Dark Tower (1989)

Directed by Ken Wirderhorn
Starring Jenny Agutter, Michael Moriarty, Kevin McCarthy
Rated R
USA/Spain

“In a City That Never Sleeps...This Building is a Nightmare.”

Moon-eyed Brit sci-fi starlet Jenny Agutter (Logan's Run) stars in this plodding VHS-era clunker about a haunted office building. Carolyn Page (Agutter) is an ambituous, workaholic architect who, at the top of the movie, is putting the finishing touches on a skyscraper in Spain (or maybe Italy, hard to tell what they're going for. It was shot in Barcelona, but there's a lot of Italian accents on hand) when bizarre accidents start to occur. A window washer leaps (or is thrown) to his death, a building inspector is crushed in an elevator and a detective goes on a shooting rampage in the lobby. Tragic coincidences, or is this joint cursed? Or haunted by an angry ghost?

It's up to clairvoyant gumshoe Dennis Randall (Michael Moriarty, The Stuff) to find out. Well, him and a fat “parapsychologist” and, for some reason, Kevin McCarthy(Return of the Living Dead), who plays a beret-wearing homeless drunkard.

All the elements are in place for a fun, stupid 80's Eurogarbage romp, but unfortunately, the whole thing sluices forward at such a glacial pace it's tough to keep going. The last five minutes award still-concious viewers with an ambling corpse and a suitably goofy finale (see clip below), but I cannot swear that it was worth the wait. Really, the only thing that kept me going was Jenny Agutter's hair. It got worse and worse throughout the film. Do they not have conditioner in Barcelona?

PS: remember her in Logan's Run, though? Hubba hubba.

- Ken McIntyre