‘Dead Drop’ Review: A Contained High-Concept Horror Flick Whose Twists Captivate More Than its Characters

A priest, a bike messenger, a pregnant woman and a few other strangers all walk into a freight elevator… If that sounds like the start of a long-winded joke, be advised that in the high-concept horror flick Dead Drop, that joke quickly turns demented, and eventually cosmic, in a film which takes its contained premise to some crazy places.

Keeping us entertained through its sharp pacing and twists more than through its stock characters, the third feature by writer-director Ned Crowley (Killing Faith) plays like a grownup version of The Breakfast Club meets the cult 1990s thriller Cube. In other words, there’s nothing all that groundbreaking here, but Crowley shows he can make something out of a just handful of actors trapped on a single set, tossing in lots of gore, bawdy humor and other surprises as their ride fails to reach its floor.

“It’s a hellevator!” the caustic computer nerd (Victor Rivera) quips toward the end of the movie, no doubt citing what must have been the working title for this fun if rather thin trip to the bottom. The “troll” (as he’s called in the end credits) is one of eight people who cross paths in the lobby of an office building, then fatefully decide to take a freight elevator instead of waiting for a passenger lift. They soon find themselves caught in limbo while awaiting instructions from an ominous voice on the intercom.

Given the gang spends the first part of the film sitting around until the shit hits the fan (or is that the fan duct?), they have ample time to get to know each other. It’s unfortunate, then, that Crowley’s script (based on a story he wrote with David Martin) presents us with a cluster of archetypes rather than characters who feel like real people. Still, the dialogue can be witty, and the conflicts, whether racial, sexist or classist, are mildly amusing. You couldn’t pick a more dissimilar cast than this bickering bunch, which is why half the mystery in Drop Dead is learning how they all wound up stuck together.

The other half is trying to understand what the hell is happening to them — emphasis on the hell part, especially when a pregnant teacher (Melissa Neal) in the group brings up Dante’s Inferno. Before that happens, things start falling apart as trap doors open, a personal trainer (Elijah Craft) gets his face melted yet maintains an impressive post-mortem erection, and blood begins to pour into the elevator just like it gushed out in Kubrick’s The Shining.

Crowley keeps a steady rhythm and a swift 88-minute running time, interrupting the banter with lots of jump scares and gory happenings, whether it’s a tough guy (Roger Adjogbe) getting his brains blown out or a lawyer (Christina Tam) who winds up drowning in hemoglobin. It’s hard, in the end, to take the movie’s far-fetched premise seriously, so it’s a good thing the director undercuts his horror with constant humor. At the same time, that also prevents us from becoming too invested in the fates of people who seem to be dying for our viewing pleasure — and sometimes one another’s.

For a scenario that never leaves its single location, the film still displays a fair amount of visual flair. Production designer Rositsa Trayanova makes the most out of a metal box serving as the only set, tossing in clues that take on meaning as the story progresses. DP Aidan Gault adds depth to the stagy backdrop, finding dynamic camera setups to capture the mayhem. And Crowley comes up with clever ways to surprise us, although it becomes clear at some point where things may be headed. The journey is ultimately the destination in Dead Drop, even if that broken-down elevator hardly moves at all.