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| Two prized pieces of my Tower of Terror collection...I do hope to find the standalone DVD someday. |
It may or may not seem weird that I’m almost 10 years into this blog and I haven’t done a review, or even talked much about, Tower of Terror (1997). I have seen it multiple times now, and I own it on both VHS and DVD (the only ways it was ever released on home media; it's not even on Disney+). However, I haven’t written about it, despite numerous requests, because, well, I actually don’t have much to say about it.
It’s not a bad movie. It’s not a great movie, either. I think it suffers from being the first Disney ride-to-movie adaptation, and from being a TV movie. Budget and forced kid-friendliness (both likely due to being TV not theatrical) rob it of the action or scares that greatly benefit later efforts like the Pirates of the Caribbean films and even the Haunted Mansion films. It’s solidly aimed at a young audience, with barely any spooks, and it probably couldn’t afford any even if it were allowed. I’m glad that it was successful enough to lead to those later films, since Curse of the Black Pearl is one of my all-time favorites and I still unabashedly enjoy Eddie Murphy’s Haunted Mansion. Tower of Terror is something I could see myself liking if I’d gotten to see it when I was younger, but I didn’t get to actually view this one until I was an adult and had already seen more complex/higher-budget/more mature films revolving around similar themes and settings.
The Elevator Five are the best part of the movie, and the actors that play them do their best with limited material; I like this iteration much better than the “elite Herman family” that the Society of Explorers and Adventurers continuity seems to use instead. Of course, these characters get a whole film while the Herman family gets some newspaper clippings, but still. I wouldn't mind seeing more of this version of the characters, in some kind of mini-series spinoff or something. The fact that the protagonist, played by Steve Guttenberg, is named “Buzzy” is also quite hilarious in hindsight, due to the mysterious saga of that animatronic. I also find it amusing that Buzzy is a writer, given that, for some reason, whenever an ominous hotel shows up, a writer tends to be the one having a bad time with it (see also: The Shining (1980), Barton Fink (1991), and 1408 (2007)). The film also does a good job of incorporating the importance of both the main elevator and the maintenance elevator, something all incarnations of the ride leave somewhat ambiguous (why are the maintenance elevators also cursed when it was the lobby elevator/Hightower’s private elevator that was struck by the cursed lightning?).
My biggest annoyance isn’t with the film itself, but instead with a common fandom misconception. This film was NOT “filmed at the actual ride,” at least not in the way many people seem to take that. Yes, there are some exterior shots of the real ride, but the vast majority of other footage in the hotel and its grounds are not at the actual Florida Tower of Terror. Some of this is obvious, featuring gardens and kitchen rooms that obviously do not exist at the ride, and featuring a boiler room/elevator maintenance room that looks different from Florida’s loading area.
Less obvious but still noticeable is that the lobby is NOT the one from the ride either. It’s a very close replica, but sharp-eyed viewers will spot different furniture (Florida’s lobby furniture has not changed since 1994, I checked old footage) and possibly a slightly larger scale of room. The actual ride lobby is quite tiny; you’ll especially notice this if you ever get to walk into the actual show scene, or even go through the Mission Breakout queue which includes the former DCA lobby space. Given how bulky professional camera equipment can be, especially back in the 90s, it would’ve been tough to film in there! So, of course, it’s filmed on a replica soundstage set. I wonder if it’s the same set the pre-show video was filmed on—we know from behind-the-scenes documentary material that the pre-show was filmed on a set before the real lobby was built, and the imagineers even used it to beta-test the lobby’s look in advance. Whether or not that pre-show set would’ve still existed by 1997, I’m not sure. Both the movie and pre-show’s lobby sets feature the ability for the lobby elevator doors to open and show the elevator inside, which cannot happen with the version in the ride.
My other gripe with this film is that its rendition of the Tower of Terror story removes the mysterious cosmic horror element. To me, this is one of the core parts of original-Tower’s horror, more so than any Twilight Zone reference or specific character. In the ride, we don’t know exactly why the Twilight Zone brewed up that storm that destroyed the hotel, made everyone disappear, left five specific people in limbo, and now is repeating history with every random person that wanders in. And that’s terrifying! There’s this giant building, it might be alive, and we have no idea why it does what it does!
