The 4th Floor (2000)

A classic example of how to ruin a good set-up with a crappy finale worthy of a Bugs Bunny cartoon (provided those cartoons sucked caj*nes and were made by cretins). The first hour sets up an interesting mystery that touches vaguely on the haunted house genre, but when the villain reveals itself the movie falls apart like a badly stacked up deck of cards hit by a cyclone.The villain is none other than the old geezer from the building. Now a quick rundown of the shoddiness of the goofy finale: the old geezer is basically indestructible and insane (though not near insane enough to pull of a string of tricks and manipulations that would normally require a sound mind and a dozen people). Juliette Lewis who shows spunk and courage throughout the movie behaves like a little schoolgirl lost when faced with this non-formidable foe who is shorter than Tom Cruise and has the build of a 14 year-old kid. She gets knocked out by him - yet again (does he walk barefoot? float through air?) - and then it's time for Thrilleric Clicherama 101: she knocks him out with a rod, but instead of finishing him off she, very typically for thriller/horror victims, throws AWAY her weapon, turns her backhriller/horror victims, throws AWAY her weapon, turns her back to the predictably not-badly-injured villain and very predictably he gets up to resume chasing her and endangers her yet again. Wow. Why must victims in thrillers always be so damn stupid in crucial situations?WHY do people who fight for their lives - in dumb thrillers and horrors (obviously, not in real life, when everyone goes to much greater lengths to crush/bash/annihilate/destroy/pulverize/neutralize/bash the attacker) - never CONTINUE bashing the villain, just to make sure they're incapacitated, severely injured or thoroughly killed? Is this some unwritten-rule pacifist movie thing invented by left-wing writers whereby the hero can never be shown to be human i.e. justifiably vicious toward their attacker?Dumber still, the janitor (played conveniently by the "Saw" guy before "Saw" was written and released by random dweeby knuckleheads), can't manage to overpower this tiny little old man, in a scene so stupid it can compete with any horsepoop from "Saw" or the even more amazingly dumb "Copycat" - perhaps even an Argento thriller. And then William Hurt just happens to arrive, and even he struggles to get the old man to put down the weapon.The killer's motives for murdering so many building residents without anyone noticing they're missing or dead? Some gobbledygook about Ancient Egypt, the serenity of peace and what-not: it's not as if any of that stuff made enough sense for me to pay much attention to the killer's obligatory and very silly why-I-dood-it speech. We never find out WHY the stench of several corpses - plus the maggots - only manage to reach and bother Lewis. Nor do we quite understand how come NOBODY wants to believe Lewis despite the fact she has bundles of evidence. The nonsense reaches Hitchockian levels, because the overrated chubster also tended to use ridiculous plot-devices that ensured that nobody ever believed the protagonist.Furthermore, they couldn't resist make the conspiracy even sillier. The epilogue heavily hints that William Hurt was in cahoots with the old geezer, which throws the already inane and far-fetched plot squarely into totally absurd territory. Once Lewis's boyfriend is somehow involved, one can safely say that literally nothing ties up logically.It gets dumber. The "Saw" guy acts extremely suspiciously. In fact, what Lewis saw through the window in his apartment should have pegged him as a serial-killer, at the very least, and yet he turns out to be a helper in need. In fact, everyone is made to behave suspiciously or oddly, including Shelley Duvall and even Lewis's female colleague. Needless to say, the viewer is lied to and manipulated in the worst shoddy-plot-device way, and then "rewarded" for his time spent watching this dross by giving us the most laughable killer in years.You anyway won't be able to find this movie easily, because it's made-for-TV drivel.

"The 4th Floor" is about a young woman (Juliette Lewis) who moves into her late aunt's apartment much to her boyfriend's (William Hurt) disapproval. The other tenants in the building are very strange, Jerry (Artie Lange), Martha (Shelley Duvall), and the woman on the floor below her are very shady as well as the man across the street (Tobin Bell). Mr. Collins (Austin Pendleton) seems to be the only normal person in the building. However, odd and eerie things begin happening in the apartment below her, and Juliette Lewis suspects that things are not what they seem. This was much better than I had expected, with an all-star cast and a good script, this movie went a long way. Suspense and mystery made this a win-win movie, with barely a boring moment. Beware of the many red herrings in this movie, almost every character could be a murderer. I strongly recommend this eerie thriller!Rated: R for Violence, Brief Nudity, and Profanity.Grade: C

A fine line up of actors and a seemingly nice plot -- though not original -- promised me a nice evening in front of the TV. I was disappointed. The actors delivered up to standard (Juliette Lewis cuddly as ever; William Hurt solid but in the background; Shelley Duvall convincing as ever) but the story was too thin to keep me engaged to the story and, the twist to the finale was too obvious and too late; there was only one character who was nice to he girl, so guess what?! Then the final after-twist… I do not know what to think of that. The boyfriend and the neighbor? Contract with the Devil, or just to get her to move in? What! The film had a nice idea behind it, but the idea was not worked out in detail. It could have been good, but it was not. Too many loose ends to tie up, Columbo would say.

Greg is a weatherman for 'Rise and Shine New York' who has gotten a national job. Jane is his girlfriend who doesn't want to move in with him, instead taking over her Aunt Cecile's fifth-floor apartment.It was Martha Stewart (no, not the famous one) who found Aunt Cecile dead at the bottom of the stairs. And she's only one of the quirky neighbors. Some are in Jane's building (such as the super, who is the landlord's mentally unstable nephew Larry), and others can be seen from Jane's window--includinga cross-dresser, and the man who may have killed his wife.Alice apparently lives in the apartment below Jane's, and she has real problems. Though never seen, she leaves numerous trash bags in the hall, and sends Jane nasty notes about her behavior, even though Jane is relatively quiet. Later, Jane gets more than notes.I don't care much for scary movies, but this one was just chilling enough to be entertaining, especially toward the end. Those who can't stand 'Fear Factor' might not want to see this movie.Shelley Duvall made quite an eerie character, and I genuinely despised her. Mr. Collins was nervous but nice, and he reminded me in some ways of Fred Rogers. I won't say just why I thought Austin Pendleton did a very good job.The movie left us not knowing what really happened. We think we know--OR DO WE????