What awaits within the Hollywood Tower Hotel? As the elevator pleasantly dings and its doors slide shut, we have no choice but to find out. At once, the elevator begins to slowly ascend past the industrial interiors of freight elevator levels. “You are the passengers on a most uncommon elevator about to ascend into your very own episode of The Twilight Zone.”
The elevators shudders to a stop, settling at a new floor. Ding. The doors open to reveal a long corridor terminating in a window, that storm outside still raging. Art deco doors lead to mirrored guest rooms on either side as sconces glow with the warmth of incandescent bulbs. As eerie harp music reverberates down the empty hallway as lightning flashes. Then, something happens.
Slowly, the hall’s warmth is sucked away. Even as the lightbulbs persist, a cool, eeriness overtakes the corridor. With a static buzz, flickering, electrified apparations appear in the hallway. The lost guests, beckoning us to follow them. “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring…” These transparent ghosts are among the ride’s most astounding special effects… But they’re gone in a flash. Overcome with electricity, the phantom image scatters, racing into the walls and sparking back and forth as it disappates down the corridor. The warmth returns… but only long enough for the hall to fade out of existence entirely.
We find ourselves floating in an infinite blackness, pinpoints of light as stars all around. The only remaining tether to the Hollywood Tower Hotel is that window, still flashing with lighting. However, it morphs into the paned glass from the Twilight Zone intro, moving toward guests before shattering in the darkness. The odd scene is closed off by the return of elevator doors as we ascend once more.
“One stormy night, long ago, five people stepped through the door of an elevator and into a nightmare…” The doors part as the music flourishes. Guests find themselves high up in the hotel, and gazing at an unlikely sight: a rusted, corroding network of pipes. Here, the massive boilers we walked among earlier have been spliced down to the fixtures feeding individual rooms. This is the dark underbelly of this Hollywood landmark.
But not for long.
In one of the most unimaginable scenic reveals in any Disney Parks attraction, our trip into The Twilight Zone is about to get weird. As the distant score of odd sounds and high-pitched hums begins to play, the elevator advances out of the shaft. Somehow, the elevator glides horizontally through the network of pipes and concrete supports, turning as it advances to align with the industrial corridor. “…that door is opening once again. But this time, it’s opening for you.”
The hotel melts away. What once looked like an endless empty attic of pipes and pillars changes. As reality disappears, the entire floor is overcome with stars and the elevator is surrounded in inexplicable sights: crackling electricity, ticking clocks, Hollywood architecture, shattering windows… a giant eye peels open, then goes black as the image of our own elevator wipes across the sphere.
The pinpoints of light begin to flicker on and off, darkening first at our periphery and instead congregating ahead of us. They build and build, condensing together into a single point of light, which draws out vertically and parts… a doorway like we’ve never seen…
Deafening industrial sounds fade, revealing the simple strings of a harp as the elevator settles, parked in pitch black darkness. “You are about to discover what lies beyond the Fifth Dimension… Beyond the deepest, darkest corner of the imagination… in the Tower of Terror.”
A few.
Agonizing.
Seconds.
And then…
With the sound of a thunder crash and a snapping cable, the elevator plummets. But of course, things aren’t always what they appear in the Twilight Zone. Rather than smashing against the basement, the elevator rebounds, leaping skyward. In fact, “The Tower is in control,” as the ride randomly selected from a menu of drop profiles and show scenes, hoisting you to the height of the Hollywood Tower Hotel and pulling you down in faster-than-gravity falls that eject you from your seat.
When it’s all said and done, the elevator sinks to the hotel’s basement, where a television springs to life once more, flashing the frentic sights and sounds of The Twilight Zone‘s intro — the eye, the window, and the hotel’s spectres are absorbed by the intro’s spinning black and white vortex. With a final look at Rod Serling himself, the television is closed away as reality is restored.
The lights of the Hollywood Tower Hotel hum back to life, revealing our elevator, still parked at a set of doors, luggage and props stacked around its cage. Was it all a dream?
It might be a fair question… except that as Rod Serling’s voice returns, the elevator pulls away from the doors, gliding backwards through the piles of guests’ abandoned suitcases and pivoting in place to align with our exit. “A warm welcome back to those of you who made it, and a friendly word of warning: the next time you check into a deserted hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy you’re filling… or you may find yourself a permanent residet of… The Twilight Zone.”
Bringing the Tower to life
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is considered by many to be the pinnacle of Imagineering – the height of what Disney’s creative minds are capable of and the defining ride of the ’90s (while simulataneously inspiring one of Disney’s least-bad ride-to-movie adaptations). The ride is unequivocally considered a classic, standing equally between the old era and the new.
What does it take to turn an amusement park drop ride into a supernatural experience? Let’s peel back the story to examine the inner workings of the Hollywood Tower Hotel…
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror may be even more intricate than it looks… In fact, there are four separate vertical vehicle conveyance (VVC) “show shafts” (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta) that share two high speed VVC “drop shafts” (Echo and Foxtrot).
Elevators in show shafts A and B share a “5th dimension scene” wherein the AGV (remember, Autonomous Guided Vehicle) physically exists the VVC and advances forward to connect with drop shaft E, while elevators in show shafts C and D funnel into drop shaft F. Try tracing a single elevator’s path from boiler room to exit, above.
One problem with this system is, as you might imagine, its expense. This elaborate ride system relies on trackess AGV ride vehicles to navigate that horizontal scene. It’s also tempermental… If one of the drop shafts or “5th dimension scene” experiences a technical difficulty, the ride’s capacity is automatically halved.
In 1994, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at once became a crowning gem of Disney’s Imagineers. A testament to the incredible fusion of storytelling, technology, and detail for which they’d always been renowned, Tower of Terror proved that a new generation of Imagineers still “had it,” ready to craft 21st century classics with 21st century ride systems and tools. The ride singularly propelled Disney-MGM Studios to superstardom and became an icon of Walt Disney World.
That reinvigorated Imagineers to consider how the starring ride system could make its way to Disneyland… The story is about to meet a fork in the road…