LOCKDOWN TOWER (aka LA TOUR, 2022)

New streaming on Shudder!
Directed/Written by Guillaume Nicloux.
Starring Angèle Mac, Hatik, Ahmed Abdel Laoui, Kylian Larmonie, Merveille Nsombi, Nicholas Pignon, Igor Kovalsky, Marie Remond, Judith Williquet, Modeste Nzapassara, Coline Beal, Kevin Bago, Bruni Makaya, Pierre Aventuna, Ayoub Bara, Lina Camelia Lumbroso, Laurent Poignot, Jean-Baptiste Seckler, Jules Houplain, Godefroy Donzel, Gradi Beinz, Saliha Bala, Anouchka Cserakova

A French tenement building is covered in a thick dark cloud blocking all contact with the outside world. With only what they have inside the tower, the residents of the building must do what they can to survive. But as time passes and there is seemingly no end to this supernatural quarantine, floors of the tower become segregated by race, food becomes scarce, and humanity seeps from the tenants by the day.

LOCKDOWN TOWER covers seven long years trapped inside this tower, taking the madness of a lockdown to horrifying and dreadful lengths. The premise is obviously a response to the recent lockdown we all experienced and does a great job of conveying the confusion, panic, and eventual acceptance to this new way of life we all went through just a few short years ago. LOCKDOWN TOWER is a rather joyless film, showing nothing but the hurt and heartache that comes when society falls. Even something as simple as a bedtime story rings with utter sadness and despair. So if you’re looking for a cheery horror flick, this ain’t it.

LOCKDOWN TOWER does go to exhaustive lengths to show people at their worst. Racism, xenophobia, ageism, and even the right to have a child is changed due to the new situations. Food is scarce that animals that were kept as pets are now bred for food. It gets so bad that children are even made so that the adults can survive. It’s pretty gruesome stuff and while the film doesn’t show every gory detail, the look of soulessness in the eyes of the survivors shows that they’ve witnessed some horrible things and most likely did a lot of them too in order to survive.

The metaphor is thick in LOCKDOWN TOWER. Ending with a bedtime story that is a little too opaque for me, I feel some kind of resolution to this predicament would have finished this story off more appropriately. Having the darkness pass and seeing how much society has devolved when they finally came out of their homes would have made the point LOCKDOWN TOWER is trying to make much more thunderous in my opinion. Still, the quiet way this one fades out keeps in tone with the rest of this bleak film.

There are quite a few lulls as director/writer Guillaume Nicloux is much more interested in having the viewer wallow in the dread that give you a punchy story. Most of the action, save for the initial panic, is cut away from, while the bulk of the time focuses of these poor souls simply trying to survive. Reminiscent of Xavier Gens’ THE DIVIDE from more than a decade ago, LOCKDOWN TOWER might be a bit too soon for some, but if you’re looking for a survival film that is hopeless, bleak, and nihilistic, this one’s for you.

Check out the trailer here!!