Matt Rife | Through the Shattered Lens

In 2021’s The Elevator, Eric Roberts plays Roman Juniper, who is married and who has three kids but who also has a demanding job in a downtown office building. Even though it’s both the weekend and his youngest daughter’s birthday, Roman still has to go into work for a few hours. Unfortunately, just as Roman is looking forward to heading home and celebrating with his family, there’s an electrical short in the building and Roman finds himself trapped in the elevator!

His family starts to wonder where he is and, in another unfortunate coincidence, he is initially misidentified as having been involved in a freak accident that occurred outside of his building. His family fears that Roman is dead but will they ever discover that he’s actually tapped in a dark elevator, where he’s yelling and losing his mind?

In many ways, this film is the ultimate latter day Eric Roberts movie. Roberts is actually the lead in this movie. The film centers around his character and, even when he’s not on-screen, everyone is talking about him. For once, this is not a film where Roberts just shows up in some throw-away role and lends the production a few minutes of Eric Roberts star power. The Elevator is a legitimate Eric Roberts films. And yet, because of the film’s plot, Roberts still spends the majority of his screentime on only one set and, for the most part, he doesn’t really interact with the rest of the cast. Everyone else is out looking for him but Eric Roberts is alone on that elevator. He’s acting up a storm and Eric Roberts is always at his best when he’s playing an emotional character but it’s difficult not to notice that he was probably able to shoot his entire role in just a day or two. You have to respect a man who can star in a movie and still manage to get it all done in just a handful of hours.

Eric Roberts is, not surprisingly, the main reason to see The Elevator. The film itself is poorly paced and cheap-looking. But Eric Roberts is always fun to watch.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Look out everyone! Dr. Beck is back!

Played by Eric Roberts, Albert Beck is the anti-hero at the center of the Stalked By My Doctor films. He was once a brilliant heart surgeon, up until he grew obsessed with one of his patients and was forced to go on the run. That happened in 2015’s Stalked By My Doctor. Stalked By My Doctor was so successful that it has inspired, to date, three sequels. Each film features the same basic plot, in which Dr. Beck assumes another doctor’s identity, becomes obsessed with another patient, and ends up murdering the usual collection of dumb boyfriends and nosy coworkers. Ever since the third film, Dr. Beck has spent a lot of time talking to himself, which the franchise usually represents literally by having two Doctor Becks appear on screen at the same time and arguing with each other. The real Dr. Beck usually wears a suit and a lab coat and is prone to thinking that he’s finally going to find true love. The imaginary Dr. Beck wears a Hawaiian shirt and is always holding a tropical drink. Of course, this means that you get twice as much Eric Roberts as advertised!

And indeed, Eric Roberts is the main reason why this franchise has thrived. Lifetime is full of movies about stalkers but only the Stalked By My Doctor franchise features Eric Roberts at his most demented. (We make a lot of jokes about Eric Roberts on this site but the truth of the matter is that he’s actually a very good actor and he’s given some very good performances over the course of his long career. If nothing else, he’s a more consistently interesting actor than his better-known sister, Julia.) In the role of Dr. Beck, Eric Roberts never makes any attempt to be the least bit subtle and that’s exactly why the films work. If you take every creepy doctor and touchy-feely male friend that you’ve ever had to deal with and combined them into one ubercreep, the end result would be Dr. Beck. He’s arrogant. He’s condescending. He’s got the creepiest smile in the world. And yet, despite his personal issues, he’s also a lot of fun to watch. Eric Roberts always seems like he’s having fun in these movies as he discovers new ways to communicate the fact that Dr. Beck is an absolute creep.

There are two things that I especially like about the Stalked By My Doctor films:

Number one, they take place in a world where someone who looks and sounds like Eric Roberts can somehow evade detection despite making absolutely no effort to disguise his appearance or change his voice. For instance, in the franchise’s fourth film, Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Nightmare (which aired on Lifetime this weekend), we find Dr. Beck working as a server at a roadside diner. As in the previous films, he’s still frequently distracted by wild fantasies and elaborate schemes for revenge. But what’s hilarious is that Dr. Beck is apparently one of the most wanted men in America but none of the customers at this seemingly busy diner ever says, “Hey, that mysterious server looks just like that murderer who was all over the news!” To the film’s credit, it also makes it clear that the film itself is in on the joke. We’re supposed to enjoy the rather odd sight of Eric Roberts pouring coffee and awkwardly flirting with his customers. We’re not supposed to worry about whether or not it’s a plausible development.

Number two, I love the fact that there’s literally nothing that Dr. Beck cannot do. Seriously, Dr. Beck has got to be the most brilliant medical mind of all time because there’s not a single field of medical care that he cannot conquer. When we first met Dr. Beck, he was a heart surgeon. In the fourth film, he steals the identity of a specialist in sexsomnia. He manages to do all of this without missing a beat or giving himself away. All you have to do is give Dr. Beck a lab coat and he can basically do anything!

This time around, Dr. Beck is obsessed with the niece (Angeline Appel) of one of his patients, Michelle (Emilie Ullerup). Once again, Dr. Beck is breaking hearts and ending lives while, at the same time, arguing with his Hawaiian shirt-wearing alter ego. And again, there’s murder, love, and melodrama. It wouldn’t be a Stalked By My Doctor movie, otherwise!

And it’s all lot of fun. Just when you think that the franchise has run out of gas, Eric Roberts adds another layer of quirkiness to his performance and you find yourself enthralled again. As I hinted at above, the best thing about the Stalked By My Doctor films is that they know that they’re ludicrous and they make no apologies for being what they are. Much like A Deadly Adoption, the Stalked By My Doctor films poke fun at the Lifetime format while still showing enough respect for the audience that no one watching is going to feel as if they’re being condescended to. The film is totally over-the-top and silly but it’s Eric Roberts so who cares? What else would you expect? Are you not amused?

When watching Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Revenge, keep an eye out for Felissa Rose. Rose plays one of Beck’s colleagues. Horror fans know her best from her starring role in the original Sleepaway Camp. Her casting is one of those touches that sets Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Revenge apart from other Lifetime films.

In its way, the Stalked By My Doctor franchise has the potential to be Lifetime’s equivalent of the Sharknado films. Personally, I can’t wait to see where Dr. Beck turns up next!