International Horror Film Review: The Lift (dir by Dick Maas)

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I almost always take the stairs.

There are reasons for this. A big one is for the exercise. I’ve always liked my legs. Why wouldn’t I want to take care of them? (As my mom used to say whenever I complained about inheriting her nose, “Yes, but you also inherited my legs so stop crying!”)

As a lover of films, I appreciate the fact that stairwells are very cinematic. When I’m taking the stairs, I’m thinking about Vertigo. Sometimes, if I’m in the right mood, I’m thinking about Barefoot In The Park. I’m thinking about Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’m thinking about all of the Bond movies that have featured twisty staircases. I’m thinking about all of the romantic comedies that have featured people kissing in the middle of stairwells. I thinking about climbing a fire escape in the rain. I’m thinking about all of the famous shots of people moving up and down staircases.

Another reason why I avoid elevators is that I like the symbolism of going up the stairs. I like the idea of ascending, step-by-step.

Of course, the main reason for taking the stairs is that I find elevators to be incredibly creepy. When I was seven or eight, I heard a story on the news about a woman who got her necklace caught in the doors of an elevator and, as a result, she was decapitated when the elevator started to move. AGCK! I’ve never quite gotten that image out of my head.

The minute those elevator doors close, you’re pretty much trapped until the elevator reaches the next floor. And even then, there’s no guarantee that the doors are actually going to open. There’s always the possibility that the elevator could get stuck between floors and you could be trapped in that little room for hours or even days. Even worse, someone else could be stuck in there with you and that person could be a stranger. That person could be carrying a straight razor or they could just have bad breath but either way, I wouldn’t necessarily want to be trapped in an elevator with them. And don’t even get me started on the possibility of an elevator cable snapping and the elevator plunging down 30 flights at breakneck speed.

Seriously, elevators are scary!

The 1983 Dutch film, The Lift, is all about one very scary elevator. For, instance, the elevator stops moving after a lightning storm takes out all the power in Amsterdam and four people end up trapped inside of it. When the power is finally restored, the elevator doors still refuse to open. Eventually, the doors have to be forced open. Fortunately, the four trapped people are saved before they suffocate but a few others aren’t so lucky. One elderly man falls down an empty elevator shaft. A security guard is decapitated when his head gets stuck in the elevator doors. A janitor vanishes.

Felix (Huub Stabler) is assigned to figure out why the elevator is malfunctioning. What he discovers suggests that the elevator has a mind of its own. Of course, no one believes that and Felix becomes obsessed with proving his theory. He becomes so obsessed with the building and the elevator that his wife leaves him. Felix’s only ally is a reporter named Mieke (Willeke van Ammelrooy), Mieke is investigating Rising Sun, a computer company who was responsible for designing the system that runs the elevator. Are the deaths the result of a corporate incompetence or is Felix correct? Is the elevator alive?

The Lift works precisely because it understands that elevators are creepy. More than being about a haunted elevator, The Lift is actually about the absurd amount of trust that people put into technology. (This is a theme that’s even more relevant today than it probably was in 1983.) People get on the elevator because they’ve been told that it’s safe and that there are safeguards in place to prevent any problems. Even when the elevator starts to malfunction and otherwise behave in a threatening manner, people still assume that it’s a problem that can be easily fixed because they’ve been told that it was designed with the most advanced technology available. More than just being a horror film about a haunted elevator, The Lift is a film about society that has put such blind trust in technology that it doesn’t know how to handle things when the system develops of mind of its own. People may have been conditioned to trust the system but, when the elevator comes to life, everyone’s going down.

International Horror Review: Amsterdamned (dir by Dick Maas)

Posted on October 14, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“You’ve been Amsterdamned!”

Okay, no one actually says that in the 1988 Dutch film, Amsterdamned. However, I will admit that, while I was watching the movie on Shudder, I said it after every single murder. Seriously, it’s just too good to resist. Whatever else you might want to say about this movie, you can not deny the power of that title. How many people have watched this movie just because it’s called Amsterdamned? I would guess a few thousand at least.

As for the film itself, it deals with a murderous diver who swims through the famous canals of Amsterdam and kills just about anyone they come across. Our diver is not one to discriminate when it comes to selecting their victims. They may start out killing a prostitute but soon, they’re targeting environmentalists, boat captains, cops, and perhaps even the girlfriend of Amsterdam’s top cop, Eric Visser (Huub Stapel). Visser is one of those cops who drinks too much, doesn’t spend enough time with his daughter, and who is still bitter about his divorce. It’s nice to see that “Cops Who Play By Their Own Set Of Rules” are not a uniquely American phenomenon. Of course, since Eric is Dutch, his partner is named Vermeer (Serge-Henri Valcke). It doesn’t take Eric and Vermeer long to figure out that Amsterdam has a serial killer haunting the canals.

