The Black Tower — (John Smith, 1987)

Smith’s “accidental horror” film wears its constructivist tricks as a primary-coloured cloak around the barest of wireframe figures. That Smith dismisses the plot as secondary to the film itself reveals more about his artistic leanings than any supposed embracing of genre, and the fractured realism and creeping terror of the story plays out despite and because of them.

Enchanting and good-humoured (as with almost all of Smith’s films), The Black Tower tells a singular story of architectural horror and madness worthy of the ungovernable geographies of Machen, Welles, or Lovecraft, situating itself firmly in the quotidian grit of Thatcher’s Britain. Constantly pointing to its own telling, as well as the mode and method of that telling, Smith’s film questions the viewer’s own certainty even as the narrator loses theirs — at the same time challenging not only the veracity of the film but also the viewer’s complacency watching it.

Hexus Journal is currently inviting both written and visual responses to The Black Tower as submissions for a forthcoming issue — please do get in touch if you want more information.

TR