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Scanners 1981 ★★★★
I love being bewildered by Cronenberg's imagery and surreal themes.
Classic sci-fi horror to which I will come back for a more extended review.
But the exploding head always gets props.
The Lift 1983 ★★★
Compared to the more humor laden material that followed, this is probably the most serious film in Dick Maas' filmography.
The strange thing about it is that it's not an either or story. The premise of artificial intelligence messing with us sounds good, especially in the early eighties. That said, the goo-like “bad chips” do look a bit silly, as is the notion of a man “fighting” a lift.
Does that take away from the film's qualities? Not really. It still had creepy passages. The decapitation still looks pretty good, except for maybe the final shot where the plastic head is is a bit too obvious. The shot of Felix crawling out of the elevator shaft at the end makes for a very solid image with the pale hand reaching out for dear life. And I'm sure the scene with the little girl and the doll had audiences wonder wether they were really going to go there.
I don't really see the point in the subplot with the jealous wife and the supposed adultery, especially since it has no real pay-off apart from isolating Felix further in his obessesion with the lift.
A solid eighties horror thriller with a few flaws that are not too hard to overlook. Check it out.
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