In 1939, in Los Angeles, four guests of a party and the elevator operator disappear on the eleventh floor of the Hollywood Tower Hotel in the Halloween night. Sixty years later, the journalist Buzzy Crocker (Steve Guttenberg) writes sensationalist stories for the tabloid The National Inquisitor after being fired from the Los Angeles Banner for writing fake news. His former girlfriend Jill Perry (Nia Peeples) is the Banner's editor, but Buzzy fell in disgrace and now produces fake news using his teenage niece Anna (Kirsten Dunst) to help him. When the elderly Abigail Gregory (Amzie Strickland) visits Buzzy at home, she tells an amazing story to him about the mysterious disappearance of the five people: the actor Gilbert London (Alastair Duncan), his girlfriend and singer Carolyn Crosson, a.k.a. Claire Poulet (Melora Hardin), the child star Sally Shine (Lindsay Ridgeway), her nanny Emeline Partridge (Wendy Worthington) and the operator Dewey Todd (John Franklin). Abigail says that Emeline was a witch that hated Sally and put a spell on the girl, trapping the ghosts in the hotel. She would need a book of spells and belongings of the five people in the elevator to revert the curse. Buzzy and Anna meet the present hotel owner and mechanic Chris 'Q' Todd (Michael McShane), who is Dewey's grandson and is afraid of the haunted hotel. Soon Buzzy and Anna encounter the ghosts and together with the skeptical Jill, they learn the true story of the curse.
"Tower of Terror" (1997) is a nostalgic and delightful family entertainment from a time when Disney dedicated to this type of movie. The plot of this ghost story is funny and never scary, but all the family will enjoy the nice ghosts. Steve Guttenberg performs the role of a sensationalist reporter that works with his niece Kristen Dunst, but the gorgeous Melora Hardin with her lovely voice steals the movie. The feel-good conclusion is a plus for the viewer. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "A Torre do Terror" ("The Tower of Terror")
