Lockdown Tower (2022) User Reviews

Lockdown Tower falls short of its potential but has enjoyable elements

[kevin_robbins · 5/10 · 2 December 2023]

I recently viewed the French 🇫🇷 film Lockdown Tower (2022) on Prime. The plot revolves around a housing complex that becomes barricaded, trapping its residents with dwindling resources, leading to power struggles within.

Directed by Guillaume Nicloux (Lords of Scam), the film stars Hatik (DogMan), Bruni Makaya (The Lost Prince), Jules Houplain (Who You Think I Am), and Jules Dhios Francisco (The Dazzled).

While the film takes a bit too long to gain momentum, the last 25 minutes deliver what I had hoped for. The unique circumstances lack the intended creepiness, and the film initially focuses heavily on character and circumstance establishment. However, once the premise is set, the dynamics between different groups become interesting. There are also eerie survival concepts and impactful kill sequences at the very end.

In conclusion, Lockdown Tower falls short of its potential but has enjoyable elements. I would give it a 5/10 and recommend watching it once.

It has potential

[mmilenica87 · 6/10 · 29 September 2023]

The movie started great, but it simply didn't deliver... There were some interesting characters and yet they were not developed at all. The story is very wide and not explained well enough. The timeline was not explained either - how much time did it pass? One year? Two years? 10 years? What did they eat? I know that they explained how they have been breeding pets to eat them, but those pets need food as well, right? Also the group called "baby-eaters", well just ridiculous. To wait 9 months and expect tiny babies can feed a large group of people, come on, it doesn't make sense... What about the voodoo guy? What is his role? How about the end? How much time did it pass? It is totally confusing, only couple of them left, right? Or not? If yes - how come? What happened? As I mentioned, it had such a potential, some great characters that could evolve a little more but everything was left half-done if you understand what I mean... Such a shame...

Worth watching once

[emwee609 · 4/10 · 7 December 2023]

For some reason, I initially had a different movie in mind when I started watching this, and it took me a while to realize that I was actually watching a different film. Nevertheless, Lockdown Tower turned out to be quite an intriguing viewing experience, and my feelings about it are somewhat mixed.

The movie kicks off well, drawing me into its narrative. The early segments set high expectations, but unfortunately, this momentum doesn't sustain itself until the end. As the story progresses, it somewhat stagnates, with few novel ideas or events being introduced. The extensive cast complicates matters, making it challenging to discern who's who and which side they're on.

Make no mistake: the movie implies eerie and disturbing events within the tower. However, the intense atmosphere established in the beginning gradually dissipates. Eventually, the movie concludes rather abruptly, leaving viewers with lingering unanswered questions.

Am I satisfied that I watched the movie? Yes. Would I watch it again? No. There are some logical flaws and an unrealistic timeline that raised my eyebrows and caused frustration. Nevertheless, Lockdown Tower represents a noteworthy and distinctive addition to the genre of films where horror emanates from the dynamics within the community of survivors.

Truly bad

[D-Doerfler · 1/10 · 26 October 2023]

A friend recommended it so I watched it. The opening was pretty good, then it devolved into human scum- hints of racial tension and I lost interest when a few young kids attack an elderly couple to take their dog, presumably to eat.

That's when I turned the playback speed up to 2 and after awhile just started skipping through it, pausing to watch a few more scenes and the last five minutes in which nothing really happens, nothing's explained, nothing resolved. (How did any of them survive for 5 years???) The most boring Horror movie I can ever remember seeing and the only Horror is the time spent watching it.

An unequal horror film about human nature

[jnbonicar · 3/10 · 4 September 2022]

Guillaume Nicloux is definitely one of the most known French filmmakers and has made beautiful movies. Nicloux knows how to deal with the same topics while making very different films. Human nature, claustrophobia and the idea of trap were already present, for instance, in his poetic and beautiful VALLEY OF LOVE, with the giants Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert.

His new film takes a clearly different path, with a very different cast and atmosphere. It poses itself as a "horror film" about a post-apocalyptic world in a tower. Well, THE TOWER is not really horror, or at least, we can say it's not as bloody nor gore than horror movies such as SAW or similar films.

This is first a film about society and social relationship. What's at the center of the story is the behavior of 150 people (or, more precisely, of 3 clans) who are forced to live together inside a tower, for years. So, the supernatural fog element here is only a pretext and doesn't represent the horror of the film. The fog is stil a nice concept, and being only a pretext works, for the movie (and its horror) is about human nature... which is really ugly, and devastating.

Still, one can regret that the concept is not used at its maximum potential. We would have loved to know better the characters, and the film to deal with psychological relations between the different characters, ie., how everyone reacts differently to the event. This is what we could have expected, as the film's promise, but it won't happen. Unfortunately, we can't really identify with the characters, and we don't care if one dies or doesn't: they're two dimensional, and not engaging (despite a great cast!), for we know nothing about them. Instead, they form different clans, and the whole film deals with the battle of these clans. Again, there are certainly lots of Nicloux's fears in this, as he mentioned THE TOWER was probably his most personal film. So, having different clans tells a lot about human nature, according to him, and is not an issue. The issue is that we, STILL, would have loved to know better the main protagonists.

