Saturday, October 31, 2020

Only now does it occur to me... Dick Maas' DOWN/THE SHAFT (2001)

Only now does it occur to me... that on this Halloween I ought to spare a few thoughts for Dick Maas' own "Hollywood" remake of his 1983 Dutch elevator-horror film, THE LIFT. Like the original, it's the classic tale of a machine with a mind of its own terrorizing the occupants of a high-rise. Probably the greatest mark it left on pop culture was to inspire the mediocre X-FILES episode, "Ghost in the Machine."

Known as both "DOWN" and "THE SHAFT," this American remake has a far larger budget and a truer commitment to gleeful misanthropy: the elevator's victims include children, the disabled, seeing-eye dogs, and pregnant women. He recreates several scenes from the original, shot-for-shot,

1983


2001



1983

2001

though this time he manages to fit in an extended sequence of schweet X-treme rollerblading


which ends with one of the rollerbladers sucked up in a parking garage by the killer elevator and launched from the observation deck onto the sidewalk below, so I have to tip my hat to that sort of shit. This one's ending is a little more low-rent DIE HARD than the original and involves a bazooka

and a makeout sesh' set to Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" so I guess that probably sets the scene for you.

Like the original, it's still pretty committed to the banality of elevator repair (James Marshall––TWIN PEAKS' James Hurley––plays the intrepid elevator engineer originally played by Huub Stapel).

Naomi Watts takes over Willeke van Ammelrooy's role of the elevator journalist/love interest (her last role before her breakthrough in MULHOLLAND DRIVE).

Edward Herrmann (OVERBOARD, THE LOST BOYS) plays the building manager, who for all intents and purposes is "The Mayor from JAWS" of this picture.


Ron Perlman pops up as a passionate elevator executive who doesn't like elevator journalists poking around his business, so he shouts things like "goddamit!" all the time.



Dan Hedaya sorta phones it in as a hardboiled elevator-hating cop, which reminds me that

Hedaya and Ron Perlman were really on their way to being a real Tracey/Hepburn in the late '90s, appearing together in three movies (this, ALIEN: RESURRECTION, Joe Dante's THE SECOND CIVIL WAR) within a four-year span. Why'd they have to go and break that streak?

Finally, we have Canadian Jack Nicholson and Junta Juleil Hall-O-Famer Michael Ironside

as "that German prick from elevator research" and he has this look on his face throughout like he's a little surprised to even be there

but he's still trying his best, even when explaining that an elevator he's possessed with military-grade microchip goop could somehow usher in a new Age of the Medici. It's not too big of a spoiler to say that he meets his demise via elevator after failing to kill James Hurley in hand-to-hand combat


when CGI elevator cables start whipping about like deranged snakes


and send him to the high-rise gallows. Alongside TOTAL RECALL's "See you at the party, Richter" moment, this marks at least the second time in film history that Ironside has been dispatched by an elevator.

Most of the dialogue is delivered by the cast in a stilted manner, as if English isn't their first language, even though it is in most cases. This lends it a kind of lesser-Bava or Fulci feel that almost evolves into a Lynchian one

given the cast's history––James Marshall (TWIN PEAKS, TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN), Naomi Watts (MULHOLLAND DRIVE, RABBITS, TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN), and Dan Hedaya (MULHOLLAND DRIVE). There's even a scene at a '50s diner,


though, sadly, it is not a Winkie's.

The final aspect I must mention in relation to THE SHAFT is the "9/11" one. This film debuted at Cannes in May 2001 and was released in the Netherlands on September 6, 2001. Its American release was cancelled (though it eventually made it to straight-to-video in 2003) because of the September 11th attacks.

Many films were delayed by 9/11, including Schwarzenegger's COLLATERAL DAMAGE, the Guy Pearce remake of THE TIME MACHINE, and the Gwyneth Paltrow romcom VIEW FROM THE TOP. These decisions were made for reasons ranging from, respectively, "a building in Los Angeles explodes," "New York is damaged by meteors," and "the majority of scenes involve flight attendants at work." THE SHAFT is a different animal entirely. It doesn't merely have scenes of carnage in a high-rise,

though that certainly would have been enough to delay it, given the climate. It doesn't merely have scenes of a U.S. President somberly addressing the nation about a terrorist attack in New York.


And it doesn't merely show the World Trade Center as a B-roll shot during that speech.

Nor does it merely feature jokes about how terrorism against skyscrapers sells newspapers,


depict squads of nervous NYPD swarming lower Manhattan, or highlight the danger that terrorists with hijacked airplanes could pose.

Nor does it simply point out the attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993...

