Nature Unleashed: Volcano (2005 Video) User Reviews

Nature Unleashed Volcano: What in the volcanic hell did I just watch?

[Platypuschow · 2/10 · 6 February 2018]

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

Only Slightly Less Unwatchable than Magma: Volcanic Disaster

[Mojochi · 2/10 · 5 September 2007]

To Hell with seismological studies, & geothermal surveys. If you're looking for a way to find out about an impending volcanic disaster, then what you need to do is get your recently deceased wife to commune with a supernaturally possessed, mute, Italian teenage girl. That's what our hero, Russell Woods was smart enough to do, & not a minute too soon, as the town's clerics were likely going to burn her at the stake, as a demon infested witch.

Luckily, she paints fairly surrealistic depictions of lunar cycles or some such hogwash, & sets volcano photographer Russell, the sole voice of reason, on the path to saving the entire population of the small Italian village where his late wife was raised.

Soooo... as of late, I've become a veritable connoisseur of crappy "Straight to video" disaster flicks, as I have a friend who works for Blockbuster, & he often gives me stacks of dvds that would otherwise have been destroyed, & turned into packaging materials, or shipped straight to a landfill.

Sadly, I now fear that I was too haste in interfering with this movie's final destiny, of rotting in a vast heap of trash. Now, far be it for me to be completely negative, so I'll offer something on a positive note. It is a small victory that I, a man of much patience, was able to sit through the entire 90 minutes of this film, which is more than I can say for the aforementioned Xander Berkley vehicle "Magma: Volcanic Disaster", which was so bloody dull & awful, I had to shut if off after an hour.

As for this slightly better volcano disaster flick, I'd recommend only watching it, if someone gives you a free copy, & you have 90 minutes to flush down the crapper. The up side is you'll have much more respect for Pierce Brosnan's "Dante's Peak", & Tommy Lee Jones' "Volcano" It'll make you laugh, & try, unsuccessfully, to make you cry, & you'll likely pause it, at least once, & forget you were watching it, & then go back & finish it, & then wonder why you just didn't forget it completely, in lieu of getting on with your life

Oh, yeah, it is as bad as that.

[dti5-1 · 3/10 · 23 September 2009]

It is exactly what you would expect from SciFi (SyFy) - pretty girls, a hunk or two, bad dialog and intermittently obvious special effects. It boggles my mind that they come up with shows like Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Battlestar, and can't make a movie to save their souls.

So, going into it with that in mind, it is a predictable way to waste a couple of hours. I watched while I shredded papers and cleared my desk. Whose idea WAS it to put a TV on my desk, anyway? Oh, yeah. That was me.

Anyway, it will never win an award, and a couple of the actors are not posting it in their bios. It was good enough for background, it has some interesting moments, and Antonella Elia looks pretty good in jeans.

Oh dear Lord, this was awful!

[jimgoebel1 · 1/10 · 23 July 2005]

In short, some American guy goes to a small Italian town to carve his name on a tree where his late wife grew up.

Enter a crazy girl who lives in the house that the guy's wife grew up in. She talks to the dead! And not just any dead, but the American guy's dead wife! And the dead wife tells the crazy girl the Volcano is about to erupt! Of course nobody believes them... Not even the Catholic Priest who tries to perform an exorcism on the girl.

This tripe is the worst thing I have seen in a LONG time. Bad acting, horrible story, even the Lava looked like strawberry jam. Steer FAR away from this preposterous movie, and rent Dante's Peak instead!

Crosses Dragonfly with Volcano and makes them both even hokier

[MartianOctocretr5 · 3/10 · 5 November 2007]

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.

Too Bizarre for comment

[JimmyL5555 · 1/10 · 24 July 2005]

I expected this to be a disaster movie in the Irwin Allen tradition. Instead, I find a movie too bizarre for words. I missed the first 10 minutes, and I "came in" as a man and his wife were helping victims (which I'm guessing) of a volcanic eruption in Italy. She is killed as he loses his grip on her hand hovering over a lava stream. He continues to see her in his dreams and is haunted by his memory of her. He then proceeds to the Italian province where she'd grown up (before moving to the states) in search of her records, which I'm guessing is for closure. Instead he encounters a mute young girl who has been declared as "disturbed," who seems terrified of him -- and yet, seems drawn to him and pursues him -- and leaves him dead animals as "gifts." Everyone he meets warn him to stay away from her and the area where she is staying and offering no explanation. He follows her to a cave where, after experiencing a swarm of bats that drop dead out of the air as they reach him, he sees she has candles lit and she draws circles everywhere. And after chasing her to someplace else, he sees that she has drawn a detailed picture of his late wife. After demanding from her how she knows her, she flees. He is then told by others that after a traumatic event in her young life, she became mute, communicates only with the dead and feels a possible connection to the Devil. At this point, I turned off this movie and watched no more of it, even though I was at the half-way mark. What all this has to do with a volcano is beyond me. At least the movie "Nature Unleashed: Earthquake" had that Irwin Allen feel to it as it focused on the disaster; here I wasted about an hour out of my life, scratching my head after the first 45 minutes. My advice: avoid this movie and read a book.