The film is full of suspense and tension (camera work, lightings, costumes, settings are all great work), but again, suspense would have been much increased if we knew the characters better. The claustrophobic mood adds a lot, while the organization of the food in the pic is really disturbing. A disturbing experience with a feeling that something is unfinished.

How does the concept of food even work?

[Ferrox87 · 2/10 · 20 August 2023]

I liked the premise of the movie. But in the movie there's around 150 people in the tower. And it roughly takes places over months or years. How do they get food or water? They eat pets or try to bread them, but this is just ridiculous. Also, where do they get water?

Imagine the amount of food 150 people need each day, and how much food people normally have at home. Even if they somehow get fresh water. Really takes you out of the movie with the gigantic plot holes, and I expect a scriptwriter to think about the basic things.

Plus I really disliked the animal cruelty, even if largely only implied.

Amazing French flick

[searchanddestroy-1 · 31 October 2023]

I will be clear; this movie atmosphere reminded me strongly other French features released before the COVID plague: DANS LA BRUME, LA NUIT A DEVORE LE MONDE, or even Xavier Gens' THE DIVIDE. I insist, not the plot, but the overall atmosphere. Guillaume Nicloux used us to weird tales but not this kind. As a novelist, he wrote disturbing stories too. This movie is so far one of my favourite from him. The suburb, ghetto towers settings can make it a social film and that's not so surprising. I was stuck, glued to this story, that is never boring. A social disturbing drama that analyses the human behavior between several kinds of communities, several kinds of people. I guess the COVID plague inspired this plot; and it was not the only example since 2021, after the movie shootings resumed.

Lockdown ... and Lockout

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 30 November 2023]

No pun intended - I had heard good things about this, so I though I'd give it a try. Unfortunately the very good idea ... well let's just say I feel there could have been way more to the movie than the final product gives us. While the effects are good and there are some shock effects ... I do wonder ... not about what is beyond, but what could have been ... in a better world.

The movie starts off quite on a high level (no pun intended here either) ... and we are trapped with everyone inside. From there on the movie goes off - well not literally of course. And what does that do to the people inside the house? It feels like someone really though about it ... but there could have been even more tough.

Just remember to never take a tour in this house ...

I can't believe this film is from the same director

[radback · 1/10 · 12 June 2023]

I can't believe this film is from the same director who made "Cette femme-là" or "Le Poulpe" (both brilliant movies).

Since those films, Nicloux made some good or average films but never a really bad film.

Now he has!

I rarely rate a 1 on a film on IMDB, but I really can't find anything positive in "La Tour" except maybe the starting idea.

The rest doesn't deliver as it is basicaly a short movie material extended to the maximum to make a feature film.

The result is very very painfull to watch and I felt the film would never end. End credits at 1h25 were a deliverance!

It is a lazy written film, badly shot with most mediocre interpreters.

Really nothing to save here, except your time if you're reading this.

Avoid at all costs!

PS: You'd better watch "Blindness" or "The divide" if you're interested in interactions between humans during end of times.

No blood, no practical effects, just a black fog of nothing, what a waste of 89 minutes.

[kmkevinn-64733 · 1/10 · 19 March 2024]

I mostly love french horror films even the old ones, but this one made me want to throw up and my god probably one of the worat films of the year of 2022 but did not released till 2023, the ending of the film was just lackluster, as well as the entire thing, usually for french films I adore very good scares with practical effects, The Lockdown Tower is disappointed because the scares do ABSOLUTELY NOT do anything, yes the concept is survival and prisoned in the apartment tower I get that but the rest of the film. The Tower is a hellish vision of isolation that must surely have been dreamed up during the pandemic lockdown; it made me want to switch on Family Guy instead. Maybe released in 2020 would be more understandable than releasing in 2023, like really movie, why could this be released in April 2020, then it would be on the good film of 2020. 90% of the film was putting me to sleep 😴 💤 😴 💤 😴 💤 I find it NOT interesting. 10% is well partial entertaining but yeah this is something that make you fall asleep.

Gave me horrible nightmares. Bleak, depressing, disturbing.

[manuelasaez · 8/10 · 20 October 2023]

I watch A LOT of horror movies. Probably one a night. Very few of them are actually scary, especially those that concern monsters, spirits or ghosts. The ones I find that scare me the most are the ones that showcase human nature in its purest/rawest state, and that is exactly what this movie does. What begins with a group of people faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge quickly devolves into one of the most disturbing and unpleasant films I've seen in recent memory, and I say this as someone who really enjoyed the movie (if that's the correct term to use in such instances).

