Tony Minot (Paul Reiser) is a computer whiz who wanted to be a musician. Unable to make music pay he decides he needs a regular nine to five job. An acquaintance, Linda Ferillo (Susan Norman), gets him a job at a prestigious firm called Intercorp. The company is housed in a giant building called The Tower. It is a state-of-the-art facility with a high-tech security system. Tony had been issued a keycard but when he locks himself out of his apartment, he uses his company security card to slide past the lock and open his door. This causes the keycard to malfunction.
Tony retrieves his car keys and goes on his way. When he tries to get into the building’s parking garage, his security card won’t work. He then piggybacks on someone diving into the garage and parks his car in an unauthorized parking spot. The security guard, Wilson (Richard Gant) tests his key card but sees no issues. The computer, however, records Tony as a possible security breach.
Tony is sent up to the top floor to meet his new boss, Mr. Littlehill (Roger Rees). Littlehill’s office is palatial but stark and streamlined. After meeting the big guy Tony enters the elevator to go to his new office. The elevator requires you to use your keycard before you can push the button for your floor. Tony starts fucking around with his security card. Once again, the computer records the action as a possible breach.
Back in his office Tony gets another security demerit when he has problems with his computer and bypasses the security features, thus getting a control Interrupt and System invasion alert. Tony finishes his work for the day but now it is after hours, and the building is in night mode. When he tries to call the elevator, it won’t work. Wilson sees that Tony is still in the building and goes to look for him. He finds him unable to call the elevator. He uses Tony’s card. Wilson now thinks that Tony is just an idiot. Since Tony has to go up, Wilson takes the elevator down. The elevator security system believes that it is Tony in the elevator. Needing to rid the building of an unauthorized breach, the elevator kills Wilson.
Tony meets Littlehill in the hallway. They take the stairs to his office where Littlehill ends up murdered in the sauna by the Intercorp computer. It’s about at this time when Tony realizes that the building is trying to kill him.
“The Tower” was released in 1993 and was directed by Richard Kletter. It is an American science fiction horror made for television movie.
The film isn’t exactly a block buster, but it has some decent pyrotechnics and explosions and is a bit of wild fun. The Tower does for terra firma what HAL 9000 did for outer space. The only difference is that “2001: A Space Odyssey” was big budget and “The Tower” is slowly fading into obscurity. It’s interesting that when machines malfunction, their first plan of action is to kill the humans. It’s strange that technology, something that we have come to depend on for everything, turns out to be the worst thing for us. At least at the movies. Smart houses came to fruition sometime in the late nineties so it stands to reason that, eventually, the idea of anything that can think and act on its own would be the subject of a horror movie. It’s not Stanley Kubrick, but unlike "2001" I actually stayed awake watching it.
The voice of CAS, the computer, was voiced by Dee Gee Wilkinson.