Recommended Videos

Here is possibly the best introductory video to the Tower I could ask for:

The oddly-titled “Casi Smith ‘Tower of Terror!’ Producer.avi” (henceforth called the “Casi Smith video”) packs a punch for being just over three minutes long. I’m not sure of the context in which this clip originally played, although that label at the beginning makes me suspect that it was an in-room commercial that originally played at the resort hotels. It is a well-done promotional piece for the Tower, that most importantly features a summary of the ride by the Imagineers who designed it. It also highlights a postcard Easter Egg that I’d never noticed or heard mentioned before. Given where the postcard is shown in the video, it may have been difficult or impossible to view from guest areas! Amusingly, a sharp eye can spot some promotional footage clearly recycled from the Florida ride; for example the footage of a group boarding the ride clearly shows the Floridian version of the loading area.


An alternate version of the video, hosted on the same YouTube channel, features Casi Smith herself (given the job description of “Reporter”) introducing the clip, which also makes me think this might have been in circulation as a promotional fluff piece to be distributed by news channels. The version with the Casi Smith intro, titled “Tower of Terror Casi PKG” is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBU4P75r1Mk

Although the title (“Low Light Twilight Zone Tower of Terror California Adventure 1080p 60fps Full Complete Ridethrough” by LMG vids) is a wordy mouthful, this video is the best Tower of Terror ride video I have yet seen for any incarnation of the attraction. Luckily, it’s exactly for the Tower I’ll be discussing here! Though not perfect (the mirror effect on the first “floor” is not working properly), this is the most complete and true-to-life video presentation of the ride I have yet found. It includes a walk through the queue, the pre-show, and the ride itself, all done in high-quality low light video. I may refer to this video as a reference point in the “Detailed Walkthrough”, where I will call it “the LMG vid” for short.

This is “Twilight Zone Tower of Terror WDW HD—Ultimate Tribute” by Martin Smith. I included this as a footnote in my comparison of the four different Towers, but it also deserves its place here. Notably, this does NOT discuss the California Adventure version of the ride (as the title indicates, this is a documentary about the Florida version), so therefore this video is not completely relevant here. However, a significant portion of the documentary instead discusses the origins of the Tower concept in general, which I do not bother to otherwise explain in this blog. Feel free to skip this one if you’re not interested in the concept origins or are uninterested in the Florida version of the ride.

EDIT: Since this video is posted on vimeo and not YouTube, I can only provide a link, and not embed it.  However, that doesn't make it any less recommended.

https://vimeo.com/198340064

This is Martin Smith's Ultimate Tribute documentary for the DCA and Paris Towers of Terror.  It's not a perfect documentary by any means, but it does make a good introduction to those Towers.  Of note is the footage of DCA's opening ceremony, a diagram of how the drop shafts work, and an explanation of how the Paris Tower was planned first, but constructed second.  /EDIT

EDIT: And finally, here is Disney's official theme music for the Tower of Terror.  It was obviously made with Florida in mind, since it contains musical cues from the 5th Dimension scene that DCA and Paris lacked: