The Shaft

Four stars/one star (depending on whether you take it seriously or not)

If you take this film as a "serious horror film," you will be probably be angry at the end (or before) of this movie. But if you are looking for a movie to point and laugh at Mystery Science Theater 3000 style, then this one is quite good.

Let's start with the title: The Shaft. This movie already knows its bad. They wanted people to pick this thing up either looking for the classic blaxploitation film or a porno. Either way, they will be terribly disappointed. Fortunately, for the rest of us, the title alone (combined with the requisite picture of the glowing elevator) shows how very cheesy this movie is.

Then there are the characters. There's little to no characterization here, not surprisingly. The two main characters - an elevator repairman ex-Marine and a nosy reporter - are equally obnoxious. And the reporter's clothes are truly horrendous. I thought she deserved to die by the hand (or would it be cord) of the elevator just because of her fashion sense. (I can't describe a full outfit, as it's level of ugliness is just so high I've blocked it out of my mind. Either way, hot pink snakeskin jackets should not be legal). There are a bunch of random character actors in here as well, but they just add their name to the credits, if anything. I can't imagine why they chose to make this movie - they must have needed cash, quick.

Now, moving right along to the plot. For movies like this one, you would be likely to say, "What plot?" However, like the best of this genre, this film (ahem - I hesitate to call this a film, but nonetheless), attempts to have a plot, but falls miserably on its face instead. After all, this is a movie about a haunted elevator. As one of my friends commented while in the video store, "How does the elevator kill people? Wouldn't you just take the stairs?" But despite this obvious issue, this movie actually manages to have too much plot. The group of people I was with was very tempted to just fast-forward, but we just chose to talk over those bits instead. (By the way, I did pay some attention to the plot, and it didn't improve the movie any. Best to talk over it.) As a result of this unnecessary amount of plot, the movie is just a bit too long for a really quality flick to make fun of. Thankfully, as we discovered, the parts with the most plot build up to the most spectacular and ridiculous deaths.

And spectacular and ridiculous those are. I won't describe the best for fear of ruining the surprise, but let's just say it ends with an obnoxious rollerblader who is very, very much squashed. Unfortunately, most of the deaths are not as good as that one (and could possibly be the result of a mechanical failure), but The Shaft is worth watching just for that one scene. Combined with possibly the worst transition in movie history (we had to go back and watch it twice, it was so horrifically, disturbingly bad), this movie is a minor classic in terms of laughability. But for a real horror movie, go rent Silence of the Lambs.



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