The Tower (1985)

Canadian studio Emmeritus Productions may not have had much money, but they made some interesting movies, including porn-based detective story Blue MurderDeath In Hollywood, horror anthology Shock Chamber, post-apocalyptic Survival EarthDiamon In the RoughBody Count, Satanic conspiracy thriller Mark of the BeastThe BorrowerThe Bounty HunterLady BearLast ChanceThe Hijacking of Studio 4Niagra Strip, SOV history film The Chronicle of 1812Fly With the HawkVirgin ParadiseCommando GamesMarked for DeathPrice of VengeanceRace to Midnight and The Edge.

Also, they made The Tower.

Directed and written by Jim Makichuk, the same man who created Ghostkeeper, this is a Canadian science fiction tale of the Sandawn Building, a high rise of tomorrow that has a computer running it named LOLA and man, avoid all futuristic buildings in the North-West Territory that have shopping and living amenities because I am convinced you’re either going to contract a disease that makes a sex organ grow in your armpit or you will be killed by a supercomputer.

None of this is obvious to the man who created her, Watson, who sees humans the same way she does: as sources of heat energy. So on the Friday night that LOLA loses its mind, the inhabitants of an ad agency — nuke these people from orbit — as well as Old Man Sandawn, his wife, his mistress, some criminals and a security guard and his way out of his league girlfriend who is just there to swim — all get trapped and menaced by a building.

For some reason, there’s also an exotic dancer who can barely dance who wants to sleep with Watson, but you know, it’s so cold in Canada that even their movies have padding.

This movie is worth watching not only for the worst depiction of an ad agency in a film — those marker renderings are trash — but also for an old woman who knows that a computer is trying to kill her and decides to go try on feather boas and have a mall makeover instead.

You can watch this on YouTube.

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