Getting stuck in an elevator is one thing; getting haunted by one is a whole different beast. Fans of urban legends may be tickled by a new Shudder offering called Elevator Game, based on the infamous online challenge that requires you to ride a lift of your choosing in a very particular order, which may or may not yield real-life haunts into another universe. The fictional new feature stars Gino Anania as Ryan, a passionate young adult who joins a web series crew with the ulterior motive of tracking down his lost sister Becki (Megan Best), who had previously tried the “game” and has since gone missing. Is her disappearance tied to the urban legend, or is Becki just a runaway?

We recently caught up with Anania and producer Stefan Brunner, who dished on their love for horror and some of the more challenging sequences in Elevator Game. It all comes down to your passion for the genre, as they’ll tell you, and the nature of the beast becomes even scarier when you’re confined to the tight space inside an elevator…

Urban Legends ‘Amplified’ by the Internet

As producer Brunner will tell you, getting Elevator Game made was “quite a journey,” so he seemed quite relieved to finally see the end result hit the masses this week. “It’s really nice to see people actually seeing it now,” he said, before delving into how the different ingredients of Elevator Game successfully came together for the ultimate horror experience:

“Urban legends have always been super fascinating to me and, I think, to a lot of people. And since the internet’s been around, their spread has been amplified. So they’ve been everywhere. And me, my partners, we always love what they say about natural human curiosity and this belief that something might exist beyond what we really know. And of course, no one really believes that, but there’s always this component of “what if?” that sort of adds a frightening edge to the gameplay. That was one thing that was really something that intrigued us a lot.”

“Then of course, it’s also set in an elevator, and elevators are an everyday object, but in a way, it transforms it into an object of terror,” continued Brunner. “And it’s always this fascinating bit with elevators, that you get in there, it’s a small, confined space, and it moves up and down in seconds, and you’re basically at the mercy of that elevator, doing what it’s supposed to do. That, in combination with that urban legend, was just a very intriguing premise. And then the script that Travis Seppala wrote, we just loved it.”

Gino Anania Plays the Elevator Game
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Lead actor Anania went on to explain how the urban legend nature of the source material for his new film holds a special place in his heart, dating back to his upbringing. “I remember in our hometown, there would be this story of a church that you drive to. And if you go at, like, 11 p.m. at night, and you walk around it three times, on the third time, if you watch your friend, you won’t see them come back,” he explained to MovieWeb. “It’s just fun seeing the bravado of a friend or yourself or something just completely fall because of this story.”

Related: Elevator Game Review: Cheeky Urban Legend Film Might Make You Shriek

He continued:

“So, seeing the Elevator Game script come up, and especially being at the mercy of the elevator and there’s no escape, that adds a lot more terror than walking around a church and being able to run left or right through a field. So yeah, something about an elevator and being locked in for multiple floors, with the mercy of being locked away. And then the ‘Fifth-Floor Woman’ coming at you. That’s terrifying.”

Who exactly is the “Fifth Floor Woman,” you ask? If you’re too scared to try and find out for yourself — by trying your hand at the game — just know that she seems to be the cool kid on the block… inside the terrifying ‘Red World,’ that is, which the young characters in Elevator Game ultimately witness by completing the challenge correctly. Stranger Things fans will see similarities between this world and the Upside-Down featured in the hit Netflix series.

“One thing I was really excited for was the Red World, seeing how we’re going to set it up and what it’s going to look like,” said Anania. “And to come in knowing that it’s a full day of just [shooting my character] Ryan, and how is this affecting him? What is the arc of him answering the Red World, to leaving the Red World?”

And then you’re just asking the questions of yourself like, ‘Is your sister there? This is your opportunity to answer all the questions you have been looking for.’ And then leaving the Red World and maybe not getting those answers — that was just something in my own mind.

“But it was so cool,” added Anania, “just showing up and seeing the Red World on the day and just having a blast.”

Shooting in an Elevator Built ‘From Scratch’
Shudder

From a producer’s standpoint, it must be tricky shooting extensive footage inside an elevator. Anyone who has ridden the Tower of Terror at Disney World knows that a seemingly harmless trip up to the floor of your choosing can apparently go south in more ways than one. I myself got stuck inside an elevator once, and big surprise here: It’s not fun. But luckily, the lift sequences went smoothly for Elevator Game, as Brunner explained:

“We had a great team that built the elevator in a former police precinct in Winnipeg. So we had that entire place for us, which was amazing. And they built the elevator there from scratch. I think the most challenging thing was probably the Red World because the weather was a bit temperamental, so we weren’t sure, ‘Would it be raining, or would it not be raining?'”

Related: Stalker Review: Elevator Thriller Rises to a Wicked Climax

Watching a horror subgenre film like Elevator Game, one can’t help but think back to past classics on the big screen that explored other viral myths. “We looked at other movies that revolved around urban legends,” said Brunner. “If you look at something like Bloody Mary and Slender Man, we wanted to create [the Fifth-Floor Woman] as like a supernatural entity in a way and similar to those movies. Otherwise, you know how it is in horror, you always try to do something that hasn’t been done before. And I think you constantly strive to do that.”

And on that note, how does one prepare for the lead role in a scary movie, besides the obvious? “Leading up to [shooting Elevator Game], I wanted to watch a ton of horror movies in general because I just love horror,” said Anania. “October’s coming up; I do a horror movie a day, every day in October, which is so much fun.”

Also looking ahead, Anania is excited about another scary project of his that has already been shot, though the release date is yet to be announced. “It’s called Safe Haven, which is a horror-thriller TV show,” he said. “We shot it last year, over the course of a few months, and it looks fantastic. It lives in two separate worlds, which is fun. But yeah, we’re all super excited for it.”

In the meantime, Elevator Game is now streaming on Shudder.