Dark Tower (1987)

How sad is this?

Absolutely Fantastic

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

During the first 10 minutes or so, I thought this was going to be a movie about Jenny Agutter stroking her hair. Boy, does she stroke her hair a lot during those first ten minutes. But no, Ms. Agutter plays a successful architect who designed a skyscraper. Unfortunately, the building is haunted. So we have a supernatural horror-thriller that's far from horrific or thrilling. The only death scene worth mentioning, happens at the beginning of the movie: a window cleaner falls down 29 floors and crushes a pedestrian to death. What we get afterwards, is a messy script turned into a clumsily put together movie. The inimitable Michael Moriarty plays a clairvoyant detective who's trying to unravel the mystery. There's really not much going on in this movie. Some people die in freak accidents and Ms. Agutter seems to be the centre of things. In the end we find out why - pretty easy to guess - during a ridiculous ghostly climax. "Dark Tower" had some potential, but the film is just too uneventful and the plot too lazy. I imagine if you're a fan of Moriarty or Agutter, you might give this one a watch. And even then you might be disappointed, as both their performances are quite underwhelming. I also expected more from people like Freddie Francis (director, "The Creeping Flesh", 1973 & "The Doctor And The Devils", 1985) and Kevin Wiederhorn (writer/director, "Shock Waves", 1977 & "Return Of The Living Dead Part 2", 1988). Bizar that their combined efforts didn't turn "Dark Tower" into a better movie.

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

Architect Agutter is haunted by her dead husband in a skyscraper she designed, and when people start getting knocked off mysteriously detective Moriarty comes in to investigate. Incredibly boring attempt to rip off both `Poltergeist' and `The Shining', it was so uninteresting that I couldn't make it through the whole thing in just one sitting. Nothing happens, it just keeps building up and building up to absolutely nothing and leaves you wondering why you just sat there for 91 minutes? Why did an actor like Michael Moriarty waste his time with this? 2 out of 10, completely uninteresting.

I'd been meaning to rent this for a while, and finally last night, I did, and I must say, I liked it.Jenny Agutter ("American Werewolf in London") plays Carolyn Page, the head architect of a new skyskraper, towering over metropolitan Spain. Things are going well until a window-washer drops twenty-eight stories off the pulley, and lands on the top executive of the building. Michael Moriarity plays Dennis Randall, who is brought onto the case of the murders. Incidentally, he is also having an affair with Carolyn, who is haunted by her dead husband. In fact, so is the building, and as more people die, and Dr. Max Gold (Theodore Bikel) an exorcist, is brought in, the real secrets of the dark tower are slowly revealed, leading up to an exciting climax with a few unexpected twists.Entertaining movie, with extremely effective music. If anything, see the movie for the music. It really envokes a feeling of dread, especially in the end chase scene. The movie plays well, and is well-acted. The ending has some surprising twists, and the only flaw was the somewhat silly looking demon. Other than that, a good movie, which gets quite tense towards the end, and has great music. Check it out.