History Film / TowerOfTerror

* IronicNurseryTune: Sally Shine eerily sings "It's Raining, It's Pouring" as a ghost (just like in the ride) to Buzzy and Anna.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: "I think I just let a ghost into your apartment".

* CanonWelding: Creator/DJMacHale's later book series ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'' makes reference to the events of this film. Which means it is also in the same continuity as ''Literature/TheMorpheusRoad''.

* CanonWelding: Creator/DJMacHale's later book series ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'' makes reference to the events of this film.

* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: Abigail and Sally. Now imagine Abel coming back as a ghost and Cain hunting him down still.]]

* GroundhogDayLoop: The Ghosts (as well as the Hollywood Tower Hotel) are effectively trapped in 1939, waiting for October 31st to roll around each year, so they can try again to reach the party that is waiting for them on the top floor. If they fail, welp, they simply linger around haunting the hotel until the date comes again.

%% * HappilyEverAfter: Hey, even at its scariest, Disney is Disney.

* DisproporionateRetribution: [[spoiler: Yeah, kill your sister and four others and place a decades-long curse on an entire hotel, because you might possibly may have been jilted on your birthday.]]

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler: Abigail killed her sister and other innocent people and sabotaged her own surprise birthday party in 1939...over what basically amounts to nothing.]]

* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler: Abigail cast the magical spell that killed her sister and the others on the elevator in 1939 in hopes of ridding her of Sally forever, but it only made her sister even MORE famous as a legendary ghost whose death overshadows ''her'' birthday, which drove Abigail further and further off the deep end as she aged into her elder years, to the point she tries a more potent spell that will send Sally's ghost to Hell for eternity.]]

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler: Abigail killed her sister and other innocent people and sabotaged her own surprise birthday party...over basically nothing.]]

* CoupDeGrace: [[spoiler: What Abigail hopes to accomplish. Tired of being haunted by her sister's memory after killing her in 1939, she attempts a more potent spell that will send her ghost out of the hotel completely and into Hell.]]
* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Claire Poulet, aka Carolyn Crosson.]]

* EvilIsPetty: Jealous of your famous sister and felt jilted? [[spoiler: Kill her with a magical spell while trapping her and other innocent people in an ongoing time loop and putting an entire town through hell for sixty years, and if that doesn't work, re-work the spell so she is permanently erased. It gets worse when the realization comes out,]]

* FriendlyGhost: They are more than friendly, they are outright decent people.

* GroundhogDayLoop: The Ghosts (as well as the Hollywood Tower Hotel) are effectively trapped in 1939, waiting for October 31st to roll around each year, so they can try again to reach the party that is waiting for them on the top floor. If they fail, welp, they simply linger around the hotel until the date comes again.

* NeverFoundTheBody: No traces of the victims in the Elevator were found. They just disappeared without a trace.

* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler: Abigail cast the magical spell that killed her sister and the others on the elevator in 1939 in hopes of ridding her of Sally forever, but it only made her sister even MORE famous as a ghost, which drove Abigail further and further off the deep end as she aged into her elder years, to the point she tries a more potent spell that will send Sally's ghost to Hell for eternity.]]

* MiscarriageOfJustice / KarmaHoudini: How Buzzy was fired from the newspaper company, they blamed him for the fake photographs of the mayor taking bribes from a mob. In realty, it was some other guy who made the photographs up.

Before ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean,'' this 1997 MadeForTVMovie was the first film to be based on a ride from the Ride/DisneyThemeParks, in this case ''Ride/TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror'' (though the film has no stated connection to ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone''). It was written and directed by Creator/DJMacHale.

Creator/SteveGuttenberg plays a disgraced reporter named Buzzy Crocker, who is stuck doing tabloid stories after submitting a story that turned out to be false. He meets an old woman named Abigail, who tells him the story of the Hollywood Tower Hotel, which was closed down back in UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood after lightning struck the elevator and killed its five passengers.

She claims that Emeline Partridge, the nanny of child actress Sally Shine, was responsible for the horrible event, which put a curse on the hotel, trapping their spirits there. She begs him to go into the hotel and collect some items she needs to break the curse. Along with his niece Anna and the inheritor of the hotel, Chris "Q" Todd, Buzzy ventures into the hotel and is surprised at what he finds.

* AmbiguouslyAbsentParents: Anna's father is never seen or mentioned.

* AdultFear: Two offscreen instances between the prologue and the main story.
** Child star Sally Shine's parents have to deal with their daughter vanishing from an elevator without a trace [[spoiler:and their other daughter going insane afterward]].
** Dewey's father experiences similar grief when his son vanishes and never recovers from the tragedy.

Before ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean,'' this 1997 MadeForTVMovie was the first film to be based on a ride from the Ride/DisneyThemeParks, in this case ''Ride/TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror'' (though the film has no stated connection to ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'').

* SurpriseParty: [[spoiler:What the party back in 1939 is revealed to be. Specifically, it was a surprise birthday party for ''Abigail''.]]

* ForgottenBirthday: [[spoiler:Played straight, aside from the birthday girl having the biggest overreaction ''ever'' in the history of this trope. She finds out sixty years later that a surprise party had been planned. Oops.]]

* [[RoomFullOfCrazy Trunk Full Of Crazy]]: [[spoiler:Abigail has a trunk filled with photos of Sally with her face slashed out, decapitated/mangled Sally dolls, and "I HATE SALLY" written all over the place in red.]]

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Sally Shine is quite obviously Creator/ShirleyTemple.

Before ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean,'' this 1997 MadeForTVMovie was the first film to be based on a ride from the Ride/DisneyThemeParks, in this case ''Ride/TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror'' (though the film has no connection to ''Series/TheTwilightZone'').

Before ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean,'' this 1997 MadeForTVMovie was the first film to be based on a ride from the Ride/DisneyThemeParks, in this case ''Ride/TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror''.

This movie has the distinction of being based on a ride, a unique twist on something that's usually the other way around.

* LighterAndSofter: Only by a very slim margin from its source material. See Defanged Horrors above.

Creator/SteveGuttenberg plays a disgraced reporter named Buzzy Crocker, who is stuck doing tabloid stories, after submitting a story, that turned out to be false. He meets an old woman named Abigail, who tells him the story of the Hollywood Tower Hotel, which was closed down, back in UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood after lightning struck the elevator, and killed its five passengers.

She claims that Emeline Partridge, the nanny of child actress Sally Shine, was responsible for the horrible event, which put a curse on the hotel, trapping their spirits there. She begs him to go into the hotel, and collect some items she needs, to break the curse. Along with his niece Anna, and the inheritor of the hotel, Chris "Q" Todd, Buzzy ventures into the hotel, and is surprised at what he finds.