Hochhaus des Schreckens

Weak film that the director disowned doesn't work despite a good cast. A skyscraper is plagued by a series of gruesome accidents and a cop is sent in to investigate. He eventually comes to conclude that the building is haunted and the ghost is responsible for all the accidents. No scares, sloppy editing, and poor effects are some of its other problems.

Rated R; Violence and Profanity.

Dennis Randall (Michael Moriarty), a security agent with slight psychic ability, is assigned to cover a strange series of accidents in a high rise in Barcelona. All of the mishaps seem to happen around Carolyn Page (Jenny Agutter), the building's architect. Sensing he needs to bring in the big guns, Randall recruits paranormal investigator Max Gold (Theodore Bikel) and psychic Sergie (Kevin McCarthy) to battle the vengeful spirit with the building.

Skyscrapers provide great settings and were all the rage for horror films in the 80s (THE LIFT, DEMONS 2, POLTERGEIST III), but this one is the lesser of the bunch. The film had a troubled production history as it was started by Freddie Francis but he left and it was finished by Ken Wiederhorn. The final directing credit goes to one Ken Barnett. The biggest problem with the film is that it drags you from point A to B at a snail's pace, long after you have figured out the mystery. If the film is worth seeing for anything, it is the performance by Moriarty (whose name is misspelled as "Moriarity" in the opening credits). He is clearly plastered in this and often looks like he is about to crack a smile with his loud delivery. In addition to this, Moriarty also starred in A RETURN TO SALEM'S LOT, IT'S ALIVE III and THE HANOI HILTON all in the same year. Now that is impressive.

Like most the time. Cool poster artwork (striking enough to draw you in), but a so-so feature. Oh the disappointment. However it wasn't just the cover that caught my attention, but the cast was another draw-card featuring the likes of Jenny Agutter, Michael Moriarty and Kevin McCarthy. The trio managed to bring some dependable class to something of a predictably mundane and clinical ghost story of a haunted skyscraper. The classy Agutter elegantly glows and a laid-back Moriarty has that magnetic presence that I could be entertained by a film about him painting a fence. Character actor McCarthy is a delight as a washed-up physic, even though his role in quite small.

Architect Carolyn Page heads to office for some quiet time, but instead witness the unusual death of a window cleaner being slammed against her window and then plummeting to his death. Security officer Dennis Randall looks into it thinking that it was an accident, but then the deaths continue within the building. He comes to the conclusion that there's something unnatural going on and it has somewhat to do with Carolyn. So he seeks the help from a professor of paranormal field to uncover the building's dark secret.

It's low-grade handling shows and there's a real lack of imagination in its workman-like execution, despite the presence of director Freddie Francis (who would be replaced half-way through by co-writer/producer Ken Wiederhorn --- who was behind such films as "Shock Waves" and "Return of the Living Dead Part 2"). Nonetheless the Barcelona locations are beautifully projected, the high rise building does bestow some effectively moody moments and Stacy Widelitz's music score is alarmingly eerie. The opening death is quite well done and rather creepy, but the pacing from then onwards is too sluggish concentrating on its constant mystery / investigative elements before breaking loose in its dying stages with some haunting imagery. Nothing wrong with that, but being all build-up it's not all that hard to figure out how it's going to end. There's a lot of talk and too little shocks or atmospheric tension being sustained. It felt more like an extended episode out of "Tales from the Crypt", but it did have that old-fashion, guilt-ridden, slow-burn Gothic feel that could have been better implemented. There's limited FX on show, but commendably used. The rest of the performances; Theodore Bikel hams it up as the Doctor of the physic field and there's able support by Carol Lynley and Anne Lockhart.

"Dark Tower" is a grim, but blotchy little forgotten b-grade horror offering

About average movie that looks like a TV film, with some decent semi scary scenes. The acting's ok but seems to be redubbed, which I think was the case for most movies made in Spain at the time. It's Jenny Agutter who carries the film though, getting more and more frightened as the film goes on. As what seems usual with her films she does seem to spend the final scenes running about with her shirt undone (not a bad thing).

THE DARK TOWER is an obscure movie that had a lot of potential but squandered the whole interesting idea of an evil building due to some really weak acting, a listless script, totally unfocused direction, and a cast that's seemingly above the age of 40! It's always great to see Jenny Agutter in anything but she deserved a better project than this. The direction is truly bizarre. I'm sure the fact that the great Freddie Francis was replaced by another director has contributed to the weirdness of the film but I wonder what they were attempting to do. It's as if they tried to make the building into a character, and at a certain point, they actually succeeded, not because of some great feat of direction but because the human characters are so weak and messed up that the building looked positively sturdy and 3 dimensional compared to them.

And speaking of humans, I've never seen such an old looking cast. Yes, Jenny was in her late 30s when she made the movie but because practically everyone is above a certain age, this gave the movie a sorta poky feel to it, which was the last thing THE DARK TOWER needed.

But the thing that kills this bizarre quasi-mess is the ending, or the resolution of the mystery/story. It was more funny than scary. One has to see it to believe it.

A real curio of a movie worth seeing for fans of bizarre films.