Movie Night - Tower of Terror
Show Notes and References

We’re going to cover a very special film from the depths of your memory - The Wonderful World of Disney’s Tower of Terror. This made-for-TV movie originally aired on October 26th, 1997 making it part of Disney’s Halloween lineup. It was written and directed by our friend (we wish) DJ MacHale - creator of Are You Afraid of the Dark! They tapped him specifically due to his work on that show, and his ability to harness “horror” for kids - it’s scary, but more spooky than horrifying, and he was the perfect man for the job.

There may be some spoilers, but we do our best not to spoil the ending in case you haven’t seen the film and want to go back and watch in earnest.

Tower of Terror: The Attraction

Obviously, this film was a commercial vehicle for the Disney parks at the time, particularly then-named MGM studios and their new attraction, Tower of Terror, which had opened just a few years earlier in summer 1994. Don’t let that deter you from watching, though, because it boasts some pretty impressive credits and perhaps one of the more imaginative plots to come from 90s children’s horror. Plus, a few moments were filmed on location at the attraction in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Kalyn, as a former Disney cast member, has access to some closed groups for CMs and former CMs. There is a TON of conflicting information out there about this film, though. One CM said the ride wasn’t finished when they shot the movie. Another said they shot the scenes at the gate at an old hospital that had similar style. It was REALLY hard to deduce the truth. But, through an ultra helpful cast member in that group, we were sent a link to an interview with DJ himself from several years ago on the Dizney Coast to Coast podcast. Then, we found an even more recent interview with the Beyond the Mouse podcast. Many of my facts will come from these interviews. Thanks for still being willing to talk about this stuff, DJ, and thank you Disney community for always digging so deep. Go check them out if you’re a Disney person.

Myth busted, though, the ride WAS operational at the time, and that was ultimately why they decided to reconstruct the lobby (an exact replica - to the inch) on a soundstage in LA - they would have very little time to get in and out. Disney doesn’t like to shut down rides. Especially not for a film promoting themselves. Not a good look when people save for years to make one Disney trip.

Personally, I (Kalyn) absolutely love the Tower of Terror, and as a former Disney Attractions Hostess, I was always SO jealous of the bellhops and maids allowed to scare guests all day every day. It’s one of my favorite Disney parks attractions - in line behind The Haunted Mansion, which I’m sure we’ll also discuss - and I have many fond memories here. For example, I actually made it a point to ride the Tower of Terror 13 times on a trip to Disney for my 13th birthday. I hope those photos never see the light of day.

The ride and the film are intrinsically tied together, yes, but they are not one in the same. In his interview, DJ talked about what it was like to be the first filmmaker to base a film on a Disney attraction - this was occurring prior to the Pirates saga and Eddie Murphy’s Haunted Mansion - and he said it was actually less pressure than you’d think. He said they gave him a lot of creative freedom to make the film interesting and deviate from the attraction experience’s main plot, which really only lets you know that 5 individuals disappeared from an elevator when the place was zapped by lightning, and it’s been closed ever since. DJ used these 5 sort of iconic character types to build his characters and story.

If you’ve ridden the attraction but have never made the connection, let me enlighten you: The guest experience is riding the “service” elevator in this haunted hotel where the main elevator was struck, and people were, presumably, killed. After you board the service elevator, you see a glimpse of these 5 ghosts down a hallway, and are then sucked, yourself, forward through the “Twilight Zone.” Then your elevator is in the same shaft where the incident took place, and this is presumably why you then fall “to your death”.

DJ also goes to great lengths to express how the attraction in Florida differs from the one in California - in appearance, in mechanics, the whole nine yards. He talked about going to meet the Imagineers who created the original attraction. At the time, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was the most expensive attraction Disney had ever built, and the Imagineers claimed there would never be another. Flash forward to 2004 when they opened Tower of Terror in Disney’s California Adventure. Having ridden both quite a few times, I (Kalyn) could not agree more with DJ - the Florida attraction is FAR superior. In fact, the DCA version is now themed after Guardians of the Galaxy - they knew they couldn’t compete. I could talk for days about the attraction itself, but they recently released a fascinating series called Behind the Attraction on Disney+ and there’s a whole episode on ToT.