So absurd

[the_wolf_imdb · 1/10 · 12 May 2008]

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).

Shakespeare and the monkeys.

[Dolomede · 1/10 · 19 June 2011]

You know that old statistics saying that if you give enough monkeys enough time and enough typewriters (well I said it was an old quote) they must eventually turn out a Shakespeare play? Things are obviously going well in the Simian Play Production section because this must be one of their early submissions. How intelligent plot/scriptwriters can produce such unlinked, insubstantial and inaccurate dross AND GET PAID TO DO IT means the rest of us have made the wrong career choice. They have not even shown enough respect to their audience to check the continuity, not just of the film sequences, but the plot as well. It is an insult to consumers that film makers feel they can manufacture such a poor product for our consumption. Don't waste your life, not even out of idle curiosity. Go and iron your socks instead.

Not bad for a rainy afternoon.

[qtakhisis · 4/10 · 27 February 2007]

It is definitely a low budget film, however, the story itself is touching. A man and wife are helping some people during a volcano eruption, and the wife saves a baby, only to die herself, falling into a lava river. The husband goes back to her home village in Italy to learn more about the history of his wife, I assume, since I missed that part. He finds a mute girl, with a seemingly supernatural connection to lava and the moon, whom the whole town tells him to stay away from. She ends up saving the town that is afraid of her. She seems drawn to the husband, but cowers from everyone. The dead animals that she leaves for the one person who may understand, the husband, are animals died in the mines,where an ancient volcano slumbers. The moon is in an unnatural orbit,which it follows every 500 years (or every 1000 years, I cant remember) making it much closer than normal. This makes the gravitational pull stronger, which pulls the lava up through the volcano. The mute girl seems like a devil worshiper, but she is really tied to the lava and the moon because of a deadly lightning strike she was in with her mother, which killed her mother, and her for over 20 minuted, before she inexplicably came back to life. She leads the town to the secret tunnels that are under the town, that no one can find, even tho they are in the monastery with an obvious door that works amazingly well, for having not been used for several hundred years. In the very end, the spirit of the dead wife comes and saves her from a blocked in tunnel. It is very involved, with just a bit too many turns in an odd storyline. Its obviously a lower budget film, and could be very good with more money put into it. Not great, but not awful either.

Academy award for best special effects, not!

[gilhamit · 2/10 · 27 March 2008]

Well, remember those stupid flicks from the seventies and early eighties? When the special effects fire didn't really look like fire and whenever something looked real it was obvious that it wasn't taken at the same place? IT'S BACK! This movie makes the 80's version of king kong look like the 2000's version of king kong, and I'm not joking! People get hit by flaming rocks and only bounce back a little (seen only from behind) and so on. But then there's the plot. It's even worse! I won't even truly comment on it, I will just warn you, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME ON EARTH! It's really one of the worst ever, and I LIKE B-movies!

Probably one of the best films I've ever seen, and I've seen over 100 films

[js-sojkowski · 10/10 · 23 July 2013]

**SPOILERS** From the very beginning of this movie there is unrelenting action which continues throughout, leaving me in a state of perspiration as the credits rolled onto the screen. The special effects are visually stimulating and very realistic. The writing is unparalleled and the casts acting was fantastic, I haven't been so touched by a film since my first viewing of The Pianist. Great value for money too as there is extra footage added at the end that didn't quite make the film, also gripping stuff. This melange of a disaster flick may well be the directors magnum opus. It begins with the strong female lead having terrifying nightmares which led to... PLOT TWIST... her untimely death. Fantastic stuff. One hour and forty minutes of thrills and volcano spills, my idea of a good night.

Would rate it a nine

[stumpmee77 · 7/10 · 28 March 2009]

But there's the supernatural slant in it taking away from volcano action. But for once it's okay it's better than most distracting subplots. First it's more jaw-wagging bizarre unreal than laughably unreal. The character whom this angle revolves around, Angela, has a decent actress, specifically she big time can project the weirdness everyone points her way. Moreover the role of the priest (the actor is a tad hammy but not annoyingly so) is decent; seen too many films as of late depicting priests as corrupt.

I give film high marks for attempting putting the story in Italy--something 2 Sci-fi movies using Russia as its backdrop completely failed to do. There's people with accents (might not be the actual Italian accent but at least they try.) frequent breaks between American English an Italian. Wish they interjected subtitles when the Italian starts up. But back to the good, there's a major one haven't mentioned as of yet--It sure ain't predictable.

