The Tower

Canadian TV movies from 1985 seem to be the equivalent of mind-poison. This low-budget loser has nothing to offer whatsoever, nothing of note happens for the first 27 minutes yet the film hammers home foundational exposition twice in that time. There are no scares, thrills, chills, nothing. The best I can say is it ended eventually, but even that felt about 30 minutes too late. There was a whole sub-plot just to set up a sequel that nobody could have believed would happen.

A "high tech" computerized building is left on autopilot and decides it needs to eat people for their energy. They try to escape, there's standard disaster interpersonal drama, and then they try to turn it off. It's awful.

Just... don't.

Several people go missing at an ultra-modern, corporate high-rise. We're shown right from the jump that a super-computer is behind it all. Apparently, it's found a way to use humans as a power source, becoming a sort of electronic vampire.

THE TOWER is a shot-on-video-tape, made-for-TV horror film that looks a lot like an old episode of GENERAL HOSPITAL. The acting and dialogue range from semi-wooden to cadaverous.

The cheeeze level is extremely high, adding to the overall mirth. Check out that technology! The '80's graphics are a real hoot! The buzzy synth score seals the deal!

It does lose points for its dullness factor, which is through the stratosphere. At an hour and 42 minutes it feels eternal. It's also very talky, even though no one ever says anything interesting.

MOST ABSURD SCENES: #1- The crawling phone! #2- The world's most boring strip club! #3- The imbeciles stuck in the stairway forever, like some soul-deadening purgatory! #4- The woman who gets "lost" and "freaks out" in the clothing store! #5- The couple who wander around what seems like the entire building, plus a few other buildings! Talking about nothing!

So, as long as you don't go into this expecting anything thrilling, suspenseful, or entertaining, it might not cause too much brain shrinkage...

This is the holy grail of all Emmeritus Productions, who cranked out unbelievably cheap, silly "action" flicks for Hamilton's CHCH-TV through the 80s. It bears all the hallmarks: shot on video with soap-opera production values, silly dribs of implied sex-and-violence interspersed with lots and lots of talking. And this one comes with an attitude: the computerized office tower that sucks people's life energy through the light sockets is clearly supposed to be some kind of commentary on the tyranny of the energy-conservation movement, of all things! But now that I've voluntarily watched it three times, I have to admit that it's kind of endearing in a very stupid way: the bickering crew of mismatched fugitives-from-death are quite amusing, and the sub-HAL computer with its 80s digital-animation readout is a nice way to break things up. While I can't really award any points for being SO 80s, I am kind of obsessed with that one woman's bird-nest-forward perm. And if you're going to be bad, you might as well repeat the same walking shot three times within one five-minute stretch, for maximum entertainment value.

I like how low-budget this is. They really knew how to stretch their (Canadian) dollar for the special effects in this production. The sound design is also terrific. The premise is pretty cool and interesting. Unfortunately the praise ends here.

The film is really slow-moving. At over 100 minutes it feels really padded and would have been much improved by being edited down to 75 minutes. But I guess TV movies have timeslots to fill... it was clear that all artistry went out the window when it comes to tightness of pacing. The story was stretched out with unnecessary sequences and elongated shots as filler. You might think that the beginning of a movie is allowed to be gently-paced... well it remains that way for the rest of the movie!

There was another movie with the same title and premise released in 1993 but American made. It can't be anywhere near as bad as this one.