The Fear of a Lift

The fearing of a place, a mechanical/technological space, has been written by Dick Maas to extend the imagination of the "technology gone MAD" subgenre. The Lift(1983) is centered around a misbehaving elevator in an office building. Felix, an elevator repairman, is called in to investigate mechanical problems after four guests are almost suffocated from heat or something inside the lift after a drinking binge. Although Felix finds no apparent problem, more incidents occur, including deaths. Felix is called back to the building,running into a reporter who heard about the deaths and is investigating. They dig and discover that there may be something fishy with the computerized electronics that form the brain of the system. This is one of the better targets for machine horror, since many of us have twinges of irrational fears about elevators--we fear that they'll suddenly plummet to the bottom of the shaft, we fear being stuck for indefinite periods of time between floors in a semblance of imprisonment and many of us are claustrophobic to an extent.