This is the same flaw I feel that the 1999 version of The Haunting has compared to the 1963 original—over-explaining why the weird building is that way takes away some of the mystery and suspense and fundamentally changes what type of horror story it is. In The Shining (1980), we don’t know why (or even necessarily if!) the hotel drives its caretakers to murder and keeps their souls after. The mystery is key to it being cosmic or psychological horror. Meanwhile, in the 1997 Tower of Terror, the horror is… a jealous tween casting a spell. Which, yeah, I guess that could be genuinely scary, given the right treatment (i.e. a proper theatrical horror and not a kid friendly TV budget), but it’s not the SAME scary that would match the spirit of the ride it’s specifically adapting. It’s like when the more recent imagineers go out of the way to try and tack on a story to “explain” the Haunted Mansion ride in newer updates—it’s missing the point of what makes this type of story tick. (As an aside, yes this does mean that the Harrison Hightower version of Tower of Terror is a slightly different genre of horror to the others.)
I still would’ve preferred a conversion to this version of the story—or to the Harrison Hightower story, I guess—rather than Mission Breakout. On that front, I’m relieved that this exists, since it does provide an option for a less-destructive, quicker and easier re-theme should Disney decide to drop the Twilight Zone license for Florida or Paris.
So there it is. Tower of Terror (1997) is a perfectly okay movie that provides potential insurance against worse possible re-themes. It’s worth a watch if you’re a Tower fan interested in all the different incarnations of the lore (and want names/identities to give to the otherwise unnamed characters), or if you have young family members that you want to introduce to the horror genre. Otherwise, to me, it just sort of exists.
As for my personal film recommendations for Tower of Terror fans (in addition to the obligatory watch of Tower of Terror (1997), because come on, you still need to watch at least once if you’re a fan), here they are in order of release date:
The Haunting (1963)(G)—Horror—Most famous for being a major influence on Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, you’ll recognize a lot of the “evil sentient building” horror here too. Obviously, since Tower took many cues from Mansion, this is sort of Tower’s “grandparent.” This iteration of Hill House might look like the Haunted Mansion, but it acts a lot more malevolently like Tower. Also note that this was from the era before “G” ratings meant “kid’s movie” so younger viewers might be either bored or scared if you pick this based on rating alone.
The Shining (1980) (R)—Horror—THE famous evil hotel story, although I’d argue it’s more of a drama about familial issues with the hotel stuff as symbolic in the film version. Anyways, the hotel’s interiors were heavily modeled on the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. This hotel also served as reference for The Grand Californian Hotel at Disney’s California Adventure, and thus likely DCA Tower as well given the development time frame. The Imagineers have also confirmed this film’s thematic influence for the original Florida Tower, though the design similarities are less pronounced.
Barton Fink (1991)(R)—Comedy/Drama/Horror/Good Luck Explaining the Genre of This One—An aspiring screenwriter develops writer’s block, meets an array of strange people, and becomes disillusioned with Hollywood while staying at a strange and ominous art deco hotel that may or may not reflect the mental state of its residents. Has a surreal atmosphere that lands it in "honorary Twilight Zone episode" status for me. Steve Buscemi appears as a quirky bellhop.
1408 (2007)(PG-13)—Horror—A skeptic writer investigates a paranormal hotel room, despite Samuel L. Jackson trying to warn him away from it. It’s an Evil. Fucking. Room.
If you’re willing to stray a bit farther from it being an evil hotel specifically, I’d also recommend:
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)(R)—Horror—The lines of fiction and reality blur as a search for a missing horror writer leads the investigator to find that the books might not be so fictional. I consider this to be part of a thematic trilogy with Barton Fink (1991) and 1408 (2007) specifically.
Event Horizon (1997)(R)—Horror—A missing spaceship suddenly reappears… and it’s come back wrong. Despite the spaceship setting, this one oddly strays closest to some of the ride-Tower’s backstory, with early press releases describing the hotel as disappearing due to the storm and then reappearing years later in the theme park, hungry for guests…
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