Posted January 15th, 2010 by Jamie Lisk

• Director: Sean Dwyer
• Written by: Bill Hoffman
• Running Time: 92 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: PG - Parental Guidance Suggested
• Cast: Ian Ziering, Valérie Valois, Vlasta Vrana, Nicole Maillet, Adrien Dixon

 

 

Disaster films, especially those made for tv incarnations, are pretty much a dime a dozen nowadays. With cheap CGI and some has-been actors just looking for a chance to work, seemingly anyone can make a disaster film. Often once a week on television or buried at the bottom of a discount two dollar movie bin, you'll find one of them. I guess it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that I, a fellow devoted to all things crappy and cinematic, might have a few kicking around. A few? Make it more like three dozen -- most still in their cellophane wrapping, yes, all found while treasure hunting in those cruddy movies bins. The thing about disaster films is that I see em and I want em, but in a viewing sense, they usually play second fiddle to just about everything else out there, that is, typically, until an actual disaster happens, then suddenly I'm digging through my collection, looking for something that'll put me in the right frame of mind.

 

 

Recent events in Haiti have left me feeling, well, disturbed. The 24 hour news cycle; images of horrible devastation, of a distressed shell-shocked people roaming about looking for someone... anyone, who will help them makes things right. It's all so depressing and heartbreaking. I guess it's normal to feel helpless in the face of tragedy so immense, especially when you're sitting in your living room half way around the world. Outside of a donation and thoughts of goodwill, there really isn't a heck of a lot I can do. The fact that I live on a fixed income and have a cat that needs her insulin twice a day, the decision to hop on a plane to that far off land and help out isn't even an option. Again, thoughts of goodwill and a donation are really all I can muster. And maybe a crappy movie to take my mind off things.

 

 

Hence, I have decided to pull back from these real images of destruction, for a few hours, at least, and replace them with those cheap CGI images of destruction so easily manufactured in a Hollywood studio that I talked about. The kind you don't have to feel so bad about when you see them. For the only getting destroyed in a made for tv disaster flick is usually some actor's career. And I'll gladly take career destruction and cheap computer graphics to that image of a dead baby laying on the side of the road I saw yesterday (and have yet to get my head around) anyday. In making my decision as to which disaster flick I'd check out, I consulted the imdb.com and after a handful of user comments exulting it as the "worst movie ever made", I guess my decision was made: "Lava Storm" it is!

 

 

Dear god, this was bad. No, I mean this was really bad. This is a worldwide disaster flick playing out on a miniscule scale. Yes, Rebane's "Invasion from Inner Earth" did the same thing, to some extent, but they did it well. This is just a mess. The cast had less than ten people in it (and a few of those aren't even credited) and, as far as I can tell, it's never clarified where the events are happening -- both things, I understand, were probably the point.

 

 

Somewhere in America, Emma (Nicole Maillet) and Ian Wilson (Adrien Dixon), a brother and sister pair, have decided to spend the afternoon together with friends, partying in the underground caves just outside of town. Far from a celebration, it's a pair of corpses that Emma and Ian stumble upon in their deep Earth trek. Sensing that the gas she's smelling might have had something to do with what made her friends dead, the couple high tail it outta there. Back in town at the County Emergency Center, their parents, John (Ian Ziering) and Lori (Valérie Valois), are slowly realizing that something's up in the surrounding forest - as a small fire suddenly erupts into a full-scale inferno. A cell phone call from their frightened children suddenly makes it clear that things are amiss. Unbelievably all the local area folks and resources for fighting fires are seemingly gone or on vacation (in Miami, apparently) leaving Lori and John responsible for saving, not only their children, and their town, but apparently the whole golshdarn world. No, seriously. As it turns out, saving the whole golshdarn world is easy when you have a rocket launcher and the largest dam in the western hemisphere located in your small out of the way rural town. Oh, I sooo wish I was making this up.

 

 

One imdb user mentioned the film "uses the lava storm as a metaphor for a family on a brink of destruction." Honestly, I couldn't have summed it up better myself. That's what's really going on here. The lava flow, the fact that a natural disaster has laid waste to much of North America and that hundreds of thousands are probably dead, that's all part of the periphery. None of it really matters here. What does matter is the Wilson family, and how they survive and come together... and save the friggin' world.

 

 

When the film opens Lori has filed from divorce from John, who is still quite in love with his wife and can't understand why she, all of a sudden, seems to despise him. He's bitter about it, as he should be. Yup, things are certainly percolating beneath the surface. The kids are a mess too. The son has started to smoke and the daughter is quickly on her way to becoming a full-blown... "vegan". This rebelliousness seems to be a direct by-product of their parent's recent antipathy, and, in the end, everybody seems to hate everybody. That's the lava. As expected, the fact that all of these people seem to loathe each other makes watching this film a very tiring experience, indeed. I'd much prefer a root canal, to spending ninety-minutes with these folks again. In between falling ash and countless scenes of vitriolic eruptions, the family are able to reconnect... and, again, save the whole friggin' world... and I swear none of it feels the least bit organic or genuine.

 

 

To top it off, the special effects are pretty ghastly. This is very low end CGI at play here. Thankfully, the filmmakers elect to keep it to a minimum. Not good, when you're making a global disaster film, and the people tuning in are typically looking for destruction on a grand scale. The scene where Ian and Adrien ham it up with a rocket launcher (with a limited supply of rockets) literally had me groaning.

 

 

Regarding the acting, I can't trash it too much. It's bad but it could have been a lot worse. Ian Ziering, who is probably best known as "that guy from Beverly Hills 90210" does some good work here. His bewilderment at suddenly becoming persona non grata with the person he loves most in the world, is heartbreaking. And his turn as the reluctant hero is believable, well, somewhat. Valérie Valois, a Canadian actress who has appeared in numerous Montreal-based movies, does a good job at displaying emotional impassiveness towards the man she once proudly called her husband. Sadly, the film doesn't do enough to establish why the rift had developed in the first place. It's Valois' charater that susatins the biggest arc, but it doesn't feel real as we are uncertain how she got to that place to begin with. Adrien Dixon as the son, is merely okay even though he doesn't have much to do, while Nicole Maillet, who looks like Noelle Parker, Kellie Martin and Brittany Murphy all smashed together, comes off as completely annoying. Oh yeah, she's gorgeous, but her character is poorly drawn and exasperating. The awesome Vlasta Vrana rounds out this tiny cast, playing the grandfather who longs to be with his long deceased wife. Vrana is another Canada-based actor whose work I thoroughly enjoy. Honestly, I was surprised to see him here. I reviewed his work in "Night of the Demons III" and "The Blue Man" and I'm always happy to see such a great character actor getting work, even if the work is in a bottom rung disaster movie. And this is, indeed, a disaster.

 

 

Like the hot lava in this movie, if you end up purchasing this film you'll probably get burned. Thank you. I'll be here all week. Please tip your waiter on the way out.