Ah, the disaster film. Gotta love it! Wait, I mean holy shit, the disaster film. Run for your lives! Here comes an epidemic that came from a meteor which caused a tidal wave that is setting off earthquakes and volcanoes all over.
Give me your top 5 disaster films. Here are mine in no particular order.
1. Twister I watch it every year at this time. Makes me want to go out and chase down tornadoes, but then my wife slaps me and I come to my senses.
2. The Birds Hitchcock made us afraid of birds. I'm still wondering how he did that.
3. 12 Monkeys Airborne diseases scare me. And so does a red-headed David Morse.
4. 28 Days Later A great concept about a very real premise. I'm still waiting for a movie to document what it's like during an outbreak on a large scale.
5. The Day After I don't remember a lot of this, but I remember it scaring the hell out of me. So I've included it here because nuclear war scares me and I know that I'm not alone on this.
1. Body Snatchers (Ferrara)
ReplyDelete2. War of the Worlds (Spielberg)
3. Diary of the Dead
4. Grapes of Wrath
5. Night of the Comet
Night of the Comet!! (I can't believe someone beat me to that!)
ReplyDeleteThe original Poseidon Adventure
Airport '77
Mars Attacks
The Quiet Earth
Ah shit,
ReplyDeleteNight of the Comet. Love it.
Fox,
How was Diary Of The Dead? Can't wait to see it.
1. Volcano - it's stupid, but it's MY kind of stupid
ReplyDelete2. The Quiet Earth - best of the last person on Earth films (even if there are at least three of them left and maybe there was no disaster...)
3. The Ten Commandments - More disasters than there are in the heavens
4. The Host - Toxic sludge never created a scarier monster.
5. La Jete - Better than 12 Monkeys and just as apocalyptic.
Happy to see love for Twister, Piper. I can't not watch that movie if it's on TV. I've probably seen it a dozen times or more.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite when I was a kid was When Time Ran Out... with Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden... the cast keeps going down to Red Buttons and Pat Morita... all in the service of a simple tale of an island besieged by tidal waves, earthquakes AND a volcanic explosion! The guests of a swank hotel must maneuver from one side of the island to the other, over great rivers of lava and dodging flying lava balls and all sorts of awesomeness. This movie may not hold up; I was young when I loved it.
Marilyn,
ReplyDeleteGlad you mentioned Volcano. I watched it once and found myself on edge the entire time and couldn't believe I was on edge because of... Volcano.
JA,
When my wife and I originally saw Twister in the theaters, we came home that night to tornado warnings all night. We've watched Twister every year since.
Piper-
ReplyDeleteI loved it. It was a nice rebound after *Land...*, which I was NOT a fan of at all.
It was also a nice bright spot for a genre that, to me, has suffered severly the past decade or so.
I'm excited to watch it again on DVD and see if my excitement for it increases, levels off, or even dips a little.
Fearless
ReplyDeleteEarthquake
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Independence Day (this is my Twister)
Alive
True, FEARLESS and ALIVE might be stretches, but I consider anything a disaster if I would be too wimpy to live through it.
the first may be based on the newness of a film but i dont care.
ReplyDeletecloverfield
signs
indepenence day (awfully good)
inconvenient truth (talk about getting really deep on T5T)
left behind (bad ass)
pipes, you got 2-5 right. i am a bit concerned that I agree with you that much. I would like to add Westworld.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what if robots do lose it? I wouldn't want to be around a car factory when one of those robotic arms pulls a yul brenner!
12XU,
ReplyDeleteI think I should know you. Hmmmm. Advertising in New York. I wonder.
Anyway, Westworld is a good call and a movie that scares the hell out of me.
Marilyn - Volcano!?!? I'm shocked. That flick is beyond terrible.
ReplyDeletePiper - I wouldn't necessarily classify 12 Monkeys as a disaster pic, but if I did, it would be number 1.