The Thirteenth Floor

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The Thirteenth Floor is also the title of a strip in the Scream! and Eagle comics. The 13th Floor was also the name of an American band which was a predecessor to The Grass Roots.

Movie Poster

The Thirteenth Floor is a 1999 film released to cinemas in Germany and the United States (as The 13th Floor). The film was directed by Josef Rusnak and rated R by the MPAA for language and violence. It is 100 minutes long and stars Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Dennis Haysbert. Produced by Roland Emmerich, the film is loosely based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye and the German mini-series Welt am Draht (World on a wire) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story line is about an advanced virtual reality machine that lets people visit Los Angeles in A.D. 1937. Upon logging on, a person in this alternate reality (all of whom are truly self-aware) has their mind taken over by the person in the real world, and can remember nothing they do until this person leaves. The man who created the project, Hannon Fuller, discovers that the "real" world is another such virtual reality and leaves a message for Douglas Hall in the simulation. He is then murdered upon returning to 1999 by Hall's user. Hall of course remembers none of this, but wakes up with a bloody shirt. He enters the simulation to discover that the message has been read by a bartender, who (along with Hall, when he learns what it said) naturally assumes it is referring to the 1937 world. He goes crazy and tries to kill Hall, who is logged off by a coworker. Hall then realizes that the message was referring to the world he thought was real, rather than the simulation. He learns from a woman who lives in the world containing his that many such virtual realities exist, but that his is the only one which has managed to create others; and that his user (the husband of the woman he speaks to) has become power-crazed. When his coworker enters the simulation and dies, he learns how to free himself as the bartender's personality takes over the body. His user logs on, and attempts to kill his wife, but is himself shot. Hall wakes up in what is assumed to be the real world.

The plot parallels with well known existentialist themes as portrayed in The Matrix and eXistenZ all released the same year, and Dark City, a year before. The Thirteenth Floor received generally negative reviews, while The Matrix received far more attention.