Apparently, the rescuers arriving in the final frames of 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure stuck around for all of 15 minutes, because when Irwin Allen’s sequel begins the same day of the topsy-turvy event, the once-mighty ship and all its innards are up for grabs. This time around, our ostensible heroes are the aptly named Turner … Continue reading Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)
In the same vein as his book on sci-fi and horror films of the same era, Mark Thomas McGee covers a decade’s worth of JD and other teenage-targeted movies with Teenage Thunder: A Front Row Look at the 1950s Teenpics. After a meaty introduction to the subgenre, McGee gets to the main course: full A-to-Z … Continue reading Reading Material: Short Ends 5/23/20
Three years after Norway showed Hollywood what a contemporary disaster movie can and should be with The Wave, it does it again with the unlikely sequel, The Quake. The first film’s tragedy has left geologist-cum-hero Kristian Eikjord (Kristoffer Joner, Mission: Impossible — Fallout) an addled mess, unable to shake (forgive me) the memory of the … Continue reading The Quake (2018)
For City on Fire, Canada took The Towering Inferno, knocked it on its side, reduced its running time by an hour, then plucked a few supporting players from The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Swarm. Ta-dah! Instant disaster movie! (Half a decade too late to capitalize on the craze, but still: “A” for effort.) Directed … Continue reading City on Fire (1979)
Terror on the 40th Floor is really a scorned-lovers drama disguised as a disaster movie. TV’s Dynasty magnate John Forsythe stars in the terrible, made-for-the-tube The Towering Inferno knock-off as one of seven people trapped in an office high-rise after their Christmas party when some janitorial dolt below causes a raging fire, which he immediately … Continue reading Terror on the 40th Floor (1974)