'Tower of Evil' (1972) - Jim O'Connolly.

All too rarely praised, more often blithely dismissed as a tawdry trifle of titter-worthy terror tosh. 'Tower of Evil' remains a fleshly fabulous, luridly head-lopping, artless kill frenzy, clearly made to satiate the increasingly jaded horror audience's appetites for nudity and crimson-soaked carnage. Arguably, a fair summation of Jim O'Connolly's grisly schlocker, it is also precisely why I have always loved it so unreservedly! While 'Tower of Evil's' frenzied milieu lacks the innate sophistication of a Hammer Films production, the gruesomely unrefined mayhem makes it one of the earlier precursors to the 80s slasher boom, which, with all too few exceptions, the UK film industry failed miserably to capitalize on.

One of the film's towering strengths is the eclectic assemblage of notable actors from stage and screen. Dennis Price, Anthony Valentine, George Coulouris, Jack Watson, and Robin Askwith, with luminous ingénue, Candice Glendenning providing this crepuscular island of doom with some much-needed effervescence. Once a working lighthouse, now a benighted, horribly decayed death trap, wherein only grievous misfortune awaits those alighting upon this inhospitably storm-lashed isle! Should they avoid the tomb-deep potholes, or collapsing mildewed masonry, the deranged subterranean savage skulking malevolently in the dismal bowels of Snape Island is sure to finish them off!

'Tower of Evil' is most certainly not a stylish affair, but looks are deceiving, often disguising a barren, inert core of glossy mediocrity. Innumerable eerie edification's lie within Snape Island jaggedly degenerated depths, and should you ever dare to visit this monumentally malign monolith, it shall prove to be a night to dismember! Fright-hungry fans of Freddie Francis's 'The Ghoul' (1975) or, Pete Walker's 'The Flesh and Blood Show' (1972) will appreciate the deviant delights fulminating within, Jim O'Connolly's grisly 'Tower of Evil' more than most. 

'This cheaply made, unattractively mounted, gorily exploitative B-horror bacchanal has all the lofty film making merit of a sordid stag reel, which is precisely why I watch it so frequently!' - Mahnfahrt Panzerflesh.