The attraction building was constructed to stand at exactly 199ft tall. Reason being, at 200ft tall, they would’ve been required by law to use a red warning light atop the building to alert planes, etc. and they felt this would conflict with the theming of the attraction and the park as a whole. Disney does all kinds of stuff like this. Is it the safest thing in the world? I don’t know. But it’s effective.

Tower of Terror: The Cast

DJ’s team got a pretty stellar cast to join this $4 million dollar project.

Steve Guttenburg plays reporter Buzzy Crocker - Steve held recurring roles on recent TV comedy The Goldbergs and Veronica Mars, among a staggering list of TV and film appearances. He even provided his voice for one episode of Rocket Power. If your childhood was anything like Kalyn’s, though, you will best know Steve from his role as Ashley Olsen’s affluent father, Roger Calloway, starring opposite Kirstie Alley in one of the Olsen twins’ best, It Takes Two (1995). I (Kalyn) don’t think I’ll ever find another opportunity to work one of my favorite film moments into this podcast: I swear kids like me will remember Kirstie’s character describing that “can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series” kind of stuff, when describing the love she thinks she’ll never have. IT WAS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING EVER. YOU KNOW YOU LOVED IT.

Kirsten Dunst, who really needs no introduction, plays the lead, Anna, the smart and sassy niece of Guttenburg’s Buzzy Crocker. Kirsten is one of Kalyn’s favorite actresses of all time, portraying one not one but TWO of her favorite film characters - Claire Colburn in Elizabethtown with Orlando Bloom, and Lux Lisbon in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides. Aside from my personal list of favs, though let’s be honest, you’re listening to my podcast so you get to hear a lot of my opinions, Kirsten’s list of credits is extensive: Spider Man, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...she even voiced Young Anastasia in Anastasia just after coming off Tower of Terror. Her recent On Becoming a God in Central Florida is worth the watch, too.

In addition to Steve and Kirsten, we’ve got Melora Hardin on the list, of The Office infamy, as well as Lindsay Ridgeway. Interestingly, Lindsay Ridgeway, probably best remembered as the SECOND Morgan Matthews on Boy Meets World, voiced another character living deep within my mind - Darla Dimple from Cats Don’t Dance! Specifically her singing voice, and if you’ve seen the film, you know how impressive that is. You’ll also notice that Lindsay’s character Sally Shine bears a striking resemblance to the cartoon Hollywood starlet - though the character in this film was based on the little girl in the attraction pre-show.

Tower of Terror: The Film

Buzzy Crocker, aforementioned news reporter, is blacklisted from the Los Angeles Banner because he published a story that turned out to be false. Now, with the assistance of his niece Anna, he contributes to a tabloid, creating fake stories and longing for his previous journalistic status. Quick note on the character named Buzzy Crocker: DJ said this came from a student film he did at NYU which featured a journalist.

Like most things do, the plot of the movie actually came down to the budget. DJ said when he was developing the story, he knew he couldn’t do a full period piece because they didn’t have the funds. That made the decision pretty easy - they’d simply investigate the incident in the present day. Who investigates things? Journalists! He said the narrative quickly fell into place once he became familiar with the attraction.

Of course, upon re-watching, we were immediately smitten once again by the entire aesthetic of this film. The witchy table in the opening credits, big band 1930s flashbacks, even the - pretty dark - opening sequence where we meet Buzzy and Anna - light glinting off of a (prop) knife in the darkness, harkening to 80s slasher glory. It’s got EVERYTHING right from the get-go. And of course, that intangible 90s feeling - the one in all of our favorite 90s made-for-TV movies - where everything is just a bit fuzzier around the edges, and things tend to make a little bit more sense than they do in the real world. Thanks, DJ.

