You may feel like you've been shaftedafter watching 'The Shaft'

The Shaft (aka "The Lift" and "Down") (2001)
Starring: James Marshall, Naomi Watts, Ron Perlman, and Michael Ironside
Director: Dick Maas
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

The express elevators in New York City's famous Millennium Building suddenly develop minds of their own... and they are minds bent on murder! Will a slacker ex-Marine hunk turned elevator repairman (James Marshall) and a sexy, plucky girl tabloid reporter (over-acted by Naomi Watts) uncover the truth of what's happening, or will they fall victim to elevator industry cover-ups, mad scientists delving in Elevator Technology Man Was Not Meant to Know, and renegade killer elevators?


This often unintentionally funny horror movie features a script that should have gone through a draft or two more; copious overacting (everyone is SO over the top here that Michael Ironsides--featured in a small but pivotal part--seems subdued and restrained); and too many 'because the plot requires it' moments to count. There's enough interesting things here to keep the viewer's attention, but ultimately the movie is unsatisfying and lame, mostly because it has the killer elevators perform truly amazing and physically impossible feats without even bothering to attempt to explain how they manage to do it. (Sadly, one of my favorite killer elevator scenes is tied into one of these... the death of the obnoxious rollerblader. While I'll buy into the building's express elevators developing a mind of their own through the wonders of mad science, I can't accept that lets them completely ignore the laws of physics.)

A fun film, if you can get it cheap or for free... and if you have absolutely nothing to do, or nothing better to watch.

The mindblowing power of 'Scanners'

Scanners (aka "Telepathy 2000") (1981)
Starring: Steven Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Michael Ironside, Jennifer O'Neill and Lawrence Dane
Director: David Cronenberg
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a private security company's program to develop psychics/psionicists as a company resource (referred to as "scanners") comes under attack from the secret organiation of scanners led by crazed megalomaniac Darryl Revok (Ironside), Dr. Ruth (McGoohan) recruits powerful scanner Cameron Vale (Lack) to locate and perhaps even capture him. But as Vale investigates, he uncovers a tangled conspiracy that is even more frightening and deadly than the powers of the scanners themselves.


"Scanners" is a fast-paced, exciting movie that exists on the ground where sci-fi and horror meets the spy thriller. It's a John Grisham or Robert Ludlum novel with psionicists instead of lawyers and/or spies. The movie oozes atmosphere and tension in every scene... and the exploding head in the film's first five minutes really is a sign of things to come: The plot twists and the ethical issues raised in this film will blow your mind as you watch it unfold.

If you're looking for an intelligent, well-written and well-acted sci-fi flick with horror overtones, you can't go wrong with "Scanners". It's a film that was so good it not only spawned its own sequels ("Scanners II", "Scanners III" and "Scanners: The Showdown") but also two installments of the "Scanner Cop" series. None of these films come close to the original, however. If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it highly enough.

(BTW, a dim memory of this film was one of the inspirations for my "Mind Over Matter" d20 Modern RPG supplement from a few years ago. I was gratified to see that this was one of those rare cases where my memory of the film held up to watching it again.)