The Only Thing Scarier Than the Zombies Is the Movie Itself
Every horror fan knows the feeling—scrolling through streaming platforms at 2 a.m., desperate for a hidden gem. Then you find Devil’s Tower, a British horror flick starring Jason Mewes and Roxanne Pallett, and think, “Hey, that sounds fun!” It’s not. What unfolds over 82 minutes is less a movie and more a hostage situation with bad lighting.
Directed by Owen Tooth—making his feature debut, and hopefully his retirement announcement—Devil’s Tower feels like the cinematic equivalent of tripping over a wet floor sign and landing face-first in a puddle of disappointment. It’s a zombie movie that hates zombies, a haunted apartment flick allergic to tension, and a performance piece on how long Jason Mewes can look confused before the audience joins him.
Welcome to Albion Court, Where Hope Goes to Rot
Our heroine, Sarah (Roxanne Pallett), is thrown out of her house by her alcoholic mother and moves into Albion Court, a decrepit apartment complex so grimy it makes Trainspotting look like Downton Abbey. She’s greeted by neighbors who range from vaguely friendly to vaguely undead. Soon, a series of “strange events” unfold—doors creak, shadows lurk, people scream—and before long, the place is crawling with zombies.
At least, we’re told they’re zombies. In practice, they look like unpaid extras from a paintball commercial who wandered onto set after craft services closed. The film calls them “zombies,” but their makeup screams “community theatre production of The Walking Dead.”
Roxanne Pallett gives it her all, and by “her all,” I mean she cries a lot while running through hallways that look like someone tried to wallpaper despair. Her big emotional moments land somewhere between “soap opera meltdown” and “someone just spilled my chips.”
Jason Mewes vs. the Undead: Snoochie Boochie, You’re Doomed
And then there’s Jason Mewes, playing Sid, a sort of handyman-slash-zombie-fodder who’s less “heroic” and more “accidentally present.” You can tell Mewes is trying—he delivers lines with the same bewildered intensity he brought to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, only now without the jokes, charisma, or Kevin Smith’s editing room. Watching Mewes try to act serious in a zombie movie is like watching a golden retriever attempt algebra—adorable, but tragic.
He and Pallett have zero chemistry, mostly because they seem to be acting in different films. She’s trapped in a melodrama about personal trauma; he’s in a stoner comedy where the punchline never arrives. When the two share a scene, you half expect one of them to ask, “Wait, what’s my motivation again?”
Zombies? Ghosts? Bureaucratic Negligence?
Tooth’s biggest sin isn’t bad direction—it’s confusion. The movie can’t decide whether it’s a haunted building film, a zombie siege film, or a PSA about tenant rights. One minute the walls bleed; the next, corpses are chewing faces. By the halfway mark, even the ghosts seem to give up.
The script (if you can call it that) is a patchwork of clichés stitched together with the emotional range of a soggy teabag. Every scene features someone either screaming, gasping, or staring into space as though trying to remember the Wi-Fi password.
Worse still, Devil’s Tower insists on explaining its nonsense with long, droning exposition. A character will suddenly reveal the building’s backstory: a murdered child, a curse, or maybe just bad plumbing. The explanations change so often it’s like watching a paranormal PowerPoint presentation.
Horror Without the Horror
Here’s the real problem: nothing in Devil’s Tower is remotely scary. The scares are telegraphed, the editing sluggish, and the sound design straight from the “free demo” folder of an old laptop. Doors slam. Lights flicker. A zombie moans somewhere off-screen like he’s late for brunch.
The movie tries for atmosphere but lands squarely in “damp basement.” Tooth leans on dim lighting and fog machines like they’re plot devices. You could film The Great British Bake Off in that apartment complex and it’d still look like a crime scene.
The action scenes—if you can call them that—resemble slow-motion arguments between underpaid extras. There’s no choreography, no urgency, just flailing limbs and camera cuts that suggest the editor was fighting his own battle with the undead.
Roxanne Pallett’s Purgatory
Pallett reportedly endured 18-hour shooting days for two months, and honestly, that’s the scariest part of this entire production. You can see the exhaustion in her performance—every scream and sob feels like the cry of someone realizing they’ll never get this time back. It’s not acting; it’s despair captured on film.
She tries to inject emotion into a script that treats her trauma like a plot device. Sarah’s abusive mother, her struggles with independence, her desperate fight for survival—it’s all there, but the movie has no idea what to do with it. Instead of catharsis, we get endless scenes of Pallett looking horrified while someone throws fake blood at her.
The Tower of Babble
The supporting cast is a revolving door of British “Hey, it’s that guy!” faces. Frances Ruffelle as the alcoholic mother seems to think she’s in EastEnders: Apocalypse Edition. Jessica-Jane Clement and Jessica Ann Bonner show up mainly to die, scream, or occasionally both.
The zombies themselves shuffle about like they’re late for a call center shift. None of them are menacing, and several appear to be enjoying themselves far too much. It’s hard to feel tension when one of the undead looks like he’s about to ask for your autograph.
The dialogue doesn’t help:
“We need to get out of here!”
“No, the building’s haunted!”
“By what?”
“Everything!”
It’s like listening to a D-list Shakespeare troupe perform 28 Days Later from memory.
Devil’s Tower of Nonsense
As the movie lurches toward its grand finale—a chaotic blur of screaming, bad CGI, and questionable logic—you realize that Devil’s Tower is less a horror film and more a cry for help. Characters die for no reason. The plot forgets itself. The tower burns, or maybe it doesn’t. It’s hard to tell through the fog and confusion.
Even the ending, which should wrap things up, feels like a shrug from beyond the grave. There’s no sense of closure, no twist, not even a cool zombie decapitation. It just… stops. Like the editor gave up mid-cut and went home to reevaluate his life choices.
Final Resting Place
In fairness, it’s clear the cast and crew worked hard. You can see the effort, even if the result is a cinematic car crash. There’s a kernel of a good idea buried here—a haunted council tower as a metaphor for urban decay could’ve been eerie and fresh. But Devil’s Tower buries that under layers of lazy tropes, cheap effects, and dialogue so bad it might summon the real Devil out of frustration.
The only truly horrifying thing about this movie is realizing that someone, somewhere, thought it was good enough to release.
Final Judgment
★☆☆☆☆
One star for effort, and that’s generous. Devil’s Tower wants to be REC meets Attack the Block, but ends up as Coronation Street of the Dead. If you’re looking for horror, suspense, or even basic coherence, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for a drinking game where every bad line equals a shot, congratulations—you’ve found your masterpiece.
At least the zombies in this movie have an excuse for their lifelessness. The rest of us don’t.
