Tower of Terror (1997)

Let's look at one of Disney's early attempts to make a movie based on a theme park attraction with Tower of Terror.

The Movie:

Tower of Terror is a television movie produced by Walt Disney Television for the Wonderful World of Disney.  It was broadcast on October 26, 1997.  Tower of Terror was written and directed by D.J. MacHale, who is best known for creating the Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark?  The movie starred Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst.  Though the actual ride is themed around The Twilight Zone, this movie has no connection to that show.

Like in the theme park attraction, the backstory is that the Hollywood Tower on Halloween night in 1939 was struck by lightning, and an elevator with five people in it vanished.  In this movie, one of those five people was the child star Sally Shine.  In present day, former journalist Buzzy Crocker is now a tabloid writer, using his niece Anna to help him stage photos for his stories.  Buzzy is visited by an old woman named Abigail Gregory who says she was at the hotel that night when she was a little girl, and she claims that she saw a witch cast a spell that cursed the Sally and the others.  Abigail asks Buzzy to find the spellbook as proof.  Buzzy begins to look into the story, and he begins to discover that the supernatural may be real after all.

Tower of Terror is a pretty good movie.  It's not striving for high art, it just wants to be entertaining, and it gets there.  It's obviously shot on a TV budget, but most of the effects work pretty well.  The acting is solid and the story is well told.  And fans of another Disney TV show, Boy Meets World, might recognize Lindsay Ridgeway, who plays Sally Shine.

The score is provided by Emmy-winning TV composer Louis Febre.  The 1939 scenes also make use of jazz standards such as "Sing, Sing, Sing.," and in one scene a character sings the Shandi song "Boy of My Dreams."

Presence in the Parks:

This movie is based on The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which opened in 1994 at what was then MGM Studios.

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, MGM Studios, June 1995

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, MGM Studios, March 2007

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Hollywood Studios, May 2015

Variations of the ride can be found in the second gate parks in Tokyo and Paris.  There was also a version at DCA from 2004 to 2017, but it was closed and rethemed as Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout.