New review! Dark Tower

First, let’s address the paella-phant (ithankyew) in the room. This film may not appear on yer official lists of British horror offerings, but according to both IMDB and Wikipedia, it is a US / Spanish / UK production. So when you add in the casting of Jenny Agutter in her late 80s pomp, and a certain “he’d-be-so-annoyed-we’re-featuring-this” Freddie Francis on directing duties (allegedly) it fits, okay?

Now, second. This film could easily have tipped from “entertainingly awful” into the rarified world of utterly barking mad with only a couple of tweaks. And by “barking mad” we are of course referring to Euro-pudding stuff like Holocaust 2000 and The Medusa Touch. All the ingredients are there in Dark Tower. Convoluted deaths by supernatural force. Disinterested American male lead. Local actors who can’t actually act. Dubbed voices. Bad/variable accents (take a bow, Jenny). Sudden shifts in tone. Plot devices that don’t go anywhere.

All it needed was more. More blood. More gratuitous nudity. More nonsense spouted by the cast. And, yes, more not cutting away to another scene just when things are getting interesting (pretty much all the deaths happen off-screen for some unfathomable reason).

But let us not deny Dark Tower completely. Because it made this reviewer laugh. A lot. Its po-faced approach and obvious lack of budget combine to make something remarkably special. Think Dark Places but shit and with a LOT of stock footage of Barcelona and the interior of a lift shaft. See? You’re sold already, aren’t you.