Welcome to rock bottom in horror movies, as Elevator Game (2023) stumbles in as the disaster that somehow made it to streaming. Plagued by an execution so flimsy it could collapse under a stiff breeze, as this one stands a sad reminder that some movies are simply better left unmade.
The toughest part of writing reviews is slogging through turkeys like this, when all you want to do is hit the off button and save yourself time, but every site needs that one rock-bottom flick you can proudly tell your readers to avoid at all costs. Still, we gave it a fair shake, and to be frank, while the trailer set our expectations barely above the floor, we hoped to find at least one redeeming quality.
What is the Elevator Game?
Elevator Game draws from a South Korean urban legend centered on a ritual performed inside an elevator. By pressing the floor buttons in a precise sequence, you might unlock a portal to another dimension. On the fifth floor of this journey, a mysterious woman may appear, but she is malevolent, and if you dare glance at her or, worse, speak to her, you risk being dragged away and erased from existence.
From Script to Production Nightmare
In a twist of ironic fate, the movie’s premise becomes a textbook case of life imitating art. We follow a crew of friends running a web show, chasing the thrill of urban legends and the paranormal, only to be derailed by budget cuts that force them to find a makeshift alternative for their next episode. And trust us, the real-life production woes bled straight into the script, leaving behind a muddled, messy result.
Clinging to the elevator game as their low-budget lifeline, the crew bets on a simple setting. After all, buildings with elevators are as common as jump scares in a slasher flick. It seems like a slam-dunk in the script, but for those of us trapped on the couch watching, it's an execution so overly ambitious it collapses under a budget that feels like it was crowdfunded with someone's piggy bank.
From the cinematography to the bad acting, the whole vibe and look of the movie reeks of a student film project lost in the void. The flaws pile up gruesomely. Redscale tones haunt the outdoor night shots like cheap Instagram filters, while the cast plods through their lines as if reading from cue cards under duress, lacking any authenticity, as it’s obvious that nobody involved cared enough to attempt a second take.
It's impossible to stay invested as the movie splashes around in a sea of inauthenticity, leaving us stranded without a lifeboat. Its endless missteps, from those tacky effects to lifeless line readings, ensure that any hope of enjoyment is buried beneath a pile of distractions.
Aside from the crew lugging camera gear into an elevator, praying the ‘5th Floor Woman’ will teleport inside, most of the movie is just them scurrying back to their headquarters and plotting their next move. When the ghostly woman finally does show up, it’s about as anticlimactic as it gets, as she simply looks like someone who wandered straight off a Halloween clearance rack, eliminating any possible anxiety you might have had for them.
If you were to force our hand to find even the faintest silver lining in this movie, we would be hard-pressed. Still, it manages to cook up a couple of hallway and elevator shots that don’t scream amateur hour like the rest, if only for a moment. We thought we’d mention that, at least. But it really makes no difference, as this glorified student film project stumbles from the opening scene to its bitter, lackluster end, leaving us to shudder at what they were thinking while making it.