We were also struck, upon re-watching, by the adult slant to the dialogue. They didn’t dumb things down very much for the children of the 90s, which is a theme we find and discuss often in our re-watches. Things move quickly, adult concepts are introduced without explanation, and they don’t wait for kids to catch up. I think that’s one of the best qualities about entertainment from this era - we inherently understood that the bills have to get paid, the marriage may or may not last, the pretty people are bound to flirt with each other, and the adults don’t always have everything figured out, as much as we wish they did. Watch one episode of a show from Disney Channel today, and the difference is stark - the laugh tracks drag the viewers along to each punchline, and leave nothing between the lines. In the 90s, there seemed to be less concern about what would or wouldn’t land - you just let the chips fall. That’s the way I like to write, perhaps because that’s how I first consumed entertainment, so it’s immediately appealing to me.

DJ mentioned that he kind of bowed out of kid’s TV at a certain point, because everything became comedy focused and he doesn’t do comedy - he does drama. He said he thinks it’s a shame that true, dramatic TV sort of disappeared in children’s programming, and that’s another reason we’re here doing this podcast. Hopefully it can make a comeback, because we were quite fond of our childhoods, twisted as they may have been.

After it is established that Buzzy is staging “National Inquirer” type photos for his bogus stories, he ends up earning some notoriety in the woo-woo community, apparently, and is sought out by Abigail, an old woman who’d been a witness to the disappearance at the hotel that night in 1939, to cover the story of the hotel and hopefully get his journalism career back on track. Buzzy visits the hotel and meets the caretaker, great grandson of the owner of the hotel, grandson of the bellhop that disappeared in the elevator incident. This is the first time we see the gates! DJ said they were looking to have a replica of the gates at the ride constructed for the shoot, and when they visited the fabrication factory, they learned that by COMPLETE happenstance, this factory was the same one that had been commissioned to build the gates for the attraction in Florida. Not only that, but they STILL HAD a second, backup set of gates. So, if you thought the gates were the same as at the attraction, and assumed it was shot in the park - it wasn’t, but the gates were identical!

Expertly Crafted Darkness

The main premise of the film centers around a witch’s curse, and of course the ghosts of the elevator. The ghosts are characters we come to know not so much as spooks, but as their former human selves. Luckily, or unluckily, there are still quite a few visual (and auditory) scares to be had.

I (Kalyn) got super excited about one particular moment re-watching the film: when we’re first meeting some of the ghosts, we see little Sally Shine in a weird ghost-y hologram, and JUST LIKE THE ATTRACTION, Sally can be heard singing “it’s raining, it’s pouring” in this really distorted way. I’m pretty positive - as was DJ when I listened to his interview - that this was the same sound used in the ride. For whatever reason, I got full body chills - this sound transported me back to being a kid, deep within the darkness of the attraction on family vacations and pretending not to be scared, back ten years to my cast member days reciting the narration under my breath with my friends… you know those tiny moments where you feel yourself forming a core memory, whether it’s a sound or a smell, and you just know it’s going to linger in your mind? This was that for me, and it all came flooding back. Magic.

Some of the other most iconic moments are also the darkest: anyone remember when the body in the kitchen of the hotel sits up, headless, holding a meat cleaver?! When Anna first encounters the ghosts alone, there’s also a moment when they are surrounding her and almost pushing her backwards toward burning flames in the empty elevator shaft - quite perilous as she is very nearly engulfed in flames. As a child, I (Kalyn) was already terrified of fire, and also hellfire, but we won’t get into that here. Anything in this realm would pretty effectively freak me out.

Another dark moment was the “obsessive” flash they give to the antagonist, where a reporter finds a bunch of memorabilia they had collected about Sally Shine, the actress from the elevator, all scribbled on with words like “suffer”. There’s even a doll whose head the antagonist very nearly cut completely off, just hanging by a thread. Phew. In fact, it was the one moment DJ said he was given any comment on at all, though he was still able to proceed with it.

When asked about the lengths he was “allowed” to go to in this niche vein of “children’s horror”, DJ said there really weren’t any rules impressed upon him, for this film OR for AYAOTD. He said they never did show blood or guts, and they were pretty cautious and thoughtful with their portrayals, which he thinks helped the networks to keep faith in him. This faith is most likely why so much DID end up going forward - they trusted him and his knowledge of the audience. He said, of course, there are probably a lot more rules and regulations now and more hoops to jump through, but back then filmmaking was handled so much differently. Wild how so many of HIS personal decisions had the potential to directly impact the psyche of a generation.