The premise immediately drew me in, but the movie runs at such a breakneck pace, the viewer was tasked to keep track of how many days, weeks, months were flying by as the events unfolded, and you only got two time stamps throughout the entire movie, neither of them in the first hour. So at first I thought, "How could people devolve into such viscous monsters after just one day?", but the movie was speeding through the events, making weeks go by as if it were the same day they discovered the darkness. It was a neat trick; it made you think people just reverted into cavemen within 24 hours when in actually, days or even weeks had flown by. You can tell by how quickly the hallways turned into caves, with people drawing on them like the neanderthals they became.

Then there are the events of the movie itself; tribalism, people segregating themselves by skin color or countries of origin, trading sexual favors for drugs, the breeding and eating of dogs and cats, the breeding and eating of BABIES (thank god they only alluded to this while never actually showing it), cultism, gangs, mafias. Everything that could possibly go wrong in a society goes wrong within this building, and it truly shows that the scariest monster anyone could ever come across is a human being who lacks decency and morals.

The worst part is we are never actually told how the darkness came to be, why it's doing what it's doing, and how anyone could stop it. All we know is that the people trapped in this building can never leave, have limited food and water, and must battle not only each other but their own sanity to stay alive. If I had to choose between living with these types of godless degenerates or being disintegrated by darkness, I'd choose the latter. At least I knew where I stood with the darkness.

This movie was tough to watch, incredibly disturbing and gave me horrible nightmares that disrupted my sleep. Out of all the horror movies I've seen this year involving Smiling demons, pet semataries, and vampires, the scariest monster ended up being the average human. Ironic, but not unexpected.

Better than the sum of its parts

[abrahambull-87809 · 5/10 · 22 December 2023]

The premise of this film is good. The tone reminded me of the last third of the much better film, Aniara. I actually think this film is too similar to that one to not have had some direct influence.

After the initial premise is set up, the film tries to tackle themes of chaos vs order, religion vs secularism, good vs evil. It does this quite badly. Some of the tribal groups have no credible route to development and in the plotting, at times, it isn't even clear what they are. The baby eating clan, for instance, makes no practical sense, doesn't really represent a human group archetype and it wasnt clear thats what they even were until the last 15 minutes. In trying to tackle these big themes, the film completely loses its path in terms of creating a coherent plot and rounded characters. Some of the plot holes to do with food really take you out of the film. The ending tries for some philosophical pretention but is pretty much meaningless.

Having said all that, the premise, tone, acting and technical film making skill, make it strangely much better than the sum of its parts. I found it quite effective at creating a mood, that's for sure.

Introvert's Paradise

[thesar-2 · 10/10 · 21 October 2023]

I've always wanted to live in a Highrise. Until now.

I'll go on record here. Outside of Hollywood, look no further for horror than Australia, South Korea and France. Okay, okay, if you like ghost stories, Japan, but that's really not my bag.

I'd equate them all the same. I love all three country's horror. Not one over the other. This one is French and it really doesn't matter as, sadly, racism extends globally.

The movie REC (or for us Americans, Quarantine) already did this, but not like this. AT ALL. This was creepy and REAL. So simple and yet so effective. Many won't watch this for a factor of reasons: it's subtitled, it's somewhat uneventful, it's low-action/jump-scares, it's foreign and it's on Shudder, a channel most people don't have/know about. And that's all too bad. This movie is powerful, impactful, HAUNTING and will probably stick with me. And quite literally, is enormously basic and equally effectively.

One normal morning the residents of high tower quickly realize there's some black goo (??) or void surrounding the outside of their residence. Any object, including themselves, that attempt to pass through...gets eaten up. How? Why? What happened? Your guess is as good as theirs. But one thing is for sure, survival instincts will kick in soon and who will survive and who will make it out depends....

This movie, as stated, is basic and yet, SOOO deep. Yes, it's about people banding together when having to be stuck in one locale for an indefinite amount of time. This would really happen. Sadly. What would you do?

What would you do if you woke up in a skyrise with different people, culture, races, opinions and you may never be able to leave or figure out what's going on?

This movie is scary on so many levels and I know this will haunt me for a long time. I will not spoil anything, but the time jumps had my heart skip many beats. I've seen many survival horror movies, such as any zombie movie or trapped/isolated groups inside a single location, but this one won't leave me be.

I really don't know what else to say. You're either gonna love this for its originality or hate it because on the surface, it's not a normal horror movie. I'm all about this NOT having any sequels as how they leave this is even more creepy. DO NOT try and explain this or dig deeper. Leave this as is and be completely frightened.

***

Final Thoughts: The only downfall I can think of is...I have no idea who's who in this movie. I think that's part of the point, but I'll never remember any names or characters. I might remember with subsequent viewings, however. I'm really disturbed here on how REAL this fictional movie was.

Seriously. I AM DISTURBED HERE. If you love horror, watch and absorb this. Well done, Writer/Director Guillaume Nicloux. WELL DONE.

I see a lot of horror movies and hardly 20% really frighten me. This terrified me.