SEVENTH FLOOR
Australia, 1993, 90 minutes, Colour.
Brooke Shields, Linda Cropper, Craig Pearce.
Directed by Ian Barry.
Seventh Floor is a glossy routine thriller, set in an advertising agency, showing rivalries for power and money and then becoming a violent psychotic thriller. Brooke Shields is the widow of a womanising entrepreneur, Linda Cropper is her ruthlessly ambitious rival, Craig Pearce is the worker who gets caught up in the machinations. The hero is a Japanese technician who comes in to fix the machines in the office, who moves into the building with Brooke Shields, forms a relationship - and then eventually emerges as being schizophrenic and violent, with his video games and technology creating a video image of his dead sister with whom he identifies.
The film offers nothing particularly new - but does it in an enjoyable if undemanding way. Ian Barry has directed a number of small-budget feature films in Australia including Chain Reaction and Minnemurra.
1. The popularity of this kind of thriller? The world of business? Police investigations? Murders? Psychopathic killers?
2. The Sydney settings, the offices, the warehouse and the apartments? The musical score?
3. The prologue, Japan, the knife, the killings, the parents and the effect on the young boy? The later revelation about the parents being murdered or killed in an accident from the embassy in Canberra? The orphaned brother and sister? The sister committing suicide? The revelation that the young boy was responsible for the killings? His nightmares, motivations?
4. Kate and her dead husband, knowing the truth about him, inheriting his debts? The antagonism of Vivian? The support of Ed, his seeming to turn against her? The machinations in the office, Vivian and her plans, the takeover, her hold on Ed, the security escorting Kate from the building? Ed and the Pan Air contract, Kate and her contribution? His embarrassment? His suspicions of the Japanese man, getting his friend Greg to investigate him, the information, Greg's death?
5. Vivian, her relationship with George, antagonism towards Kate, her hold over Ed, her ambitions, the manipulated phone call, her going to the warehouse, her death?
6. Kate, the aftermath of being ousted, her being unwell, the collapse, Mitsuri and his caring for Kate, drugging her, her nightmares, her inability to tell reality from fantasy? Her responses to the police? Her curiosity about Mitsuri, the photos with his sister's face missing? Searching? His eventual hold over her, her love for him? The confrontation, trying to dismantle the computer game, the fight with Mitsuri, the lift, Ed's coming to rescue her, the fire?
7. Mitsuri, his work, charm, helping in the office, moving in, the mysteries, the relationship? The emergence of his madness, Kate investigating the files, his sister, creating the phone call with his technology, the voices? His eventual descent into madness, death?
8. Ed, coming to the rescue, change of heart, Kate's reinstatement, the happy ending?
9. The device of having the phone ring and the voice come over the phone to give an eerie ending?
10. The popularity of this kind of thriller, mystery, in an affluent world, the exotic touches, the Japanese background, madness and technology?