Amsterdamned is a mix of a slasher film and an action film. The highpoint of the film is a pretty exciting speedboat chase between Eric and the Killer, which features some truly spectacular stunts and which definitely shows that director Dick Maas can handle directing action. At the same time, though, the film is also full of point-of-view shots of the diver emerging from the canals and stalking their next victim. The diver is an effectively creepy villain and the film makes good use of the idea that practically anybody or anything could be hiding under the water. I haven’t been to Amsterdam but I have been to Venice and I can tell you, canals are both beautiful and frightening at the same time. It’s had not to look down at the water and to consider all of the secrets that could be hidden under that murky surface. The comparison between the canals of Amsterdam and the canals of Venice is an apt one, if just because Amsterdamned is pretty much a Dutch version of an Italian giallo films. While it’s not as mean-spirited as the infamous Giallo in Venice, it’s just as much a whodunit as it is a standard slasher film.

It’s a film that has its effective moments, though it’s also a film that has some pretty glaring flaws. With a nearly two-hour running time, it’s at least 30 minutes too long and the film occasionally seems to get bogged down with the details of Eric’s personal life, as if the filmmakers didn’t understand that all they had to do was tell us that Eric was a hard-drinking, independent-minded detective and we, as experienced film watchers, would be able to fill in the rest of the details for ourselves. When the killer’s identity is revealed, it’s a bit of a let down and it’s hard not to feel that the movie didn’t exactly play fair with its audience. Even with all that in mind, though, there’s enough creepy moments to make Amsterdamned worth visiting.

Music Video of the Day: Clear Nite, Moonlight or Clear Night, Moonlight by Golden Earring (1984, dir. Dick Maas)

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

First things first, the title. The official posting of the video lists the title as Clear Nite, Moonlight. However, both the greatest hits album I have and mvdbase list the song as Clear Night, Moonlight. That’s why I included both in the title of this post.

This song is from Golden Earring’s 1984 album N.E.W.S., that has what must not only be their most controversial song, but video–When The Lady Smiles.

I’m spotlighting this video for a few different reasons. The first is that I love the song, and wanted to share it. The second reason is that I like the darkness of the video–literally and figuratively–that is juxtaposed with an upbeat song that makes you want to sing along. The same is true with When The Lady Smiles, which probably explains how it got used in such a weird context, despite the lyrics. I’ll talk about that video another time.

The last is the ending.

We see the band abandon their beat-up vehicle after pulling up to a house.

They help a woman down from her room past her sleeping father.

They steal her father’s car.

They rob a car dealer, and kill him in the process.

They go to a cafe.

We see she is having a good time despite the murder.

In fact, when her father says, “Bloody murder,” we cut to her smiling.

They nearly die by crashing head-on into a truck.

They go to a drive-in theater where we see her cry, and Hay look confused and sad when the film eats itself. I’m assuming it is a film with Rudolph Valentino in it.

Then we some matching on action between Hay trying to start a lighter and people loading guns.

Then a kid is taken to sit on a tow truck.

The car stops.

We zoom in on the kid, and we can see and hear bullets filling the car, which presumedly kills everyone inside.

I have no idea why that last part happens. The kid doesn’t even look like he comes from the 1980s.

Edit: I messed up when originally posted this. I missed the “So Little Time” license plate at the start, which foreshadows this ending. It doesn’t come out of nowhere.

Clear Nite, Moonlight (1984)

I also think that the video is meant to take place in the 1950s, and not just have a retro look to it. That might explain the appearance of the kid.

The whole video has this otherworldly feeling about it that seesaws between comfort and unease, happiness and death, and then screeches to a halt with the cops unloading on the five passengers with what sounds like every gun they have, all in front of kid watching as he eats.

Enjoy!

30 Days Of Surrealism:

Music Video of the Day: Turn The World Around by Golden Earring (1989, dir. Dick Maas)

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

A few weeks ago when I did the music video for Twilight Zone by Golden Earring, I mentioned this video and how insane it is. With that in mind, let’s enumerate over the things in this video.

A concentration camp.

Bloodfist.

Our main victim of torture.

Visible camera crew.

A whole bunch of people who have been hung.

A gun to the head.

A child who is most likely going to be killed.

Comedic interruption of someone waiting to die.

Angels.

Fire-breathing as a metaphor for death-from-above.

Soldiers playing American Gladiators.

Belinda Carlisle reference hanging above the group–Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

The Nazi dancers from Twilight Zone.

A black man being beaten by Illinois police officers.

Hitler snapping his fingers along to the music while Jesus receives his crown of thorns in the background.

The comic relief coming out of a jukebox.

Paying a visit to our guy waiting to die.

Making sure we didn’t miss the nuclear weapons reference earlier.

Hitler and Napoleon dancing to the song. It connects someone who annexed the Netherlands from his younger brother–who was the leader of the Kingdom of Holland–with someone who took the Netherlands by force. My memory of Dutch history is too weak to go into any connections between the two as it pertained to Jews in the Kingdom of Holland. I’m sure the whole thing with the invasion of the Netherlands by Hitler and the Maas river wasn’t lost on the director.

Lead-singer Barry Hay looking confused as to what he is supposed to be doing here.

May foreshadowing the appearance of the devil.

I have no idea why they are punching their fists threw glass.

Two guys I’m sure I should recognize, but I don’t want to guess.

Remember, it’s a musical! And there’s an American flag in the background.