What really sells me on this film is the lead guy--nice on my eyes but OMG he can act too. He makes the character likable.

1/4 ok, 1/4 bad actors, 1/2 WTF

[csab-39797 · 4/10 · 13 April 2019]

The idea isn't bad and it could have been a better movie had they picked some Italian actors to play the Italian people. Most of the actors use a very bad Italian accent and their Italian is awful and not authentic. Also the concept is good but it took it too far once the priests started trying to exorcize Angela.. then it got crazy weird to the point that i felt like I was watching 2 different movies.. the doctor pronouncing Angela dead when her chest is clearly moving up and down .. ugh.. it jumped the shark once that happened!

Bad On So Many Levels

[westman671 · 1/10 · 25 August 2019]

My husband and I usually enjoy low budget disaster movies but I'm sorry we wasted our time watching this one. Never mind the poor special effects, the nonsensical plot, the shallow characters....the possessed girl saves the day and the priest defers to the devil (through the possessed girl) in the end? Pathetic message. And so untrue.

Best special effects ever

[magmalavastorm · 10/10 · 5 February 2018]

Any volcano movie would have lava that would decimate anything touched. But The Volcano Disaster says "No!" to that. The lava in here is completely natural and not just shows real lava repeatedly, but also shows very runny sentient lava with almost a mind of it's own. And no movie would give someone the power to control a volcano's rage. You've never saw lava better than this. The fear of volcanoes is back. When a girl is forced given the power of her mother's volcanic spirit which erupts into life soon after the danger limit has exceeded, a young Italian volcanologist suspects disaster when a dormant volcano shows signs of reactivation and must save the town before danger exceeds past the limit. Join Chris William Martin on his quest to save the town from his deceased wife who now wants revenge on the town that saw her as an outcast. Lava has never been this hot so don't miss the action. You'll thank the director for this action packed movie with a sentient volcano, but watch your house. You may just find lava living underneath it. Who knew volcanoes were sentient? No one. You'll have a blast. Just don't let that blast be your bathroom sink or you'll have a meltdown.

Better than expected

[skoyles · 6/10 · 26 June 2009]

Perhaps I was just in a sentimental mood but I found this movie, a melange of disaster flick, supernatural nonsense and romance, most appealing. The writing was much better than I might have expected and the ending was constructed with simple charming good heartedness. The cast, unfamiliar to me at least, is competent and the location refreshingly unusual. Clichés are present, if not abounding, but do not intrude too preposterously. Being a fan of neither volcanoes nor volcano movies I should not comment on the special effects but, given a modicum of "willing suspension of disbelief", there is little of which to complain. All in all a bit of a surprise, a triumph of character over special effects, of acting over action and of sentiment over science; all as it should be in a motion picture.

Surprisingly good...

[Vulcanlogic-1 · 9/10 · 17 February 2009]

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.

A Great Low Budget Movie For Tthe Smart MovieGoer Not The MeatHead Movie Goer

[mrreview-150-997055 · 14 September 2011]

This is a great movie Despite the bad comments from some reviewers It's a smart movie It's a well put together movie It's a movie that will appeal to the smart moviegoer Not the meat head moviegoer who justs want gun fights car chasers bombs going off and half naked chicks If you read the reviews on here you will see it is indeed mixed Their are people who are saying this movie is dull boring stupid And their are people saying it is great terrific outstanding Well it is easy to see which are the smart moviegoers And which are the meat heads I for one liked this movie but i'm a smart moviegoer I like a great story that makes you think Is it the greatest movie ever made no But it's not the worst i liked this movie And i liked it that much i went out and grabbed it form JB HiFI So it in my opinion is a great movie

Now onto the movie what is it about

A journalist Russell Woods life is destroyed When his wife is killed while they are reporting on a Volcano eruption After the tragic loss of his wife Russell decides to try to movie on He goes to his wife's place of birth In order to close that chapter of his life But once there Russell soon realizes he is being followed Followed by a strange girl named Angela A girl who has not spoken since an accident yrs ago Russell believes that this girl is connected to him In what way he does not know The religious towns people believe that Angela is evil Russell on the other soon starts to believe Angela Is in some way connected to his wife's tragic Death But Russell soon finds out that bigger events are unfolding And something supernatural has come to this religious town And Angela is the Key to it All

In my opinion This is a movie that Women would like more then most Men You see sadly most men fall into the meat head moviegoer space Not all men there are some like me that like a non meat head movie But most men fall into the meat head space But 90% of women like a good thinking movie with a touching story This is that kind of movie and for that I think women will like this movie more

But non MeatHead moviegoers give it a try