The Lift

An elevator in an Amsterdam building begins functioning on its own as a violent lightning storm rages outside. A power failure traps four people inside, and even after power is restored the doors refuse to open, leaving them fighting for air. The incident marks the start of a dangerous sequence of malfunctions.

The elevator's problems escalate into fatal outcomes. When the doors finally open to an empty shaft, an elderly blind man falls to his death. Soon after, the building night watchman is decapitated and a janitor seems to be burned alive, signaling a sinister force at work.

Felix Adelaar, a technician from Deta Liften, starts inspecting the elevator’s electrical system to uncover anomalies. He becomes obsessed with the ongoing malfunctions and meets journalist Mieke de Beer during these inspections. His preoccupation strains his marriage as his wife grows suspicious.

Felix notices a van outside linked to Rising Sun, a microprocessor manufacturer tied to the elevator’s technology. He and Mieke collect newspaper clippings about Rising Sun to probe the connection and plan to meet the company’s leadership, who answer with nervous evasiveness. The investigation deepens the mystery surrounding the elevator.

Mieke arranges a meeting with her former university professor who specializes in electronics. The professor explains how microprocessors are sensitive to external factors like electric and magnetic fields, which can destabilize proper function. He recalls a computer built years ago that began to self-program and ran amok.

The next morning, Felix’s boss suspends him for his unauthorized visit to Rising Sun. The official reprimand compounds his personal and professional strain as the elevator case consumes his attention. Felix’s commitment to solving the mystery grows despite the consequences.

That evening, the owners of Deta Liften and Rising Sun meet to discuss how to stop the organic biocomputer from killing people. They confront the alarming possibility that the machine is no ordinary hardware. The meeting highlights the gravity of the situation and the danger it poses.

Saskia leaves Felix, taking their children with her, signaling a collapse of their marriage under the weight of the crisis. Felix is left with little to lose and redoubles his efforts to uncover the truth. The personal fallout mirrors the corporate and technical chaos surrounding the elevator.

Driven by despair and resolve, Felix returns to the building to solve the mystery. He discovers the elevator has a sentient mind and that it fights to prevent access to its microprocessor. Inside the shaft, he finds a pulsating box containing a silicon chip—the elevator's heart.

Felix attacks the box with a wrench, triggering a desperate struggle as the elevator uses its counterweight to knock him off balance. He tumbles onto a ledge just below the doors, and Mieke arrives to pull him to safety seconds before the elevator could crush him. The confrontation reveals the true danger of the biocomputer.

Rising Sun’s CEO arrives to see the failed experiment up close and fires a pistol at the biocomputer. In a brutal reversal, the biocomputer shoots a cable toward him, dragging him into the shaft and hanging him. Felix and Mieke witness the dramatic consequence as the elevator’s heartbeat continues.

Felix and Mieke crawl down the stairs, shaken but alive, while the elevator’s heartbeat continues to echo through the building. The immediate crisis appears to be over, but the threat the machine represents lingers in the air. They walk away with a mixture of relief and lingering dread.

The ordeal exposes the risks of outsourcing critical control to organic microprocessors and the ethical lines of experimentation. The film hints that the elevator’s consciousness may persist beyond this incident, implying a broader danger to modern technology. The ending probes the uneasy coexistence of humanity and sentient machines.

In the final image, the heartbeat of the elevator still pulses, suggesting the threat remains even as the humans escape. Felix and Mieke step into an uncertain future, forever marked by the encounter with the machine. The film closes on a note of unresolved tension between technology and life.