Down

Down (re-titled The Shaft on DVD) is a 2001 science fiction horror film written and directed by Dick Maas and starring James Marshall, Naomi Watts, and Eric Thal. It is a remake of the 1983 Dutch-language film (The Elevator), which was also directed by Maas. Watts plays the role of pushy journalist Jennifer Evans, and Marshall is Mark, an elevator repairman and former Marine. The movie was mainly filmed in the Netherlands, although the crew briefly visited New York City and the District of Columbia as well for exterior shots. The film was funded by Nederlands Fonds, and produced by First Floor Features and AVRO, with post-production by Sapex Scripts. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001, and was released on video in the United States two years later. Plot In New York City, a stray bolt of lightning strikes the 102-floor, 73-elevator Millennium Building. The three main express elevators begin acting strangely, resulting in a guard's flashlight being crushed. The next day, a group of pregnant women are held up between floors 21 and 22; The elevator overheats rapidly, causing two women to give birth and hospitalizing the rest. Reporter Jennifer Evans is called to write a report on the incident. After an investigation by METEOR elevator company technicians Jeff McClellan and Mark Newman, they determine that nothing is wrong with the elevators, a large part being Jeff's inability to actually admit there is something wrong (he states throughout his scenes that the computer controlling the elevators has absolutely no defects).