It all begins with a sweeping, awe-inspiring shot of The Millennium Building, one of New York City's premier hotels, housing all of 100-some odd floors. We zero in on two goombah bellboys spying on an old man and two old-looking women boinking in a highrise across the street; this scene brings to mind Brian De Palma's "Body Double," and the decent production values mixed with aforementioned homage give the viewer an (admittedly misleading) impression of what's to come. While fully aware of the (admittedly deserved) bad reputation most DTV efforts have, "The Shaft" at least starts off with promise. Writer-director Dick Maas (remaking his 1983 Dutch original, "The Lift") has a knack for framing scenes, building suspense, and keeping his camera firmly in the moment. The problem is, his script is a muddled misfire, never quite settling on a solid path; the result is an accidental bending of sci-fi, horror, and flat-out action that never gels as well as it should. After an elevator in the Millennium knocks off a bunch of victims in extravagant fashion, the plot devolves into a drawn out (and ultimately unsuccessful) search for The Truth--suddenly elevator repairman James Marshall (imagine a cut-rate Brad Pitt) and fetching reporter Naomi Watts (pre-"Mulholland Drive") are standing in for Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe, turning this into "El.A. Confidential." And in the final act, Maas spins the film into the outer limits of absurdity with a Michael Bay extravaganza of stunts and explosions, throwing in some references to Osama bin Laden and terrorism (pre-9/11!) for good measure. Save for Watts' lead role, most of the big names on the video box (including Ron Perelman, Dan Hedaya, Edward Herrmann, and Michael Ironside) are relegated to smaller 'guest appearances' (though every little bit helps). Big names aside, the premise is stretched so thin that you'll be hard-pressed to care about anything by the time the noisy climax rolls around. "The Shaft" takes a concept with genuine horror potential and transforms it into a bowl of cold oatmeal.

In New York, the express elevator of the 102 floors and 73 elevators Millennium Building has malfunction with some pregnant passengers and the company responsible for its maintenance sends two mechanics, Mark Newman (James Marshall) and Jeffrey (Eric Thal), to survey the equipment and the installation. They do not find any problem in their investigation, and the building is reopened to visitors. Later, the elevator provokes the death of a security guard and a blind man with his dog. The snoopy journalist of a tabloid Jennifer Evans (Naomi Watts) joins Mark to investigate the elevator, and they find that the equipment might be subjected to an experiment with biochip by the German scientist Gunter Steinberg (Michael Ironside).

This DVD has just been released in Brazil (today, I guess) with an attractive tridimensional cover with a picture of Naomi Watts, and I bought it without any previous reference. "Down" is indeed a mess by Maas. This unknown Dutch director / writer wrote a story that tries to be funny; begins as if it were a horror, thriller or mystery movie; then, it seems to be a sci-fi but suddenly it becomes an action movie, with soldiers, policemen and lots of guns and explosions; ending with a romance between the characters of James Marshall and Naomi Watts. The dyed actress is very weird, with grimaces. The movie has a reasonable cast and budget, but never works. In the end, the best thing in this flick is the Aerosmith's song "Love in an Elevator". My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Elevador da Morte" ("The Elevator of Death")

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.