This 1972 British horror film has been the victim of many poor home video marketing promotions which has tarnished its reputation as a potent 70’s shocker. It has been released in truncated, pan’ n scanned versions, each with a different title (such as BEYOND THE FOG and HORROR OF SNAPE ISLAND). Elite Entertainment comes to the rescue, doing what they do best, by restoring horror films to their original theatrical luster. Writer/Director Jim O’Connelly had previously directed genre films CIRCUS OF TERROR and VALLEY OF GWANGI, and brings a sense of atmosphere, style, and paranoia to the standard horror proceedings. The film is produced by Richard Gordon, a pioneer in low budget horror filmmaking who over the years brought us HORROR HOSPITAL, ISLAND OF TERROR, INSEMINOID, and FIEND WITHOUT A FACE.

The film features a cast of British acting professionals which lend a touch of sophistication to the mayhem. Bryant (THE PROJECTED MAN) Haliday plays Brent, a man determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. Sexy Jill (HORROR HOUSE) Haworth is Rose, an intelligent woman who reminds the killer of his mother. Mark (BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’s TOMB) Edwards is a museum expert investigating the island’s secrets. Jack (SCHITZO) Watson portrays Ham, a sailor with a horrible family secret. Anna (THE FROZEN DEAD) Palk is Nora, an unfaithful nymphomaniac. Also, in some peripheral roles are Dennis Price and Robin Askwith, both veterans of HORROR HOTEL.

Snape Island is small rocky island with bad karma. When two teenage couples travel to the island to party and have sex, the four are victimized by an unseen assailant. The killer uses a Phoenician ax to dispose of the nubile victims. Only one girl named Penny survives the massacre, and she herself is driven mad with fear and actually kills one of the sailors who rescue her, before they can subdue her. The girl retreats into an emotional shell and cannot communicate. Since she cannot defend herself, the authorities conclude that she went mad and killed her friends herself.

Penny’s parents don't believe their daughter is guilty, and hire a private investigator to travel to the island of doom to prove her innocence. He teams up a group of museum types, who believe that a temple for the Phoenician god called Baal resides in the caverns underneath the rocky island. The team is brought to the island by a sailor named Ham who is harboring some dark family secrets. As the team settles into the abandoned lighthouse where the murders were committed, they start to hear some strange noises. As they search the island for the cause of the macabre sounds, a putrefied human corpse shows up in the lighthouse when they return. Next thing you know their boat is blown up, and their only means of communication, a two-way radio is smashed. Now they are trapped on the island with no means of calling for help. They must stay together if they are to survive the night. But are the killers human, or is there some secret to the buried Phoenician temple?

There are a lot of scenes of graphic mayhem:

A lovemaking teenager gets his arm chopped off.

A crazed nude female stabs and old man.

Another teenager gets impaled with a Phoenician sword.

Sailors discover a naked corpse that is being consumed by a horde of crabs.

A woman’s decapitated head rolls down a flight of stairs.

Nora the nymphomaniac throws herself out of the lighthouse tower’s and plunges to her doom.

A young man gets a Phoenician ax to the forehead.

There is a lot more to the plot, but I don’t want to ruin the intrigue for those of you who plan on checking this DVD out. This 1972 movie, along with Mario Bava’s 1971 opus, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, set the tone that the eighties slasher craze would eventually follow. The movie includes a lot of the themes made popular by the HALLOWEENs and FRIDAY THE 13ths of the world: The male and female characters who party and indulge in sex are the ones who get axed. The moral characters survive the ordeal.

There is a lot of tense atmosphere combined with gothic visuals which makes this film rise above your average bloodshed movie. Plus there is tons of gore, nudity, and sex to titillate and repulse the viewer. These graphic elements are nicely interwoven with the narrative and lend to the feeling of dread that this film instills. For instance, in the first five minutes alone, the film demonstrates what the movie is capable of as it creates an atmospheric foggy condition, and then throws the gore elements at you. The sets are creepy enough, especially the light house and the island itself. Many nasty looking corpses with crabs skittering around (somebody get out the butter!) on them are unnerving. There is a real overwhelming sense of dread, claustrophobia, and paranoia.

Depending on your viewpoint, the only negative thing about the film is its 1970’s mindset. Lots of hippie, mod dialog and other things like sideburns, hairstyles, etc. "Do you want to turn on?" one dope smoking character asks. Something about the island sure makes a lot of folks horny. Yeah, it is cold, rainy, foggy, and rocky. Big crabs are scrambling all over the place. Hey, let's get naked! So the film is somewhat mired in it’s time period, but if you can get by that, TOWER OF EVIL is deserving of a viewing on DVD.

SIGHT

Elite presents TOWER OF EVIL is it’s original aspect ratio of 1.85.1. Considering the age of this low budget film, Elite has done a superior job with the transfer. The image is razor sharp. The panoramic exterior scenes of the ocean and the island have crisp contrast and brightness with good shadow detail. What really makes the difference on this transfer are the deep blacks, since the film displays many shades of black which help create that shadowy, bleak atmosphere. The color schemes consists mostly of blues, grays, olives, and browns which punctuate the vibrant colors, such as the crimson blood. Flesh tones are a little pale, but there are always clouds over the island (no one has a tan). The detail level here is tremendous, and really contributes to the grim vibe of the film. Desmond Dickinson’s widescreen cinematography including the underground caves, the lighthouse interiors, and the fog-shrouded rocky landscape all look excellent. There is a scratch here and there on the print but it’s nothing to worry about. Grain is visible, but not distracting; you really have to look for it hard just to detect it. There is some color bleeding during the opening credits sequence, with the red spilling out of the credits. But overall, Elite did a commendable job with the authoring, which does justice to Dickinson’s visuals.

SOUND

Elite serves up a decent Dolby Digital Mono 2.0 soundtrack. The mono track has a good range and is not flat at all like most mono mixes. The highs are crisp and clear, and the lows are stronger than expected. When their ship blows up, you hear some bass in the mix. There is no hiss, dropouts or distortion. TOWER OF EVIL really uses sound to entice the viewer, with the moaning voices, the muffled screams, and the howling winds all playing an important role in the movie. The score, the sound effects, and the dialog are well synchronized and combined make for a good sound mix to support the visuals. I also enjoyed the Kenneth Jones subtle score. The only negative thing I can say about the audio is that when I cranked up the volume really high, the dialog became a little muffled. But a movie like this does not need to be played super high.

FEATURES

The only extra is the cool theatrical trailer (2:14, widescreen 1.85.1, mono).

CONCLUSION

All the basic ingredients for a memorable horrific experience are here: a deserted island, a dark tower, mysteriously lost people, ritual killings, and dark caves. Toss in the nudity and gore and you have a nice mix. And for the close and appreciative observer there are small gemstones of scary genius embedded in the widescreen scenery and mediocre acting; the soft, eerie whistle every time something really bad & scary is about to happen, the long slow walks through unlit caverns, the grand finale and the unexpected dramatic family ties at the end. Elite does their usual excellent job on this DVD with the only drawbacks being lack of extras and lack of 16x9 enhancement. One thing I’ve come to realize is that if a they deem a film worthy of a DVD release, it usually is a pretty good horror outing.

TOWER OF EVIL is available from DVDEmpire.com

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