I’m surprised it took until 2005 for a non-all-black slasher film to feature a black killer (unless you count the Candyman flicks), but if Tower of Blood (and Motor Home Massacre, which came out the same year) is any indication, there may not be another one any time soon. It feels like the makers of this flick read Slasher Movies for Dummies and took every cliche they could find, from the mute, masked, jumpsuit-clad killer to the horny “teenagers” (played by 30-year-olds) looking to party in an old, spooky building to the old “we shouldn’t mess with that stuff” Ouiji Board ritual to oblivious lines like, “What do you mean ‘They’re dead’?” Poor acting, dank lighting and a script full of padded scenes that don’t further the plot (like one of the underaged teens getting a woman to buy beer for the party) don’t help matters any.
The story is pretty basic and knuckle-headed: some kids go party in a recently abandoned apartment building (thus the tagline of “30 Floors. 500 Tenants. 0 Survivors.” is quite an overstatement), incurring the wrath of a mental patient who conveniently just escaped from an institution. It seems that he and his mother had been evicted and left for dead after a fire in the building, or some crap like that. While I appreciate the filmmakers’ attempt at affirmative action, it’s a shame that a black slasher villain has to be wasted on derivative malarkey like this. Bro’man doesn’t even get a name; he’s referred to only as “The Killer.” How’s he supposed to become a horror icon without a name? Lucius, Chauncey, Jerome, something.
