| Product: |
Tower Of Evil (DVD) |
| Date: |
20.02.08 (105 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: A good roster of competent character actors
Disadvantages: Not a great horror film, predictable plot
A review of the film only - there is a DVD available, but it hasn't any extras.
This is a fairly obscure British horror movie from 1972. I knew pretty much nothing about it, really only having a few stills in a book to go on. I assumed it was about some crazy hippie kids being stalked in a lighthouse, in the kind of proto-slasher film that's usually quite fun. It turned out to be rather more complicated than that, and sadly, rather less satisfying.
On a remote island near Cornwall three crazy hippie kids are found murdered, suspicion naturally falling on the survivor, Penny - especially when she stabs a local sailor to death. Meanwhile, a team of archaeologists goes to investigate the island, suspecting it contains a Phoenician burial site (yes, just off the coast of Cornwall...). What really happened on the island? And what will happen to the newcomers when they stumble across its secret? And will anyone care?
This is a cheap film - the lighthouse seen in the opening credits is an obvious model, and quite a few of the outdoor scenes look like they were filmed in a studio. The boat scenes were obviously not filmed within 50 miles of the sea. The few sets aren't terribly impressive and while the cast contains plenty of familiar faces, I doubt many of them got paid very much.
There are several people whose faces have cropped up in horror movies I've been watching recently - the likes of Jack Watson (Peeping Tom), Candace Glendenning (Satan's Slave), Robin Askwith (Horror Hospital) and Anthony Valentine (To the Devil a Daughter) are joined by two old pro's (George Colouris and Dennis Price) and a few less well-known faces. (These include a young Derek Fowlds, later in Yes, Minister and Heartbeat). All of the above mentioned are decent enough (although Ms Glendenning never sounds like she's from America), but other cast members let the side down badly, such as 'and introducing' Gary Hamilton as a tight-trousered hippie wideboy. Robin Askwith has a dubbed American accent, which is unsettling to those of us used to seeing him as the exemplar of working-class cockney lust.
There's plenty of nudity (mostly female, although you'll see some male buttocks too) and some sex. The violence is fairly harmless, with only a few isolated shots of mild gore to spice things up (obviously-plastic severed hands with crabs crawling over them, that kind of thing). The film's 18 rating probably comes from the sex rather than the violence. The direction is generally without flair, nothing particularly standing out. There's one decent scream-y flashback montage when they're hypnotising Penny (with disco lights!).
There are some scenes that generate suspense quite well, but don't do anything with it - if you coil a spring up tightly, you want to release it suddenly, not just gently allow it to uncoil. There's a fantastic spooky rocking chair sequence that is completely wasted and some good potential for scares in caves that's never quite realised.
The plot is ultimately almost as generic as the film's title. There are some desperately obvious red herrings, and you'll guess almost exactly what the island's dark secret is after half an hour (the film is ninety minutes). In fact it's so obvious that you'll be expecting a twist ending or *something* to liven things up; would it be giving too much away to reveal that you'll wait in vain? The archaeologists are given a complicated four-way love triangle (love quadrangle? I'm never sure...) to pep their characters up a bit, but it doesn't go anywhere (and why do they continue to work together if they all hate each other so much?). It brings a taste of cut-price soap opera to things, which at least allows for some hilarious 'bitchy' dialogue, but sadly not enough to offer a 'so bad it's funny' saving grace.
Not one I'd go out of my way to see, although it has turned up on telly in recent years. It's quite a pricy DVD (£12 on amazon at the moment), but unless you really need to see a naked girl running around with a knife you can forget about this (and you can probably see a naked girl running round with a knife for much less money).
Summary: One of the less memorable 70s British horrors
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