Nightmare on the 13th Floor
Nightmare on the 13th Floor is a 1990 occult horror film directed by Walter Grauman. It was made-for-television and aired on the USA Network as a movie of the week on Halloween Day.
The plot revolves around a Los Angeles hotel with a hidden 13th floor inhabited by a cult trying to murder 16 people in order to gain eternal life. The film stars Michele Greene as travel writer Elaine Kalisher, James Brolin as Dr. Alan Lanier, and Louise Fletcher as Letti Gordon.
Plot
Travel writer Elaine Kalisher (Michele Greene) arrives at the Wessex Hotel in Los Angeles, California to write a story about the hotel for her travel magazine, the Traveler's Review. She is warmly welcomed by the entire staff, except service department head Letti Gordon (Louise Fletcher), who is put off by her presence at the hotel and treats her coldly.
During a trip in the service elevator, Elaine gets stuck between floors and witnesses a man being murdered on a floor with gaslights and Victorian furnishings; however, she hits her head and is knocked unconscious. When she awakens, the hotel staff are surrounding her and she is being cared for by the hotel doctor, Dr. Alan Lanier (James Brolin). None of them believe her story about a man being killed, but they eventually agree to call the police to investigate after Elaine sees a homeless man known as Peddler wearing the victim's unique cowboy boots.
In the meantime, hotel guest Moselle Beecher, an elderly woman in town for a crystal convention, awakens in a bedroom on the mystery floor and is murdered by an unseen person with an axe while ragtime music plays on an old record player.
Detective Madden (John Karlen) arrives and they search the hotel floor by floor, but are unable to find the location where Elaine claims to have witnessed the murder, having been confident it was on a floor with gaslights. During this search, a policeman remarks that the elevator does not go to the 13th floor due to superstition regarding the number 13.
Afterward, Elaine tracks down Peddler at a homeless encampment in the Belmont Tunnel, but he refuses to explain where he got his boots and threatens to smash her head in with a metal pipe if she does not leave. With this evidence, she convinces Detective Madden to visit the tunnel to question Peddler. However, Madden only finds a box filled with burned clothing. He considers the case closed and urges Elaine to quit bothering him.
During breakfast with Dr. Lanier, he suggests that Elaine check the hotel's furnace to see if the clothes were stolen from the garbage. While there, she witnesses Letti Gordon invite Peddler into the hotel for a meal, but despite running into the kitchen behind them, Peddler disappears, having been taken up to the 13th floor by Letti, who used a secret knob to cause the elevator to stop at the otherwise hidden floor. Peddler is murdered after Letti shoves him out of the elevator onto the floor.
Elaine begins looking into the history of the hotel and discovers that in 1900, Avery Block, the leader of a Satanic cult, took a fire axe from the wall and murdered 16 people seemingly at random. He believed he could achieve immortality through the use of ritual magic by killing 16 people on the 13th floor of the Wessex because the 13th floor was a gateway to Hell. Block was never captured and after the murders, the hotel owner sealed the floor, going so far as to conceal its existence by constructing a decorative concrete frieze to cover the exterior windows around the outside of the building.
After Gail Myers from the city engineer's office mysteriously disappears, Elaine partners with Detective Madden to successfully access the hidden 13th floor by stopping the elevator between floors and climbing through the hatch in the ceiling. Madden is quickly murdered and Elaine is forced to flee into the hotel as she is pursued by the other cult members, including Letti.
She is finally captured and taken to the 13th floor where the cult intends to make her the final victim who will grant their leader immortality. The cult leader is revealed to be Dr. Alan Lanier, who was inspired to recreate the Avery Block murders out of a desire to live forever. There is a struggle, during which Elaine finds Madden's gun and begins firing aimlessly into the room. She hits one of the gas lines, but is able to escape into the elevator before the entire floor explodes in a massive blast.
Although it is presumed that all the cult members died, an epilogue scene shows concierge Judith Teller at a hotel in Seattle, Washington, cheerfully checking in a guest, leading to speculation that the cult successfully achieved immortality before the explosion and has moved on to another hotel.
Cast
The three leading actors were all notable stars at the time they were cast. Louise Fletcher had previously won an Oscar for her role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, while James Brolin had two Golden Globes and an Emmy. Lead actress Michele Greene was at the height of her fame through her work on the show L.A. Law.
Hotel guests
- Michele Greene as Elaine Kalisher, a travel reporter writing a story on the Wessex Hotel.
- Norma MacMillan as Moselle Beecher, an old woman staying at the hotel who is murdered.
Cult members
- James Brolin as Dr. Alan Lanier, the hotel doctor and leader of a Satanic cult.
- Louise Fletcher as Letti Gordon, director of the service department of the Wessex Hotel.
- Alan Fudge as Jake Rogas, manager of the Wessex Hotel.
- Terri Treas as Judith Teller, concierge at the Wessex Hotel.
Supporting cast
- John Karlen as Sgt Madden, an LAPD detective investigating strange events at the hotel.
- Harvey Vernon as Father Thomas Bergen, a priest whose father investigated the original Avery Block murders.
