Directed by Rebekah McKendry and written by David Ian McKendry and Travis Seppala, based on the eponymous online phenomenon, a ritual conducted in an elevator, in which players attempt to travel to another dimension. Starring: Gino Anania, Alec Carlos, Nazariy Demkowicz, Madison MacIsaac, Verity Marks, Liam Stewart-Kanigan, Megan Best and Samantha Halas.
It’s not exactly a stretch of the imagination to picture young kids doing something dumb or dangerous that they found instructions for online, it’s basically a frequent occurrence. So, adding that to a bunch of young people running a content channel on debunking supernatural phenomena, it has a solid, relevant basis. It has a classic opening of naivety and soon to be broken confidence, swaggering into a situation that is far beyond them. It moves slowly at first but once it gets going and the violence takes hold, things get nicely grizzly.
When it starts to dive into the origin on its ‘red world’ entered via the elevator ritual, it’s got a great note of darkness. Although it’s a shame it’s not an element which is explored very far, there’s a lot of unfinished business and malevolent spirit type energy at work which had more to offer. The same goes for their paranormal show, it would have been fun to go through a few more examples of past phenomenon that they’d debunked.
The direction is solid, there’s a few strong nods to 1980s horror blended with a modern style. It has some great movement to it and though the pacing isn’t quite where it needed to be, nothing ever slows down too much. The atmosphere stays very much within the teen realm, it feels extremely aware of the type of audience this was created for and tries to hit those note hard. Especially with the touch of romance and typical young cocky or self-deprecating behaviours.
It’s definitely an ensemble film, Elevator Game brings everyone into play and gives each character plenty of time. The performances are consistent across the board, there’s no standout but it’s a good group of actors. It’s a tricky thing to create a mixture of young and teen personalities without any of them becoming grating or melodramatic but they manage well. There are moments of weakness but none more than you’d find in a lot of horror films.
Elevator Game is at its strongest when it’s letting its violent side loose. The gore and special effects are well done, hitting the biggest notes that the film has to offer. The rest of the story is decent and convincing but struggles to create something memorable. It has a decent basis and is good for a bit of easy evening viewing for any horror flick fan but ultimately, it feels too simple. It’s relatively slow and once it establishes the story, it finds itself nowhere left to go.
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