Rising above Hollywood Studios’ Sunset Boulevard, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror instantly commands attention, its haunting silhouette promises more than a typical theme park ride. My personal favourite, it envelops guests in Rod Sterling’s The Twilight Zone, thrilling horror and adventure seekers alike.
Disney’s MGM Studios, now Hollywood Studios, opened in May 1989. At launch, guests enjoyed a romanticized Golden Age of Hollywood, featuring large stunt sound stages and a beautiful replica of the Chinese Theatre. Three years later, Sunset Boulevard debuted its headliner attraction, The Twilight Zone’s Tower of Terror.
The Tower of Terror rises 199 feet above the park, just below federal height limits requiring an aviation light. Modeled after a 1930s Hollywood Hotel, its overgrown vines and palms enhance its haunted Art Deco look. At night, the neon hotel sign flickers, capturing the glamour of old Hollywood.
The hotel lobby is a masterclass in storytelling, filled with abandoned luggage, cobwebs, and a soft, ritzy soundtrack. In the library, guests participate in a pre-show that immerses them in The Twilight Zone.
The Twilight Zone, a TV anthology series created by Rod Serling in 1959, ran for five seasons. Each episode blended horror, sci-fi, and fantasy elements to address taboo topics such as prejudice and the impact of technology. Clever writing and moral dilemmas earned The Twilight Zone critical acclaim, securing its place as one of the greatest television shows of all time.
Rod Serling introduced each episode as the fifth dimension: a realm beyond time and space. The Twilight Zone reshaped TV and pop culture, inspiring shows like The X-Files, Black Mirror, and Stranger Things.
To create Tower of Terror, Disney licensed the TV show, reused original footage, and hired voice actor and impressionist Mark Silverman to voice the late Rod Serling.
The 1994 commercial for the new ride features Mark Silverman as Rod Serling. He narrates a tale of an abandoned hotel on a stormy night, a rickety elevator, and riders “dropping faster than the force of gravity.” The ad notably features teenagers, not the usual demographic for the neighbouring Magic Kingdom park.
Now, the story unfolds as guests are ushered inside the glamorous and ghostly hotel, telling a tale of being stuck in time. On October 31st, 1939, four guests and one bellhop enter the elevator when the building is struck by lightning, killing the five onboard. Guests will board a maintenance elevator traveling straight into the Twilight Zone.
The maintenance elevator isn’t any usual elevator; The Tower of Terror’s elevator can move horizontally. The automated guided vehicle brings guests into one tower for the show, and a gantry lift moves the ride vehicle along the floor. Then, a modified version of a standard traction elevator takes guests to the second tower, where a complex pulley system shoots the elevator up, then pulls it downwards, hence why it is faster than the force of gravity.
A computer system will randomly select which drop sequence the guests receive from a series of four presets, and the Tower of Terror can reach top speeds of 39 mph.
While the ride is almost always in pitch black, one of the best features of the ride is when massive hotel windows open up, allowing passengers to see a top view of Hollywood Studios, and for parkgoers below to hear the screams of the passengers before they plummet out of view.
Before the guests become permanent residents of The Twilight Zone, the ride takes them back down, away from the fifth dimension to the bottom of the hotel, where they are ushered out and on their way.
Disney’s Tower of Terror is Disney storytelling at its peak. From the queue to the atmospheric lobby, the pre-show, and the ride itself, it possesses a merit that is unique and stands out from the rest of the park. The building and its ghostly residents are frozen in time, and it’s the park goers’ job to join them on their story. Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone is a pop culture phenomenon that is perfectly integrated into the ride.
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References:
DisneyWorldTom. “Restored Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Preshow Hollywood Studios.” YouTube, 23 July 2024, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY24LcVYrik. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
M. Booley. “Designing the First Tower of Terror.” Towersecrets.com, 2015, towersecrets.com/designing-the-tower-of-terror/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
themouselets. “Construction of the Tower of Terror – the Mouselets.” The Mouselets, 27 Feb. 2019, themouselets.com/construction-of-the-tower-of-terror.
Weiss, Josh. “The Twilight Zone: Everything to Know about Rod Serling’s Iconic Anthology Series.” SYFY, 21 Mar. 2025, http://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/everything-to-know-about-the-original-twilight-zone.
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