He hit on the fact that he always tended toward the creepy, eerie moments and suspense rather than huge jump scares or big payoffs, which we love. He does it so well, and it’s ingrained in our memory.

From here on out, Buzzy and Anna befriend the ghosties and spend the rest of the movie attempting to fix the elevator by solving the riddle of the witches curse, get the ghosties where they’re going (a party at the Tip Top Club, fulfilling each of their individual destinies), save the hotel from ruin and decay, and reestablish Buzzy’s career at the Banner.

DJ’s Favorite Directing Story

DJ says that his favorite directorial story also comes out of this film - one of his most triumphant on-set moments.

One of his most ambitious scenes was the party that occurs in the Tip Top Club, a central plot point of the film, and also appears in the opening sequence. He knew he needed to make it a big swinging party with lots of movement and energy. He said, though, that funds were tight, and he only had ONE morning to get all of the shots from this party - inserts, big crowd shots, everything. He said he was REALLY sweating it, and it became clear to him with about an hour left at the location that they weren’t going to get all of the shots on his list. It’s so much pressure!

He said there was a specific Steadicam shot, where they would follow a girl with a cigarette to the next table with the party bustling around her, where some background would interact and run off screen. They didn’t have enough money for video village, so he followed the operator to make sure they get the shot. He says after three or four takes of this sequence, the film gods shone a bright light of inspiration on him, and JUST before he would’ve “cut” the action on the last take, he pushed the Steadicam op’s belt and just said “let’s go”.

He said he took a huge leap of faith and they just moved forward into the party, swinging and swirling around everyone, capturing the action documentary style. If you’re unfamiliar with filmmaking, let us tell you: this doesn’t happen on most sets. Every shot and each movement is choreographed for lighting, cues, etc. He said as he moved, everyone caught on, and dancers and partygoers were just WINGING it. Fully. He said the ADs and producers caught on too, and started filtering folks around them to allow them to move more freely and capture the magnitude of the moment. He said they must’ve been going for 3 full minutes and eventually he tapped the cam op and was like “done, we’re done”. Once he said cut, the whole place erupted into applause. He said everyone was exhausted, but he got what he needed.

We know what a miracle this is - that everyone really tuned in to the director and things clicked so perfectly in the moment. He even suggested going back and checking how many shots from the opening came from that one take. Magic.

Reactions and Revelations

Overall, the film does a good job balancing the “spooky” horror with a decently involved plotline, and the actors really elevate the material - Melora’s role is really fun.

DJ spoke in his interview about the fact that the film received very little promo - it came out the week before the live action Cinderella with Brandy, so they got the promo budget - and he said when they gave them their time slot (7pm on the Sunday before Halloween), DJ realized that if the World Series went to 7 games, they’d be competing with that, too. Which, in the end, they were. He said he thinks that’s a large part of why the film went relatively unnoticed - but thankfully, even decades later, the die-hard fans find a way.

DJ seemed, as self-proclaimed Disney-geek, dedicated to honoring the lore and experience of the attraction while breathing his own life into it. And I have got to say, exploring this film really only made me love him all the more. We have so much in common - down to directing a lot of corporate videos - and even if he never knows it, growing up on his style has inspired so much of the way we both think about stories and film. If we’re lucky enough to ever speak with him, we’d be more than honored. You’re a legend, DJ!

If you’re a fan of the film and/or the attraction, I hope that compiling some of this information helped you to take home something spooky you didn’t already know. Thanks again to all of the humans involved in the film and in the Dizney Coast to Coast and Beyond the Mouse podcasts.

We are grateful for those whose footsteps we’re walking in as we make content for the ever-nostalgic.

References:

https://dizneycoasttocoast.libsyn.com/tower-of-terrors-dj-machale-disney-podcast-dizney-coast-to-coast-ep-437

https://beyondthemousepodcast.wordpress.com/2020/10/29/ep-78-tower-of-terror-with-d-j-machale/