- Kerry Noonan as Gail Myers, employee at the city engineer's office with blueprints of the Wessex Hotel.
- Michael Melvin as Peddler, a homeless man who is eventually murdered.
Although model/cheerleader Christy Sandoval was twice mentioned by Weekly World News as being in the film, she does not appear in the credits. It is not known what role she actually played (if any).
Production
The production was a typical low budget movie intended for television. The cast and crew had three weeks for preparation followed by three weeks of shooting. The script was written by J.D. Feigelson and Dan DiStefano.
Some of the actors wore their own clothes after receiving approval from the costume designer. Actress Kerry Noonan, who played Gail Myers, wore her own glasses and a dress she had purchased at Putumayo in New York (a store featured in the 8th season of Seinfeld).
The props were rented from Warner Brothers, Omega, PSW, and House of Props. The taxidermy featured throughout the 13th floor came from Bischoff's Taxidermy & Animal FX in North Hollywood.
The 13th floor
The interior scenes which take place on the 13th floor were all shot on a specially-designed Victorian set.
Renee Prince was responsible for the red Victorian wallpapering as well as inlaying the beryl and marble for the fireplaces. Prince carefully aged everything on the set to make it appear as though it was from the 1890s.
After production was completed, the set was destroyed.
Filming locations
Nightmare on the 13th Floor was filmed in the Los Angeles area. Many of the interiors were shot at the Ambassador Hotel. The scenes in the kitchen were filmed at approximately the same spot where Robert Kennedy was assassinated.
The exterior scenes in front of the Wessex Hotel were filmed at The Town House, a hotel on Wilshire Blvd. built in 1929.
While filming at the Belmont Tunnel (1304 West 2nd Street), set decorator Maggie Martin had to leave a box of props at the site overnight. When she returned to retrieve the box the following day, she discovered it was infested by a horde of rats.
The opening scene, which takes place in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was shot at Santa Monica beach.
Music
Music for the film was composed by American musician Jay Gruska in one of the first movies he orchestrated himself. He composed three songs which play repeatedly throughout the movie and did not read the script beforehand. His goal was to evoke an atmosphere reminiscent of Bernard Hermann's orchestrations for Alfred Hitchcock. His orchestration included a midsize string orchestra with 2 woodwinds.
Gruska's three songs are:
- "Main Title Theme" - running time 1:38
- "Variation on Main Theme" - running time 0:57
- "Ragtime Piano" - running time 4:16
Release
Nightmare on the 13th Floor premiered on the USA Network on October 31, 1990.
The film is especially notable for having been released in numerous countries around the world with either native-language dubbing or subtitles. This telecast premiere was one of the first of its kind for a movie of the week and was a feat of technical engineering that helped set the standard for future global telecasts.
| Country | Title | Language |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina | Pesadilla en el piso 13 | Spanish |
| Brazil (VHS) | Elevador para o Além | Portuguese |
| Brazil (Telecast) | Pesadelo no 13º Andar | Portuguese |
| Canada | Cauchemar au 13è étage | French |
| Finland | 13. kerroksen painajainen | Finnish |
| France | Cauchemar au 13ème étage | French |
| Germany | Nightmare - Hotel des Grauens | German |
| Italy | 13° piano: fermata per l'inferno | Italian |
| Mexico | Pesadilla en el piso 13 | Spanish |
| Portugal | Pesadelo no Hotel | Portuguese |
| Soviet Union | Кошмар на 13-м этаже | Russian |
| Spain | Pesadilla en el piso 13 | Spanish |
| West Germany | Nightmare - Hotel des Grauens | German |
Home video
Nightmare on the 13th Floor was released on VHS by Paramount Home Video on October 17, 1991. When Paramount released the film in the United States, CIC Video handled international distribution of the VHS in almost every country where it was originally televised utilizing the dubbed or subtitled versions with minor differences from the original.
There was also a Spanish-subtitled VHS marketed in the United States.
Reception
As part of the "apartment-horror" sub-genre, Nightmare on the 13th Floor has been unfavorably compared to Rosemary's Baby, a film which also had occult overtones.
Reviewers criticised the film's hackneyed premise, with Steve McKerrow of the Baltimore Sun asking: "How could four respectable actors -- Michele Greene, James Brolin, Louise Fletcher, and John Karlen -- be involved in such a mess?"
Other critics were similarly harsh in their reviews with commentary such as "deadly dull," "slick, stupid and not scary," "hokey and talky and jerky," and "pathetically unspooky."
In later interviews, everyone associated with Nightmare on the 13th Floor admitted that the production process was forgettable and they had not watched the movie again since it originally aired on television.
Legacy
In 2013, Christopher Allan Mallow created a fan site devoted to the movie called Nightmare on the 13th Floor Online. His website was an exhaustive a compendium of information about the film containing 1,700 images and 397 printed pages worth of content. Although in early 2024 the website went offline, Mallow continues to host a Facebook page devoted to the movie and has vowed to revive the website in some form in the future.
Occultist and author Travis McHenry has cited Nightmare on the 13th Floor as one of his favorite movies.