Dir: Jim O'Connolly
Cast: Bryant Haliday, Jill Haworth, George Coulouris, Dennis Price, Jack Watson, Candace Glendenning,
Anthony Valentine, William Lucas, Anna Palk, Robin Askwith and (Mister) Derek Fowlds.
Wayne Hussey beware!
Sometime in the early seventies in a mist enshrouded studio somewhere near Shepperton, two gruff fisherman types, Hamp Gurney (Brit movie legend Watson) and his Steptoe like father, John (Coulouris), are 'sailing' (Well, swaying about whilst some poor sod throws buckets of water at them ALA The Bad Seeds The Weeping Song) towards the notorious Snape Island.
Mooring their boat on the craggy rocks, our duo begin a search of the islands nooks and crannies, soon coming across the naked (and very dead) body of a young man.
With incredibly tight buttocks.
Novelty Bike stand.
Venturing inside the island’s crumbling lighthouse, they discover another (naked) corpse, this time of a headless young woman (her blonde bobbed head is lying at the bottom of the stairs but unfortunately she's lying on her front so we never know if her hair was dyed or not).
John reckons that all this is a wee bit odd, so decides to head off to explore the outside toilet, leaving Hamp to look after the nubile dead girl sprawled across the landing.
Opening the loo door he's very surprised to find 'Confessions' star and all round cheeky chappie Robin Askwith impaled on a big spear in the corner of the room next to the toilet rolls and copy of Razzle. His shock is short lived tho' as he's almost immediately attack by a shit covered girl (Glendenning and yes, she's naked) wielding a huge knife.
She manages to stab poor John to death before Hamp beats her into submission with a lead pipe.
Well, it is before women's lib.
"Excuse me but I have a woman's period!"
Rushed (well I assume they rush her, not leave her lying about, occasionally bonking her on the head if she wakes up, but I digress) to the mainland hospital, the girl, (whose name we discover is Penelope) falls almost immediately into a coma.
With the police desperate to pin all the murders (well, not every murder ever, just the ones on the island) on her so they can all go home for tea guilty of the murders of her companions, eminent know all and specialist in mentalism induce catatonia, Doctor Simpson (Seventies sex God, ex Raffles and the spooky voice of Dr X on the Queensryche album Operation Mindcrime, Valentine) injects Penny with a strange drug whilst flashing disco lights at her in order to discover the truth.
Slowly but surely, she begins to recall (in groovy hypnovision) the terrible events that led up to the killings, screaming hysterically as giant images of her dead pals heads fill the screen.
Meanwhile in the office of professional rich man and cake maker Laurence Bakewell (suave superstar Price) that's probably in the swinging London, the fact that poor Robin Askwith was impaled using an ancient gold spear that shouldn't really be on the island at all has attracted the attention of a group of groovy archaeologists (who, judging by their onscreen banter have all be shagging each others partners).
Antiquities experts Ben and Nora (greatest line: "Masturbation’s so boring!") Winthrop (Ex Basil Brush sidekick Fowlds and the frighteningly large breasted Palk), along with the bubbly Rose Mason (Haworth - The original stage Sally Bowles and star of the Tom Baker travesty The Mutations) and hunk o' burning lurve Adam Martin (Aussie beefcake and star of Wild Honey Edwards) decide to investigate, taking a fast talking Yank private investigator (hired by Penelope's folks) named Brent (Halliday, star of such classics as Devil Doll, Curse of the Voodoo and The Projected Man) along for the ride.
Trinny and Susannah: The Pikey years.
Our intrepid Time Team wannabes are taken to the scary island (of death) by good old Hamp and his horny young 'nephew', Brom (the big haired and seemingly horse cocked Hamilton).
Brent tries to get Hamp to talk about the dark history of the island but to no avail, so decides to try his American magic on Brom. What transpires is a conversation consisting of a dozen or so muttered 'Ooh Arrs' whilst the young buck rubs his trouser area.
Nice.
On arrival, the party sets up camp in the outside loo before setting out to explore the lighthouse and the area in which the murders took place. Brent steadfastly believes that poor ickle Penelope couldn’t possibly have pinned a star of Askwith's girth to a door, but Ben, always the pessimist reckons that madness may have given her super strength.
After a wee chat and some bitching the party come to the conclusion that there may be a mad man loose on the island but Hamp just shrugs his shoulders and mutters 'Dunno' but is saved from any more embarrassing questions when his boat blows up.
Whilst most of the group run outside to see if anything can be salvaged, Brom and Nora are left alone in the lighthouse where they spend an uncomfortable couple of minutes making small talk before deciding to have 'the sex'.
Roughly.
And with a bit of biting.
Returning to the lighthouse to find Nora all ruddy faced and a rotting corpse stuck in the rocking chair, Brent confronts Hamp with the fact that his brother was once the lighthouse keeper.
This in itself may seem inconsequential but Brent goes on to tell how Hamp's bro' went mad and killed his wife and child!
On the island!
And they never found his body!
Back at the hospital, Penelope is being given even more drugs and bigger flashing lights and, as her shattered memory begins to piece itself back together, she begins to recount the horrible facts regarding the deaths of her friends....
Brom was horrified to discover that when he gazed down he had a birds foot....
What can I possibly say about Tower Of Evil that hasn't been said a thousand times before on blogs that people actually read?
I mean, if there's a better example of such a way ahead of it's time horror flick then I'd like to see it because Tower Of Evil has everything you could want from a slasher movie, nearly ten years earlier than everybody else.
Coming at a time when censorship in Britain was becoming more lax (imagine that, the UK with lenient censors), writer/director Jim (Valley of Gwanji, Vendetta for The Saint) O’Connolly fills the screen with copious amounts of nudity, sex and violence filmed in an almost tabloid, in yer face manner almost unheard of at the time.
Scream from mah mooth!
And all the well worn rules of the genre are present and correct, anyone having sex is bound to die (the teens and adults), male characters show off their buff naked arses whilst the pretty female cast members are forever thrusting their breasts towards the camera and it's the virginal good girl Penelope (the only woman in Europe who doesn’t want to get laid comments her beau) that survives.
The archaeological experts fare no better, being as they are a bunch of bed hopping sex maniacs who count a bag of spliffs and a crate of cheap red wine amongst the essentials for their expedition, splitting up at the first sign of trouble to wander around the island dressed in mini skirts, breast revealing tops and sprayed on action-slacks.
"Aye son!"
Simply put, Tower of Evil is quite honestly a work of utter genius which needs, nay demands to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.
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