Review
The 25th anniversary of the release of Urban Legend is fast approaching. Elevator Game attempts to tackle similar territory. It does so in a more interesting way than the 1998 box office hit…but it’s no more of a success at doing so entertainingly. Instead of a convoluted revenge story weaponizing urban legends against its victims for an utterly absurd reason…Elevator Game pushes a much simpler story. Specifically, a legend about using an elevator to travel to another dimension. The risk comes from a demonic presence on the fifth floor…fittingly named…The Fifth Floor Woman.
Ryan (Gino Anania) joins up with a group of online urban legend debunkers with hopes of influencing them to investigate a missing girl allegedly tied to the elevator game. Unbeknownst to them…that girl is his sister. After the game is played, the group finds themselves hunted by The Fifth Floor Woman.
Let’s start with the good news. The cast seems to be having fun. It might not be the most meaningful aspect of a film’s success…but it’s not nothing. While there are no true standout performances here…everyone does a fine job getting their specific character’s across on screen. It’s a good thing. Without it Elevator Game would have ended up unwatchable. It’s still rough too often to give anything but a tepid pass…but the game cast (pun intended) elevates the (lack of) material.
You see, this specific urban legend is the only trick Elevator Game has in its bag. It isn’t enough to carry a feature length film. It’s barely enough to hold interest while waiting for most of the characters to come up on the losing end of their meeting with The Fifth Floor Woman. Not that the titular legend lacks interest in and of itself. A perfectly fine short film could have been crafted out of pushing elevator buttons and cursing yourself to a horrific fate. At 94 minutes, however, the story needed a second concept.
The Fifth Floor Woman does offer a decent antagonist. In a strange choice…Elevator Game doesn’t bother to explain her backstory until 75 minutes into the movie. Withholding lore is an odd choice for a story that leaves you searching for meaning most of the time. To explain how light the plot of Elevator Game is…the entire first act is spent watching the group decide whether the Urban Legend that Ryan suggests for their web series is worth doing.
The problem here is two-fold. First…you’re telling the audience that your film’s central (and sole) concept isn’t very interesting. Second…the movie is called Elevator Game. Any discussion regarding if we’re going to play the game is a waste of time. The group decides to use the idea (obviously) only when their sponsor threatens to pull funding if a new episode isn’t produced right away. Yes. First the group decides that the plot of its own film isn’t worth pursuing. Only the cost and time effectiveness make it a viable option. So…get excited for act 2…I guess.
The game itself is played by traveling to floors of a building in a specific order. Since we, at least, have the benefit of knowing that The Fifth Floor Woman is real…the concept does build some tension as characters approach the dangerous parts of the experiment. When you reach the fifth floor…the woman is supposedly going to enter the elevator with you. You must keep your eyes closed or she will rip you apart. If you succeed…the elevator will rise and deliver you to another dimension.
Needless to say, we get to see both results of playing the elevator game. The new dimension amounts to putting a colored filter on a camera lens. Its empty streets prowled by the demonic woman provide a decent effect, however. Outside of one excellent kill…the deaths in Elevator Game are standard fare. They are, however, spread out very well throughout the movie. It benefits from a steady stream of danger.
There is a light investigative horror angle here. mostly plays out in the background. Like the reveal of The Fifth Floor Woman’s identity…revelations arrive late in the going. Things wrap up very quickly (and maybe a bit confusingly). Outside of some light character moments…Elevator Game doesn’t offer much beyond understanding who someone is and waiting for their turn. A (seemingly) key relationship is revealed halfway through the story, only to be dismissed almost immediately. A more important bond builds between Ryan and Chloe (Verity Marks) …it too cut unexpectedly short by a film that seems to figure out it lacks ideas around the 85-minute mark.
You could do worse than Elevator Game…but you could also do so much better. There are some fun ideas here. Unfortunately buried beneath repetitive moments. And a wait for moves that don’t come. Put in terms of its central concept…you’d probably be better off taking the stairs.
Scare Value
Early in Elevator Game its characters ponder whether anyone will want to watch them ride an elevator for 20 minutes. They assume that it will be too boring to work as a video. Undeterred, the movie asks us to watch people ride an elevator for a lot longer than that. The good news is that we know bad things will happen. The bad news is that it isn’t enough to stretch the idea into a feature length film.
2/5
Elevator Game Link
Streaming on Shudder
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