Turm der lebenden Leichen

To me, this seemed like a bloody episode of Scooby Doo-really! It has funky swinging 70s styles, spooky, misty locations, and lots of plot twists. But, the flick is also loaded with gory murders done with a funky type machete. Three teens are found hacked up on Snape Island. Did their friend Penny do it, or did someone else? Some people go to explore the quiet, mysterious island only to be stalked and chopped up one by one. Really scary and sick, with some great surprises. Jill Haworth and Anna Palk are good-looking chicks, and the murderer in this movie was genuinely frightening. Despite cruddy picture and ok sound, this is a definite winner. Too bad I don't own the DVD yet. I only own one of the old video versions. Just hunt this movie down, and see it!

This is a movie for anyone who loves English horror films from the early 70's--and that should mean you!! A fog enshrouded island, a derelict lighthouse, plenty of blood, sex and dated slang--oh yeah it's here in abundance!! Don't listen to the other reviewers when they say this film would have been better if it had been made with today's effects and a larger budget. This film becomes better because it was made on a tighter budget, when the crew had to come up with inventive ways to create atmosphere, menace and a sustained mood. All of these things drip from every frame of this film and the cast is actually very good and even features George Couloris (of Citizen Kane fame) in a short but blood filled cameo at the start of the film and Jill Haworth, who had prior to this film starred in such acclaimed flicks as "Exodus" and the Broadway version of "Cabaret". Forget those films though this is the highlight of her career--everything else was just practice for this baby!! Some might say I'm going too far but that would be wrong. The twists in this film are truly fun and surprising and the musical score adds a real sense of unease to the well directed carnage and misty vistas (hats off to Jim O'Connolly!) So what are you waiting for--this is now out on DVD and looks crisp and vivid. Get it and see how good horror films were not all that long ago!

Decent horror movie with chills , thrills , ghastly happenings and naive special effects and nowadays , considered to be an underground classic. The movie opens with a boat cruising throughout heavy fog , at a creepy night . The boat lands on the rocky island Snape and two older seaman go on shore . Soon after , they encounter a severed hand and others gory evidences . After that , they see a male body it was attached too , then they decide to go into the mysterious lighthouse to investigate . Sure enough , they find a female corpse and anything else . They split up and find another killed body . Then they meet a live , young woman , Penny (Candace Glendenning) , hiding in a closet and in state of shock ; she subsequently , stabs her saviours . Next , traumatized to an extreme Penny is being examined by a a team of Doctors who talk about her. Disturbing Penny starts to talk and remember how her and friends arrive in Snape Island , as a night of pleasure became a night of terror. And then she begins screaming as the flashbacks unsettling her . After hearing about this , a group of scientists decide to venture to the Island. They also know that the Island is loaded with gold and Phoenician treasures . Eventually, the team of seven ventures out to sea to investigate the Island, on the Sea Ghost . The group is formed by two women (Jill Haworth , Anna Palk) and four other men (Bryant Haliday , Mark Edwards, Gary Hamilton , Jack Watson) , they are the boat crew . One way in, no way out . They came, they saw, they died!

This chilling terror movie contains heart-pounding horror , suspense, thrills , chills , nudism and lots of blood and gore . Dealing with an old and mystic Phoenician treasure , that's why various characters arrive in a mysterious island , there they attempt to find out what happened , being submitted to extremely brutal attacks and enhanced by means of mind-blowing , terrifying frames . The spooky images are wide-ranging , including as follows : disfigured people , severed heads , slashing , beheading , among others . The picture based on George Baxt's original story takes accent on tension by means of a well-knit script full of twists , turns and an unexpected final . It packs eerie images-shock , slick edition and nail-biting pace . It displays some surprising images , colorful scenarios and foggy atmosphere that seem to be influenced in the successful John Carpenter's hit horror film The Fog (1980). Despite being dismissed critically and really panned by reviewers when it was firstly released , the flick has since gone on to get itself a reputation as a terror cult movie .

Here stands out the gorgeous and brilliant cinematography by Desmond Dickinson . As well as thrilling and suspenseful by Kenneth V. Jones . The motion picture was professionally written and directed Jim O'Connolly and filmed over a 30 day period . Resulting in an acceptable yarn , though originally released in Britain on a double bill with another one . Director Jim O'Connolly was a fine producer , production manager, and filmmaker , known for The Traitors (1962), Mistress Pamela (1973) and Smokescreen (1964) . His greatest successes were Berserk (1967) and Valley of Gwangi (1969) . Rating : 6/10 , worthwhile seeing .

One of the better low budget horror movies I've watched recently. Although the German alternative title "Turm der lebenden Leichen" ("Tower of the Living Dead") promises zombies, there is no-one returning from the dead here. Well, maybe that's better anyway ;-)

The film tells the story of a bunch of hippies (remember, this was made in the early 70s) who spend a night on a lonely island. All of them are killed except for one girl. Logical thinking leads the police to conclude she must be the murderer then, and they lock her up at the lunatic asylum. Relatives and local fishermen, however, believe there must be someone else - or something else - lurking on the island. They are courageous or stupid enough to start exploring the dark caves in the rocks... The whole set looks really cheap, but apart from that I liked the movie. It is exactly in the middle between old-fashioned 60s Hammer horror and 80s splatter movies, which means there are still traces of gothic atmosphere like the lighthouse in the fog, but already a few effective, vicious shock effects, too.

As early 70s horror flicks go, Tower of Evil (a.k.a Horror of Snape Island) has a greater-than-expected amount of sex and gore. Unfortunately, the script is pretty stupid and the performances are generally bad, ruining what might've been a decent little chiller. Some of the lines the actors have to work with are hopelessly silly, and the number of times characters go wandering off alone (even AFTER they've established there's a madman on the loose) beggars belief. What's particularly disappointing is that the plot is just outlandish enough to have made for an unusual and effective horror yarn.

The opening sequence is actually promising. Two sailors, John Gurney (George Coulouris) and his son Hamp (Jack Watson), search around a fog-shrouded island and stumble upon several dismembered naked bodies. Then, John happens across a living naked woman, but she is so startled by his arrival that she mistakenly stabs him. The story moves forward and we learn that the surviving woman from the opening scene has been charged with the murders of her friends, but a private detective named Brent (Bryant Halliday) has been hired by her parents to find out if someone else could've done it. Brent joins an archaeological party who are about to set off to the island in search of a Phoenecian treasure. Once there, the archaeologists soon learn that their lives are in grave danger, as they are picked off one by one by an unknown killer.

Tower of Evil has become a cult film, probably because it's so bad that in some ways it's perversely good. Ther are some attempts at atmosphere and suspense, though most opportunities for a jolt are clumsily edited, lessening the shock factor. In Halliwell's Film Guide, the film was dismissed as "an unoriginal little shocker", but unoriginal is probably the wrong word (how many times have you heard of archaeologists hunting for a Phoenecian hoarde off the English coast and and being victimised by a psycho? Absurd, yes. Unoriginal, no). I can't imagine this film being of particular interest to most viewers, but if you like 70s British horror, or are interested in how sex and gore have evolved over the years in horror cinema, then it may be worth catching.