Horror Movie Review: Tower of Blood (2005)

Written by Jeremiah Campbell and directed by Corbin Timbrook, Tower of Blood is a film that exists. It was made, and it gave some people a job. People like J.T. Thomas, Chris Todd, Bernadette Perez, Bashashi Thompson, and Dapoe.

They make up some of the cast of this mind-numbing slasher film with the kind of story that would have been considered boring and cliched in the 1980s.

Do you wanna party? Well, it’s party time, except someone forget to bring beer, lights, food, and even music. For a group of young twenty-something types, partying means going to an abandoned high-rise building, as you do. Where, unfortunately for them and luckily for us (sort of), a masked machete wielding killer awaits. One who recently escaped an insane asylum. What are the chances, eh?

Surely there’s more to it than that, right? I hear you ask, but the answer is no, there isn’t. It’s so generic, it’s downright offensive and shows off a shocking lack of imagination as far as film making goes.

There’s no harm in sticking to your lane, and if the goal was to make a slasher film in the traditional sense, then that’s fine. However, that doesn’t mean there has to be such a total lack of creativity in all aspects. A boring location, a boring looking killer, boring characters played with lethargy by a cast with limited talents, boring kills, and an ending that is eyerolling and groan-worthy, everything about Tower of Blood feels like a waste of time.

All reviewers are guilty of a certain amount of hyperbole, regardless of if the review is a positive or a negative one. In circumstances like this, I find I want to avoid being too hyperbolic in case I give you the impression that there is anything of worth here, because there isn’t, and all because you’ve seen it all before. There’s nothing in Tower of Blood that can’t be found in countless slashers elsewhere.

Perhaps the biggest selling point for just how utterly insipid a film it is, comes from the runtime, which sits at 80 minutes but actually wraps up around the 70-minute mark. What’s wrong with that, I hear you ask? It’s nice and short, and that’s a good thing, of course. Except for the first 40-odd minutes, nothing happens. Unless you count overly long scenes that show nothing of importance set to the generic butt-rock as a thing.

Normally, when the slashing does start, a film like this would marginally improve, but even what that offers is painfully trite.

It’s almost pointless getting mad at a film like this, as it feels like wasted effort. Why waste an ounce of passion on a film that was made with none? I suspect many will forget it exists the moment it ends, but I also suspect many won’t even make it to the end credits.