Some spooky goings on and lots of badly re looped dialogue make this disaster movie one of the most unique and perplexing of the lot. An instant buy for a dodgy disaster movie night then!
The Premise
After suffering the loss of his wife in a volcanic eruption, a man travels to her home town and discovers that not all is quite as it seems and more rumblings are coming!
The Disasters Faced
Two volcanoes, lots of lava, baby dolls, evil dialogue re looping and a girl too hot to touch!
The Execution
Obviously a TV movie, The Volcano Disaster actually kicks off the first ten minutes with a large chunk of action and it passes itself off quite well. However after the death of the wife, everything takes a turn for the supernatural with the action moving to a small Italian town where a crazy girl taunts our main man’s every move by burning him with her hand, drawing circles with chalk and the horror – a hand delivered dead bat! While it then picks up for the last bit when all along she was trying to warn him of a volcano about to blow, she could have just said so and avoided all the drama!
What it does do though is set this film apart from any other disaster movie I’ve seen as it tries the suspense filled mystery approach to try and stir things up and while its quite predictable its a new mashup of genres that works to a degree but has been better done with Knowing who does suspense and mystery better. Where it does fall down is the Italian accents that have been re-looped and the acting is so laughably stilted and everyone speaks perfect English! The combo of the two is almost as frightening as the story on screen.
The Effects
Effects range from some nicely integrated stock footage to hammy CGI lava with some good set effects in between. However for a TV movie everything is quite impressive and this is because CGI has been used so sparsely, everything else while relatively small in scale actually is real and to this day I’d rather take that than any quick fix awful graphics time and time again. Well done Volcano Disaster! Also any film that see’s the decimation of a church the second after the monk speaks about how its everyone’s only sanctuary gets my vote!
Why It’s Worth Watching
Apart from the whole spooky-wooky side to disaster and watching an Italian teenage Jeffifer Connelly spend the entire film not talking at all but just running around and looking as “disturbed but pouty sexy” as possible, the Italian town looks beautiful and its a shame to see it burn in CGI lava! The acting is shameful in places but the story and pacing speed along quite happily. It’s also full of TONS of stupid errors to spot too such as holding hands to a dead girl while she’s getting electrocuted or the date of the wife’s death changing from weeks to months and back again.
Best Death
An unknown character is hit by a lava bomb and goes sailing through a shop window – double whammy!
Favourite Character
Antonio is so laughably stereotypical you can’t help but find him either grossly irritating or an over the top man come good.
Weirdest Moment
“Just because you can’t see the Moon it doesn’t mean its not up there!” Words of wisdom indeed.
Conclusion
Silly, random, full of moments that make you smile for all the reasons but thoroughly entertaining, The Volcano Disaster is good fun at everything’s expense and is recommended for alternative disaster movie viewing. Easily one of better TV disaster movies I have seen to date.
I Love Disaster Movies! 