Nature Unleashed: Volcano

Most of the movie is some guy visiting his late wife's home town in Italy. Apparently, she has been trying to contact him from beyond the grave, and some wide eyed pixie in the town is receiving her psychic broadcasts. But, like always in these "Message from Beyond" stories, the message is always incoherent. The medium the dead wife chooses: some girl who has never spoken since surviving a near-death experience. And she paints pictures like a little kid's exercises with finger paint. Sound like Dragonfly? It is, but even cheesier.

The old cliché of a town in danger with an obnoxious leader is used, of course. A priest is the bad guy du jour who ignores constant prophecies of doom, and thinks the girl needs an afternoon at the exorcism salon. You'll see random images that in the end prove to be meaningless, lots of confused people skulking around, and an evacuation sequence that looks like a kindergarten playground at recess.

Some of the actors really try (the priest and the mute girl are actually pretty good in their roles), but are caught up in a looping plot that never goes anywhere. Mercifully, nature's fury is eventually unleashed, making everything else that happened pretty much pointless. For a boring weekend afternoon only.

The Volcano Disaster follows a man named Russel Woods, who, after losing his wife, goes to a small Italian village where his wife grew up.

However, all is not well in Italy. He meets a girl who had a near death experience on the same day that his wife died, and has been mute ever since. He investigates, and eventually discovered that this girl has been communicating with spirits, and in trying to warn the town of an unfortunate disaster.

This film, in my opinion, is actually very good. The plot kept me guessing, plot twists were almost everywhere, and the acting was decent. The only real complaint that I had was that the special effects could have been better, but they get the job done, and any problems came from a low budget more than from a bad director.

Overall, a very good film, highly recommended.

With a title like Nature Unleashed Volcano and watching the first few minutes of the movie, you'd think you're in store for a volcano-chasing action movie as in Twisters with a chatty flirty perilous couple getting themselves into trouble all over the place.

But things take a sharp turn quite quickly, and volcano photographer Russell returns to his deceased wife's Italy hometown to research her childhood.

Eerily enchanted by a mysterious mute girl vaguely similar in appearance with his deceased wife, Russell makes inquiries with the locals. The head of monastery tells Russell in no uncertain terms to stay clear of devilish girl Angela.

So what does Russell do? THE EXACT OPPOSITE. He becomes literally obsessed with the girl, chasing her all over town, following her into the most potentially comprising quarters - mind you, she's a minor or not much older than a minor - and there he is grabbing her by the shoulders in the depth of a cave.

Of course, Russell continues to ignore everyone's warnings, and the more bizarre Angela acts, oddly, the more Russell is drawn toward her and her cryptic drawings.

For a stretch of the movie, the movie goes full-on The Exorcist. The title frankly does the movie little justice. The movie would have more aptly been titled "The Devil's Prophet" or "The Devil's Volcano."

To the movie's credit, there is a substantial amount of credible action and effects, as well as a large cast of extras, many of whom were falling to the ground on fire - all surprisingly engaging for a movie seemingly of such low budget.

Evocative of Obsession (1976) in many respects, you do wonder if there's a huge twist to be had, or whether Angela and her mom actually were struck by lightning or perhaps there was some foul play from the monastery. But no. Perhaps that would have been too clever.

In the end, frankly, it's a little hard to believe Russell didn't scoop adorable misunderstood Angela up and "take her back to the States" where he could "give her the beautiful life she deserves"...considering how he literally risked his life multiple times to keep her out of harm's way.

That aftermath would have made for an interesting movie.

Well... uh... oh. The first half is very boring, the second half is... just absurd. It looks like "The Exorcist vs. Eruption of St Helens". Or something like action version of German love movies. Or something like that. Unbelievable characters, poor effects... I have been especially shocked by something that looked like very bad science mixed with mysticism or devil possession or whatever it has been. I just don't get this, I think you shall not mix something real (like volcano) with something like possession. Well, there may be some warnings, but this... this has been just pathetic. What a waste of time, what a waste of my recorder's HDD space (just joking, I have erased this mess already).

Nature Unleashed: Volcano is one of several movies within the Nature Unleashed franchise. Going in with a name like that I logically expected a volcano themed disaster movie, I was kinda wrong.

You see this Bulgarian made movie with a Canadian, Italian and Thai cast is a weird creature in that it's a supernatural tale about a man who lost his wife to a volcano and goes to her home town in seek of some kind of closure.

Once there he discovers a mysterious girl who may have links to his late wife, but she is hated by the towns folk and considered dangerous and connected to satan himself.

This may sound interesting but the concept and delivery are utterly ridiculous and get gradually dumber as the movie progresses.

I haven't cringed this much in a longtime and though expected the film to be bad, I certainly didn't expect anything of this magnitude.

Embarassing stuff.

The Good:

Couple of the cast were competent enough

The Bad:

Hit and miss sfx

Unbelievable levels of idiocy from the characters

Plot is beyond moronic

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I seriously want to know whether you can defibrillate a person who is wet

More religious folks crying wolf and damaging the community, life reflects art reflects life