Tower of Evil (1972 film)
Tower of Evil (1972), AKA Horror on Snape Island, Beyond the Fog, Devil's Tower: Terror of the Zombies
Summary
"A night of pleasure becomes a night of terror...." A group of experienced archeologists are searching the Snape Island lighthouse tower for an old and mystic Phoenician treasure when they are surprised by a series of mysterious murders....
Details
- Release Date: 1972
- Country/Language: UK/US, English
- Genres/Technical: Horror
- Setting: 1960s UK(?)
- Runtime: 1 hr 29 min
- Starring: Bryant Haliday, Jill Haworth, Mark Edwards
- Director: Jim O'Connolly
- Writer: George Baxt (original story), Jim O'Connolly
- Producer/Production Co: Joe Solomon, Richard Gordon, Grenadier Films
- View Trailer: (link)
- IMDB Page: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: R (Violence, Nudity, Adult Content, Profanity)
The movie was originally dismissed by critics as pure exploitation fodder, and for good reason. Still, there's a fun Gothic horror story buried somewhere under the heap of naked teens and goopy corpses....
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- Ss___ (One and a Half Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; vaguely similar in tone)
The gloomy lighthouse sea-side location, hints of out-of-place secret Phoenician devil-cults, and the story's obvious Gothic ancestry all suggest a kinship with Lovecraft's stories, without ever quite crossing over into definite "Lovecraftian" pastiche.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- And You Call Yourself A Scientist! (link)
- Graeme Clark at The Spinning Image (link) - (5/10 Stars)
- Burl Cummings at Ha ha, it's Burl! (link)
- Mark Hodgson at Black Hole Reviews (link)
- Mitch Lovell at The Video Vacuum (link) - (2 Stars)
- Dennis Schwartz at Ozus' World Movie Reviews (link) - (C-)
- George Pacheco at 10,000 Bullets (link)
- Chris Wood at British Horror Films (link)
Synopsis (SPOILERS)
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
Three stories intertwine: The lighthouse keeper's family arrive at the island to find a group of massacred naked teens who had sailed to the island for a night of wild sex and drugs, with one knife-wielding survivor driven quite mad by her night of terror. A group of bickering archaeologists - all in 'complicated' romantic relationships with each other - are pulled into the police investigation of the massacre when it's discovered that one of the teens was killed by a "spear" that appears to have originated in a Phoenician devil cult, and rush to the island with the remnants of the lighthouse keeper's family to find the treasure they believe to be hidden on the island. The lighthouse Keeper's family reluctantly reveal that the keeper, his wife, and their deformed son have fled to the isolation of the island to protect the family from the outside world, because of their history of madness and deformity. Meanwhile, the archaeological team are killed off one by one by a hidden menace from the shadows as they discover a hidden cavern and treasure-laden temple to Baal below the lighthouse, and the identity of the killers: the maniac lighthouse keeper and his deformed son, who have been living in the caverns with the decaying corpse of the keeper's wife. The film ends with the obligatory explosion of the lighthouse, and the final girl and designated hero just barely escaping the island with their lives....
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- deity: Baal
Keeper Notes
- The investigators are called in as consultants to the police and/or coastguard in their investigation of a massacre of visitors to a remote and abandoned lighthouse left empty for years after the disappearance of the lighthouse keeper and his family; the object one victim was killed with proves to be an archaeological curiosity relating to the worship of an obscure deity (Baal in the original story, though Dagon would work just as well....); the other clues pile up in the form of an insane survivor of the massacre, hints of a secret ancient hidden vault of treasure under the lighthouse, a group of shifty locals related to the lighthouse keeper, and evidence that the lighthouse keeper was hiding a sinister family secret when he moved his family to the island....
