The Haunting of the Tower of London

Set during the dying days of England's King Edward IV, this is a speculative version of the events that removed his legitimate heir and his brother and smoothed the process of ensuring that Richard III succeeded to give battle in vain. Now I say speculative because this has largely abandoned the history and supplanted it with the vivid imagination of auteur Charlie Steeds. He can't have had much money or time for anything here, but despite that he manages to film a certain effective eeriness to the scenarios. There is, however, nothing more to be said for this fanciful, slightly kinky, and really quite risible tale of usurpation. The acting is as bad as the writing - and that's saying something. Richard Rowden and Reece Connolly come across little better than easy on the eye drama school students and Tim Cartwright's attempt at portraying the megalomanic Richard III can be guaranteed to remind you of the original "Blackadder" series from forty years earlier. The myths about the princes in the tower are a great seam for film makers. This one? Well it's one that needs to be planted six feet under!

Avoid.

From the crap music, script to acting, its just terrible. I couldnt last the whole thing and I hate myself for even trying to watch it.

Save yourselves and watch something that has enjoyable well written and acted films, you will not get anything here but boredom or screams of laughter at it!

Loved it. Only criticism is they use the word f*** which I'm pretty sure wasn't used back then. Hated the torture scenes but that's what they did back then.

Seems the director didn't know what tone to stick with, because it goes from Creepy Castle Ghost Story to Torture Porn by the final act. Also some mumbo jumbo about a psychic that's trying to decipher a message from 2 murdered princes...its just not well executed enough to keep the viewer invested. Too bad, because with an awesome (real) castle setting & better filmmakers, this could've been a GREAT horror film, instead it is below average! Best to avoid!

Prolific UK filmmaker Charlie Steeds writes, directs and edits this medieval horror chiller based on the infamous legend. As usual, this is a slim-budgeted venture, but Steeds enlivens scenes with some terrific cinematography and lighting and some (mainly) convincing acting. The playful, sometimes coarse, humour prevalent in some of the director's other productions is mainly absent here - instead, gratuity and gore is the main staple.

I really like these kinds of productions, and currently, there are plenty being made in the UK. They remind me of a modern-day Hammer style (the titles here are extremely reminiscent of the legendary studio's output and locations look similarly winter-bound).

It isn't flawless. The pace slackens here and there, some of the performances are not as sharp as they might be and occasionally the dialogue is anachronistic - but the story is a good one and well told. Happily, there are also some effectively creepy moments (and a particularly nasty third act). My score is 7 out of 10.