Dark Tower (1987 film)

Dark Tower
VHS cover art
Directed byFreddie Francis[1][2]
(as Ken Barnett)
Screenplay byRobert J. Avrech
Ken Blackwell
Ken Wiederhorn
Story byRobert J. Avrech
Produced byJohn R. Bowey
David Witz
Sandy Howard
StarringMichael Moriarty
Jenny Agutter
Carol Lynley
Theodore Bikel
Anne Lockhart
CinematographyGordon Hayman
Edited byTom Merchant
Music byStacy Widelitz
Production
company
Sandy Howard Productions
Distributed byFries Distribution Company (US)
Release dates
  • October 29, 1987 (1987-10-29) (MIFED premiere)
  • February 1, 1989 (1989-02-01) (US)
[2]
Running time
91 minutes
CountriesUnited States
United Kingdom[3]
LanguagesEnglish
Spanish

Dark Tower is a 1987 supernatural horror film directed by Freddie Francis and starring Michael Moriarty, Jenny Agutter, Theodore Bikel, Carol Lynley, Kevin McCarthy and Anne Lockhart. It centers on a high-rise building haunted by a malicious presence.

The film had a troubled production, with Freddie Francis disowning the final cut and crediting under a pseudonym, 'Ken Barnett'.[4] This was his final film as director, before he returned to cinematography full-time. It premiered at the MIFED Film Festival in October 1987, and was released direct-to-video in the United States.

Plot

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After a window washer plunges to his death from a high-rise, several people come to investigate, including security consultant Dennis Randall. He cannot locate a problem, but decides to investigate further when more gruesome deaths take place inside and around the office building. His investigations appear to show a sinister force behind all the deaths, a supernatural entity.

Cast

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Production

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Ken Wiederhorn's script for Dark Tower, from a story by Robert J. Avrech, was made as a film by producer Tom Fox using his production company Greenfox Films in collaboration with Howard International Pictures.[5] Wiederhorn had been intended to direct, but lost the opportunity when financing took longer than expected to come through which coincided with Wiederhorn dealing with personal issues that also forced his withdrawal from the project.[5][6] However, Fox eventually offered Wiederhorn the opportunity to write and direct Return of the Living Dead Part II.[5] Wiederhorn did retain a contractually-obligated executive producer's credit on the final film.

Several online sources (including IMDb and Turner Classic Movies) claims Wiederhorn was the original director, and was replaced by Francis mid-shoot. However, Wiederhorn denied this in an interview with Flashback Files, stating that he was never on-set and had never seen the finished film.[7]

The film was shot on location in Barcelona.[8]

The film features one of the earliest on-screen appearances of actor Doug Jones, who plays the ghostly form of Dennis.

Freddie Francis had become disillusioned with directing as he no longer wished to do cheap horror films and preferred working as a cinematographer on larger projects.[6] Sandy Howard called Francis informing him they had lost Wiederhorn with production scheduled to begin in three weeks and after liking the script agreed to direct the film.[6] After accepting the position, Francis had to deal with various production issues such as original stars Roger Daltrey and Lucy Gutteridge dropping out for unknown reasons and a lawsuit by Howard against three film companies that failed to provide financing resulting in Francis needing to cut corners further than expected.[6] A number of plot aspects, such as the character of Dennis Randall suffering from recurring nightmares of being pushed from the top of a tall building and a climax involving Randall and Carolyn Page on the building's roof that would payoff the plot point, were altered after shooting had completed with the producer adding several new scenes and special effects sequences.[6] Due to dissatisfaction with the quality of the film Francis had his name removed from the film with producers replacing it with the pseudonym Ken Barnett.[6][4] Francis's dissatisfaction with the experience of making Dark Tower led to him returning to his primary role as a cinematographer, and never to direct a feature film again.[4] Two years after Dark Tower's premiere, he would win an Best Cinematography Oscar for the film Glory.

Release

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Dark Tower premiered on October 29, 1987 at the MFED Film Festival in Italy. It had theatrical runs in Europe throughout 1988.[2]

The film was not released theatrically in the United States and instead was released to home video in February 1989.[2]

Reception

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TV Guide awarded the film one out of five stars, calling it a "dull, talky, and incoherent haunted-skyscraper suspense thriller."[9]

References

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  1. ^ '"Dark Tower (1989)". tcm.com. Retrieved 2023-07-15.
  2. ^ a b c d '"Dark Tower (1989)". tcm.com. Retrieved 2023-07-15.
  3. ^ '"Dark Tower (1989)". bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved 2023-07-15.
  4. ^ a b c "Rob Hardy BSC / Ex Machina". British Cinematographer. 6 June 2015. Retrieved 24 Oct 2019.
  5. ^ a b c Biodrowski, Steve (May 1988). "Many Faces of Ken Myers". Cinefantastique. Fourth Castle Micromedia. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Jensen, Paul M (1996). The Men Who Made the Monsters (Twayne's Filmmakers Series). Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0805793383.
  7. ^ "Ken Wiederhorn interview". THE FLASHBACK FILES. Retrieved 2024-07-02. I wrote some of that film, but never even set foot on the set. I don't even know how much of mine is in there, because I've never even seen the film.
  8. ^ Buxton, Darrell (2020). Dead or Alive - British Horror Films 1980 - 1989. Midnight Marquee & BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1644301241.
  9. ^ "Dark Tower Movie Trailer, Reviews and More". TV Guide. 2018-05-23. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
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