New York Volcano

This movie should be banned and the editors/producers blacklisted; the use of 9/11 footage to represent the volcano is both offensive and unprofessional. I love the "no animals were harmed" line at the end; apparently it's okay to show 3700 people, some of whom I knew, dying, apparently.

There are at least three scenes I saw where 9/11 footage was used; if the special effects look fake, they're made for the movie; if they look real, well, that's our friends and family members dying.

BUT that's not why it should be banned. It should be banned because it's actually **lamer** than the usual schlock Sci-Fi puts out... not quite down to the level of "the Langoliers" or "Dragon King" but darn close. Somebody clearly watched "Volcano" and "24" while writing, filming, and editing this movie, since its obviously trying to emulate them. I can forgive the bad circa-1985 special effects; everything else is so bad it's not even funny to laugh at.

Have I seen worse than Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York? Yes I have. Is it good? No, in fact it is really bad, at least in my opinion. The only reason why I haven't rated it any lower is that the acting is a little above average, though nothing great, especially from Michael Ironside. Everything else however was a mess, I was shocked at how bad the camera work and music were. The camera work was very distracting, almost as though it was trying to show off how many camera techniques it could do rather than compliment everything else, and I felt very dizzy watching it. The music isn't much better, very overbearing, in-your-face and completely devoid of any subtlety. The script is cheesy and forced more times than not, the story was decent enough in concept was very predictable and suspense-less in execution and the characters are no more different than the stereotypes that are here, there and everywhere in SyFy's movies. All in all, a near-disaster of a movie, where both my eyes and ears were feeling sensitive by the end. 2/10 Bethany Cox

I've got to give Sarah Watson credit. She wrote a screenplay and somebody apparently paid good money for it. With that aside, let me say that this isn't a B-movie. It isn't even a C-movie. It may be the world's first D-movie.

Absolutely every character in this movie is an idiot. All the women act like little girls. One of the characters (a man, of course) is shot in the arm. After climbing a long ladder, he comes to a short ladder and says, "I can't climb it with my injured arm." Really? You did a pretty good job a few steps back. I've climbed ladders with a full bucket in one hand.

No use going into all the stupid, idiotic, irrational, unsafe, self-serving...did I say idiotic yet?...things the characters do.

Avoid this movie. It has no redeeming value and Ms. Watson ought to be ashamed of herself...all the way to the bank to cash her check.

Someone should write a book on how to make a Sci-Fi original movie. And Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York could be chapter one.

First question to the film makers: there were two fairly good Hollywood volcano movies in the 1990s. They weren't classic suspense / disaster films, but they had some ripping moments, good popcorn stuff. Did you really decide to make DZ:ViNW inferior to those films in every category? I mean, it must have been a conscious decision because that is the end product. It succeeds on not a single level.

Second question: since you have no inkling of how to build suspense, can't you admit that to yourself and give yourself an education; couldn't you at least hunker down with a dozen Hitchcock films and study how a master does it? He doesn't hit you over the head with LOTS of shouting of inanities ("It's going to blow," "We've got to get out of here," etc.) or have music hitting EVERY SINGLE MOMENT with some scene-to-scene scoring? Music is a spice, not the whole meal. DZ:ViNW's use of music is like chewing gritty pepper.

Did I mention "hitting"? My eyeballs were hit and hit and hit again with the most "look at me" use of photographic annoyances extant. Jiggle zoom in. Jiggle zoom out. Jiggle pan. Jiggle. Jiggle. Jiggle. And do it all every single second. It doesn't look like hand-held, either. It looks like the camera was attached to a rock polisher, a cake mixer, a pile driver – whatever was handy that could make the viewer queasy, annoyed, and distracted. So much for mounting tension.

And the poor actors (actually some pretty good actors). This brings me to question three: why not make it a silent picture since you have no ear for dialogue or how people actually speak and act in dramatic situations? Seriously, the best actors in the world can't make lead look like diamonds. Of course, caring about these actors in their roles is a joke. No matter how close they are to searing death, no matter how precarious their emotional circumstances, I could only chuckle.

To summarize: DZ:VINW is really no worse, no better than the other under-shoe feculence of the Sci-Fi Channel (not counting it's rather good series, Stargate and Battlestar).

I'm sure the film makers are nice people and will do good work elsewhere. But there's something about the Sci-Fi Channel that contractually forces talent to make dreck.

This is about a group of underground tunnel workers in NY who come across some molten lava while digging a new sewer. There's also a mad scientist who's conducting experiments in geo-thermal power which involves digging deep into the earth and using the heat to power a generator or something. That's what causes the volcano to start erupting. The woman who comes to investigate for the government just happens to be the ex-wife of the tunnel digger, and of course we run through the usual cliché of them disliking each other and then getting back together over the course of the movie. There's also a lot of time spent as some federal bureau comes in, shuts down the work of our heroes, and blames the whole thing on terrorists. Yes, someone has to stand in the way of our heroes doing what must be done, if for no other reason than that it's in the handbook of required clichés for disaster movies.

Overall, it's just insanely cheesy and silly, with lines like "They're screwing with the pressure of the Earth's crust". Another scene involves lava erupting out of a guy's house and killing 70 people, but the authorities are apparently too stupid to notice the lava (I would think it would be painfully obvious), so they think it was a terrorist bomb. I also got a kick out of how a wood frame house could contain molten lava - until the guy opens the door! The special effects are funny throughout the whole movie, it adds a certain B movie charm I suppose. I especially liked the part where a single pistol round is all that's required to reroute the lava from one tunnel to another. The acting is pretty spotty, the evil genius guy is prone to scenery chewing, and one of the female characters manages to pull off Mexican, Italian and Czechoslovakian accents over the course of her performance. The two main characters turn in good enough performances.

I say this is not too terrible - for a disaster movie - because there's no sappy melodrama involving kids, pregnant women, sanctimonious paramedics, or inner city gang members. There's no speech by the black or female president at the end saying "we should have listened to the environmentalists". And best of all, there's no little girl looking at a bunch of people covered in volcanic ash and saying "Look mommy, they're all the same color". Oddly enough, for a disaster movie, the "special" effects actually serve as a backdrop for the story, not the other way around. But still it's just so tiresomely predictable that it's hard to make it through to the end.