Director:

• John Erick Dowdle

Writers:

• Brian Nelson (screenplay)
• M. Night Shyamalan (story)

Country: USA
Release Date:

• USA – 17 September 2010
• Germany – 25 November 2010

Genre: Horror | Mystery | Thriller
ImDB: 6.6/10; ImDB Link

Plot
The film begins with a worker committing suicide by jumping from a building. Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is called to the scene to aid in the investigation. Bowden is an alcoholic devastated by the death of his wife and child in a hit-and-run accident by a driver who was never caught. As this is happening, five strangers, who have committed various crimes in the past, step onto an elevator located within the same building where the suicide has taken place.

The five strangers include Ben (Bokeem Woodbine), a temp security guard with a violent past; an elderly woman (Jenny O’Hara) who is a compulsive thief; Vince (Geoffrey Arend), a mattress salesman who moonlights as a con artist; Tony (Logan Marshall-Green), a former mechanic who served in the U.S. military during the War in Afghanistan who is now seeking employment within the building; and Sarah (Bojana Novakovic), a greed encompassed heiress meeting with her lawyer in the building.

Strange things start to occur beginning with the elevator becoming stuck between floors. Then, after the lights go out, Sarah is inexplicably wounded on her back. The remaining occupants of the elevator quickly begin to suspect Vince of having committed the assault. Slowly, one by one, the five strangers start to die. First, Vince is killed by a shard of glass from a mirror which slices his jugular vein. Detective Bowden, sensing a connection between this and the man who earlier took his own life, is compelled to further investigate. Checking the building’s guest log, Bowden finds that only four people have missed their scheduled appointments that day: Sarah, Vince, Ben, and “Janecowski”. The investigators misinterpret the latter as “Jane Cowski” and assume this is the old woman’s name, leaving Bowden suspicious of Tony who appears to be the only undocumented occupant.

With the help of the building’s security team, Bowden examines security footage and discovers that the old woman had stolen a wallet prior to entering the elevator. The office building’s repairman is sent down the elevator shaft to fix it, but plummets to his death. “Jane” is the next to “die” after an electrical cord suspended from the roof of the elevator wraps around her neck and strangles her. Sarah and Ben turn on Tony, while Bowden begins to suspect that Sarah’s husband has hired Ben to kill her. A security guard inspects the basement and electrocutes himself attempting to secure a hot fallen wire. The lights go out again and Ben is dead with his neck completely twisted around. Each thinking the other must be responsible for the murders, Tony and Sarah prepare to fight each other with broken glass, but Bowden seemingly manages to calm them. As Sarah prepares to take out a shard of glass hidden in her back pocket, the lights once again go out and her throat is slashed. The mystery seems solved, when a tattooed woman arrives and informs Bowden that Tony is her fiance, and was at the building for a job interview. Only then is his full name revealed to be Tony Janecowski.

The old woman suddenly rises and appears behind Tony. It is now apparent that she is the Devil who has taken a human form. Having dispensed of the others, The Devil tells Tony its his turn to die. Detective Bowden watches through the CCTV as Tony confesses to killing two people in a drunken hit-and-run, at which point the Devil spares him and disappears as the firemen finish breaking into the elevator. Detective Bowden realizes Tony is the one who killed his wife and son, but expresses his forgiveness en route to the police station following his Tony’s arrest.

Last Update: 25 September, 2010