In Elevator Game, a group of young entertainers, who host an online series about scary games, are looking for new ideas for their show when they enter into a brainstorming session. After the first couple of ideas are dismissed by their boss, new intern Ryan suggests the team play the urban legend game known as ‘The Elevator Game’.
The Elevator Game involves players riding an elevator between floors in a set sequence, in order to unlock a gateway to another dimension. As part of the game, players supposedly summon a spirit, which Ryan believes would make great content for the show.
To begin with the team are less than keen on Ryan’s suggestion. But when one of the show’s key sponsors pulls some funding, the team are forced to go ahead with the game, in order to get a new episode online as soon as possible.
After grabbing their camera, the group head to a nearby elevator and begin filming. But as they soon discover, The Elevator Game is no mere urban legend.
Directed by Rebekah McKendry, Elevator Game stars Gino Anania, Megan Best, Alec Carlos, Nazariy Demkowicz, and Madison MacIsaac. The movie is a low budget supernatural horror film which is new to stream on Shudder this month.
Taking inspiration from various YouTubers and Tik-Tokers who play daft and sometimes dangerous games in order to create online content, Elevator Game has a decent and relevant premise, which seems fitting for the times we live in. The idea of a group of youngsters taking part in a potentially dangerous game for ‘views’ is something we see online all the time, and this creates a great deal of scope for a good horror movie.
Only problem is, Elevator Game isn’t a particularly good horror movie. The picture is dull, slow, and largely uneventful, and not even the slightest bit scary.
Outside of the opening few minutes, which sets up the spooky elevator scenario, nothing much happens for at least the next 45 minutes. Within this time the film quickly runs out of steam and it’s really quite easy to lose interest in the story and find yourself wishing for something more.
To be fair to the cast, they do their best with the material they are given, but at no point do they have a chance to shine. What should be a topical horror with likeable performances, quickly descends into a rejected pitch for an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?.
And for the record, I like Are You Afraid of the Dark?, but when I sit down to watch a horror movie I want suspense, tension, plenty of scares, and perhaps some gore. There’s very little of this on offer in Elevator Game, it’s just horror by-the-numbers.
Unless you’re completely new to horror movies, and you’re open to almost anything, I can’t see how this film will be of interest. It’s sadly all too bland for its own good and not worth investing much time in.
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