By: Addison Wylie

When the Unspecters – a team of bush-league paranormal investigators – are told to up their ante in order to score a television show pilot, they apprehensively set their sights on Farhope Tower.  The high-rise has a history of undistinguished suicides, and its been uninhabited for years.  The Unspecters are used to spelunking for spirits in caves and dark crevices, but they muster forward into their next challenge.

April Mullen’s Farhope Tower is a more mature effort when compared to her feral flick 88, but both films earn the same foggy memorability.  To pay Farhope Tower a compliment, Mullen’s movie is genuinely disturbing.  The dank atmosphere along with the pressures to keep searching upwards for clues makes each scene taut with tension, along with the unsettlingly chilly acts the investigators unwillingly carry out.  Unknown forces overtake each Unspecter one-by-one, but the characters remain conscious enough to witness their own demise – it makes the audience squirm.  John White, who you may recognize as a Stifler sibling from straight-to-DVD American Pie films, is frightening as evil washes over him.

With 88 and now Farhope Tower, Mullen is far too comfortable piggybacking on other thrillers.  Looking past the filmmaker’s ability to score unique ominous vibes, the movie boils down to a predictable flick where characters are picked off until two are left standing – it’s pretty obvious who those survivors will be.

Mullen also acts alongside White and her cast in Farhope Tower, and we’re satisfied with her presence – she’s a really good actor.  This suggests to me that she has the ability to not only multitask, but to also challenge herself and strive for more creativity.  I’m really pulling for Mullen, but like the Unspecters, she’ll have to step up as well.

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Farhope Tower screens at the Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival on: 

Friday, November 27 at 7:00 p.m. @ Carlton Cinema

For more information on the festival, visit the official BITS webpage here.

Buy tickets here.

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The Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival: @BITSFilmFest
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