The little girl survives, but will always carry the memory–another Golden Earring video that appears to be referencing both the film The Assault (1986) and the book De Aanslag by Harry Mulisch that the film is based on.

We see that there are many numbered rooms where people are being tortured.

Someone executed at the barrel of a toy gun by a Spanish company that made James Bond guns.

Aftermath of a crime scene.

The colors of the Flag of Overijssel, which represents the province of Holland. The center river shaped stripe stands for the river IJssel.

The river was a natural line of defense that had to be crossed by Allied troops to liberate the Netherlands at the end of WWII. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that a river that has to be controlled–like so much water in the Netherlands–in order for the country to exist is in this video.

The last temptation of Christ.

A reminder that things like the Bombing of Rotterdam, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki have happened.

Changing the channel from the news to a sitcom.

Hay, Castro, guy I should know, and Napoleon popping his head in to say hi.

Gunshot.

Did you know they did, or maybe still do sell Mussolini cologne? I had an Italian Studies teacher in college who brought it up, so I of course went to her office hours, and she showed me where online they sold it. The site got Neo-Nazi very fast, so we didn’t stay long.

Castro on the drums.

Hitler breakdancing.

Let them know it’s genocide out there.

I think May might be trying to remind us of the video for When The Lady Smiles.

Exit the jukebox and fade to black.

Dick Maas went on to do feature films such as the Flodder movies, Amsterdamned (1986), and the more recent, and apparently controversial film Saint (2010). It’s a killer Santa Claus movie–more specifically, a St. Nicholas killer movie. Bear in mind, this was several years before Kirk Cameron would also include a violent St. Nicholas in Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014). It was still a touchy subject for people who hadn’t seen Christmas Evil (1980); Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984); and Santa’s Slay (2005). Or it was a publicity stunt as IMDb would suggest:

“Upon release the movie poster proved to be very controversial. Various organizations of concerned parents tried to boycott the poster, which features an image of a ‘zombie St. Nicolas’ as opposed to the friendly St. Nicolas the people in The Netherlands are used to. Dutch director Johan Nijenhuis became the spokesperson for the movement that tried to boycott the poster and he even went to court, claiming the poster would damage the festive season and cause trauma with young children.”

“In hindsight, the complaints by Johan Nijenhuis about the movie being inappropriate for young children seem to have been part of a publicity campaign.”

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Twilight Zone by Golden Earring (1982, dir. Dick Maas)

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I have to admit that until recently, I didn’t know any song by Golden Earring other than Radar Love. I didn’t even realize I had heard this song till I clicked on the video. They are good. They also put a lot of effort into their videos from the get-go with MTV.

This must have been something to see back in 1982 when this was far from the norm. Oh, and if you thought they might tone this down for later videos, then you’d be wrong. They only upped the ante. Turn The World Around has people in a concentration camp, people who have been hung, people being tortured, a black man being perpetually being beaten by cops, Jesus being crowned while Hitler is in the foreground snapping his fingers to the song, and much like this video, it has two different dimensions–the one in which the dark stuff is going on, and a bright, colorful, and otherworldly one. These videos remind me of Italian Comedy like Seven Beauties (1975). The dancers look like they belong in The Damned (1969) or The Night Porter (1974).

Here’s one tiny tangent since I mentioned Seven Beauties. I really hope Nathaniel R of The Film Experience is just ignorant of Italian Comedy and Lina Wertmüller because otherwise, getting a chance to see Seven Beauties is a “rare opportunity,” as he wrote in a recent blog post. If true, it’s a sad world when that film is a rare thing to see. That’s supposed to be reserved for things like Out 1: Spectre (1972), The Art Of Vision (1965), Douce (1943), and Rocker (1972), to name more mainstream films.

If you didn’t already know who Golden Earring is, then you might have guessed that they are from the Netherlands based on the name of the director. You’d be right. That means they did work with Anton Corbijn on a music video. It was for the song Quiet Eyes. Corbijn being the one who took credit for the singing ravens on the crucifix in the video for Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana. He chalked it up to “Dutch humor.” I took a class in college on the history of the Netherlands. I don’t remember a section on Dutch humor.

Then again, I probably should have known, seeing as Turkish Delight (1973) has Rutger Hauer wear a pubic hair mustache and The Dark Room Of Damocles (1963) has the lowly shop merchant dragged off as a traitor to his people after WWII even though he may or may not have been led into doing missions he thought would help his people by a secret agent–who is seen at the end living the high-life. Also, Water Power (1976) didn’t have to be edited for its release in the Netherlands, whereas it was in the United States. I guess it shouldn’t come as an surprise to me that these are the kind of videos a Dutch band would make.

Nevertheless, I’m impressed. And yes, the topless nudity was censored at the time. If Wikipedia is to be believed, then the injection scene was also censored. My favorite scene is when the little girl turns toward the camera and stares at you for awhile. It’s a nice little touch.

The song itself was apparently not inspired by the TV Show. It was based off of Robert Ludum’s book The Bourne Identity. That would explain the spy storyline.

Enjoy!

30 Days Of Surrealism: