The Chase inevitably leads into a multi-story building. The chase-ee ducks into an elevator, and the chaser arrives Just in Time for the doors to close in on his or her face. As their quarry rides up to the top in relative comfort, the pursuer is forced to wait for the next elevator or, more likely, take the stairs. Regardless of which route they take, it's still somehow possible for the chaser to arrive at the same floor just seconds before their quarry. It isn't that hard to climb stairs faster than the typical elevator ascends, though if the building is tall enough, stamina will become an issue eventually —elevators don't tire. This can also be used in a race against time.
Can lead to an Empty Elevator moment when the pursuer sets up an ambush at the assumed exit point... and then the doors open to an empty carriage.
Compare Elevator Escape which draws all its suspense potential from the moment the pursuer heads for the closing elevator door and is eventually blocked off. If he actually manages to get in, expect an Elevator Action Sequence to unfold.
Sub-Trope of Chase-Scene Obstacle Course and Stairs Are Faster.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Future Diary: In their first meeting in the series, Yuno forces her way into an elevator, corners the terrified Yuki, and then gives him his First Kiss. Cue the Uncomfortable Elevator Moment, at least for Yuki.
- Phantom Quest Corp.: Karino manages to keep up with the hospital's elevator by running up the stairs for at least four floors.
Films — Animation
- Catwoman: Hunted: Catwoman is being chased by Cheetah. She flees into a construction site's service elevator, only to see Cheetah climbing the outside of the elevator cage as fast as she is ascending.
Films — Live-Action
- Adventures in Babysitting: A girl is being chased by two car thieves because she has information that they need for their next job, she ducks into the elevator, and the door closes on the thieves, forcing them to wait for the elevator to come back down, later the babysitter and her friends take the elevator and retrieve the girl.
- Atomic Blonde: Lorraine is in a hotel and realises a KGB team is about to enter to kill her and capture Spyglass, so she leaves him at the bottom of the stairs and takes the elevator to the top to gain a height advantage, getting into an immediate shootout with a couple of KGB agents (who have gone up the stairs) the moment the lift doors open.
- Commando: Justified. Matrix jumps on top of the elevator car the chase-ee is taking.
- Entrapment: When Gin and Mac are fleeing from their theft on the 86th floor, they descend in the elevator. When the security chief realises this, he orders the elevator to be shut down. However, they escape by forcing the doors open.
Security chief: All right Mr. Kruz, your friends are rats in a trap.
- The Grudge: Susan flees Kayako into an elevator and appears to be safe. That is until Toshio is seen on the passing floor, and the next, and the next, and so on and so forth... getting closer with each passing floor.
- Ju-on: In the third film, Hitomi flees into the elevator of her apartment complex and rides it up... not noticing that Toshio is lurking on every single floor she passes.
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015): Victoria and the agents race back to the Plaza Hotel to preserve their cover stories, Solo and Kuryakin run up a lengthy flight of stairs. Victoria simply takes the elevator.
- Midnight Madness:
- Adam gets into one express elevator and it closes just before Harold can get there, forcing Harold to take the other one...
- Again, Adam gets to the elevator to the guest rooms before Harold can get there, and Harold takes the stairs, but not before he shuts off all the elevators.
- The Rock: Sean Connery takes a lift down six or seven stories and Nicolas Cage takes the stairs. The resulting increase in lead = 0.
- True Lies: Whether due to Rule of Cool or Rule of Funny, a terrorist taking a woman hostage enters an elevator [[motorcycle and all
. Harry, The Hero, takes a second lift while mounting a horse. To hammer the hamminess, Harry is aiming his gun at the villain, which the latter can perfectly see since the walls are made of glass.
Literature
- Changing Places: The elevator is a Paternoster in the Hexagon building at Rummidge. Gordon Masters chases Morris in and out of the paternoster cars and up and down the surrounding stairs.
Live-Action TV
- Altered Carbon: Subverted. In "The Wrong Man", Kovacs chases the elevator up and down via the stairs, eventually arriving too late to prevent the ensuing massacre.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Intervention", Spike forces open the doors to the elevator shaft and drops onto a descending elevator to escape Glory's minions. However, they're able to get to the ground floor to cut him off by the time the slow-moving elevator gets there, as they're going down the stairs.
- Due South: In "Call of the Wild, Part 1", Fraser and Ray Kowalski are chasing a man who turns out to be Ray Vecchio, still undercover. The man then dodges into an elevator, Ray tosses Fraser his cell phone, and while Fraser races up the stairs, Ray calls from a payphone to tell him which floor the elevator stops on.
- The Interns: In the first season's fifth episode, Gleb, Varya, and a pregnant woman who's about to give birth get stuck in an elevator. Bykov has to instruct them how to assist the woman as they clearly have to do it right there. Then technicians start the elevator again, and it starts moving between floors, fast, forcing Bykov to pursue it. When he barely catches up and tries to give instructions... it starts moving again. This repeats multiple times, with the situation keeps advancing. By the end, Bykov is almost as exhausted as the woman who just gave birth right in the elevator.
- The Outer Limits (1963): In "Demon With a Glass Hand", A chase unfolds for the last finger between Trent and one of the Kyben. The former takes the stairs while the latter uses the elevator.
Video Games
- Mirror's Edge:
- This happens while you're chasing Jacknife, resulting in you having to take the other elevator.
- Happens to your opponents a couple of times, too, with Faith getting the elevator closed just as a hail of bullets strikes the doors.
Web Comics
- Sam & Fuzzy: During the "Noosehead" arc, Sam attempts to use an Elevator Escape to get away from Mr. Blank. While in the elevator Sam begins considering the odds that Mr. Blank is able to outrun the elevator. When the elevator reaches the target floor and Mr. Blank, inevitably, is waiting for him, Sam has escaped through the emergency hatch.
Western Animation
- Droopy: No matter how The Big Bad Wolf tries to escape the titular character, whenever any door he shuts is re-opened, the doggedly determined Droopy will be standing there.
- Justice League: In "Eclipsed", The Flash has a Too Dumb to Live moment when, after the rest of the League is possessed by an ancient evil, he tries to take the elevator instead of running.
Real Life
- In William Shatner's Get a Life, he mentions one time Leonard Nimoy got recognized entering a hotel where a con was. He and the organizers barely made it to the elevator in time, but they heard their pursuers running up the stairs in the adjacent shaft. They made it most of the way to the stage before the fans arrived.