...no, it actually name-drops Osama Bin Laden:

In retrospect, it's certainly spooky to watch this aspect play out––and if I know American cult film audiences, this will likely be the major reason the film will be remembered in the long run.

Monday, October 12, 2020

Only now does it occur to me... THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1963)

Only now does it occur to me... that Dario Argento may have tucked an incredibly subtle homage to his mentor, Mario Bava, within his 1980 film INFERNO. (INFERNO being, perhaps, one of the most Bava-influenced of all the Argentos––its opening setpiece in a flooded manse was even guest-directed by Mario Bava himself.)

First, let's go back to 1963, when Bava was directing the granddaddy of all gialli, the Hitchcock-inspired THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, which is still the only giallo I can think of that ends with a joke about a priest accidentally smoking a whole bunch of weed.

Anyway, there's a scene in THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH where our heroine (Letícia Román) sneaks away from home at midnight and into a cab which drops her off at a mysterious rendezvous in Rome
at a spooky building in a deserted plaza with an ominous fountain in the foreground. The cab pulls off and she faces the unknown alone.
At a similar moment, storywise, Argento has one of his three protagonists (the plot of INFERNO follows a sort of "hot potato-protagonist" motif), played by Eleonora Giorgi, take a midnight cab ride to a mysterious rendezvous in Rome
 
at a spooky building in a deserted plaza with an ominous fountain in the foreground. 
 The cab pulls off and she faces the unknown alone.
I don't think I would have noticed this, had I not watched both THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and INFERNO within a short span, but it's likely the smallest tip of the hat from pupil to mentor... or perhaps it's something more. Argento fell ill with hepatitis during the making of INFERNO and directed several sequences from his hospital bed. And in addition to the opening setpiece, it is said that some of the second unit work was directed by Mario Bava––so it's possible that this bit is not actually a minor homage by Argento, but, in fact, pure, unadulterated Bava! Yes, I am a giallo nerd.

Monday, October 5, 2020

Only now does it occur to me... THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1999)

Only now does it occur to me... that the most concentrated five minutes of sheer "1990s" ever spat out upon celluloid probably occurs at the beginning of William Malone's (fortieth anniversary) remake of William Castle's THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL.

Within a single, five minute span we have: Geoffrey Rush doing a Vincent Price impersonation (his character is even named Price) and making Beanie Babies (!) references,


 

 

 

 

 

 


"the '90s-personified" singer-songwriter and glasses enthusiast Lisa Loeb as a local reporter interviewing him,


 



 

 

 

 

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER's James "Spike" Marsters as her hapless cameraman,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


(oh, did I mention this is set at an amusement park with X-treme rollercoasters?)


 

Loeb and Marsters riding an X-treme rollercoaster,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



cut to: an early Macintosh PowerBook rocking some clip art,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



haunted '90s email which deletes text on its own,


 

 

 

 

 

 



Famke Janssen (GOLDENEYE, ROUNDERS, THE FACULTY, MELROSE PLACE) in a luxurious '90s bubble bath,  discussing her birthday party,


 

 

 

 

 

 


followed by a montage of the party attendees, which include Taye Diggs (GO, HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK, ALLY MCBEAL),


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Peter Gallagher (AMERICAN BEAUTY, MALICE, CENTER STAGE, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, THE PLAYER),


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Ali Larter (VARSITY BLUES, FINAL DESTINATION, DAWSON'S CREEK, LEGALLY BLONDE, SUDDENLY SUSAN),


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
who is waving around a Sharp ViewCam camcorder like she just don't care,


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (BILLY MADISON, MORTAL KOMBAT, SAVED BY THE BELL, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, HIGHER LEARNING, THE LAST ACTION HERO)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


the latter two actresses of whom, slight hairstyling differences aside, I defy anyone to tell apart. And that's not all! Before the five minutes have elapsed, we meet SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's Chris Kattan



 

 

 

 

 

 
in a serious (?!) role. And there you have it. I'm not sure there's a more concentrated dose of '90s out there. You might try HACKERS, sure, or REALITY BITES, EMPIRE RECORDS, SPICE WORLD, BIO-DOME, maybe even BATMAN AND ROBIN, perhaps TANK GIRL or THE PHANTOM, but I'm not sure you'll find it.

However, it brings me no joy to also tell you that: the rest of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL '99 is pretty mediocre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
There is a fun homage to SUSPIRIA with primary colored stained glass falling down to (near) murderous effect:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
And a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo by REANIMATOR's own Jeffrey Combs as a mad scientist:











 

But, anyway. Aside from the 90s nostalgia, there's zero reason to recommend this over the William Castle original, which features everything from acid skeletons to a lesser Mitchum to Vincent Price doing whatever the hell he wants.