Cheaply made disaster movies on Sony Movies Action

[JesusAndYourBush]

Has anyone seen any of the cheaply made disaster movies on Sony Movies Action (Freeview channel 40)?  They're almost a genre of their own.  Cheaply made, cheap effects, cheesy music, they all look like they're made by the same company although they're undoubtedly not.  They're all disaster movies of one sort or another, so the Earth is in danger from solar flares, volcano's, asteroids, some other freak weather condition, etc.  They're quite formulaic but I find them compelling viewing.  Plus they've started to get dafter.  The other day one called "Super Tanker" was utterly preposterous...  some people were trying to dispose of a cold-war-era weapon made from some substance harvested from a crashed asteroid, about 30-or-so test tubes full of a green liquid which we were told would cause a nuclear winter lasting 1000 years if handled wrongly.  They kept having to vent some deadly smoke to prevent the whole lot going BOOM. About 45 minutes in we were given the additional information that the smoke was antimatter, and 45 minutes later this was upgraded to dark matter.  Utterly nuts.

Yesterday we had "2012 Doomsday" involving the Mayan end of the world prophecy, with captions every so often telling us something like "22 hours until Doomsday" although rather than counting down during the course of the film like you'd expect, the number of hours until doomsday kept jumping up and down.  And it didn't appear the film was one of those trying to be clever by telling the story in non-chronological order, it just looked like incompetence.

Today we had something called "Snowmageddon" involving a snow-globe which when activated caused actual freakish weather type events to happen in a small village.

Some of these films are so naff they're unintentionally funny but I find them compelling viewing.  Any other fans?

[Bazooka]

Yes I find them compelling, if I were to watch a big cinema release I would critique as I watch it, but here I know what I'm getting from the first shot and I accept it. I watched one over Christmas with giant beetles in it, I expected the CGI to be a low key affair, it was and I didn't quibble, it added to the experience.

I'm also a sucker for Hallmark films,especially the Christmas variety, utterly harmless and endearing.

[Alberon]

SYFY seemed to specialise in this sort of crap, in fact some of those listed sound like they came from there originally. The Asylum were producing knock-off films for years (Atlantic Rim, Battle for Los Angeles, Independents Day and Almighty Thor for example), but some of their 'original' disaster movies were better.

Unfortunately, they cottoned on to the fact that people were watching them as so-bad-they're-good and started to make them tongue in cheek. I lost all interest in them then.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I watched one over Christmas with giant beetles in it

Sounds like "Damnation Alley"? (or did that have giant crabs/lobsters, I forget?)

[Bad Ambassador]

Ahh, the film 20th Century Fox pegged as its big hit for summer 1977.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Todays movie Arctic Blast (A solar eclipse sends a blast of super-chilled air toward Earth) contained two things which I've seen in several of these films.  (1) A young woman with diabetes who needs insulin (in Faultline it was mentioned a couple of times early on and then never mentioned again.), and (2) A man is in the process of divorcing his wife, but because of the trauma they go through in the course of the film, him saving her from some calamity etc, they realise they're still in love.

Tomorrows film Metal Tornado sounds suitable silly!

Oh and before and after every single ad break the sponsor is  "Casillero del Diablo, wine from the Devil's cellars" and I can't help chiming in every. single. time. with "wine from the Devil's dumplings!".

[Icehaven]

They do these on the Horror channel too, although often more the monster end of the genre. Sharknado, (in which it literally rains sharks that don't seem to need to be in water), another one about normal Sharks attacking people trapped in a collapsing seaside shopping mall after an earthquake, one about some giant green monsters from space that were the worst CGI you can possibly imagine on a film that was less than 5 years old.

One thing I often notice about them is how the otherwise unknown actors often slightly resemble a Hollywood A lister, so if you squint it's almost like you're watching a star studded blockbuster. There must be this army of second rate Brad Pitts and Ryan Reynoldses and the like who probably do a few films like this and TV pilots but never get any further for partly that reason.

[Alberon]

The Sharknado films are from the point when they were being made as comedy films. I mean, three of them (THREE!) have cameos from fucking Jedward!

[Jim Bob]

Oh and before and after every single ad break the sponsor is  "Casillero del Diablo, wine from the Devil's cellars" and I can't help chiming in every. single. time. with "wine from the Devil's dumplings!".

A fine vintage; £7 and 13.5%.  Gets you pissed without breaking the bank.  Class.

The Sharknado films are from the point when they were being made as comedy films. I mean, three of them (THREE!) have cameos from fucking Jedward!

Purposely bad movies are the worst.  The 'so bad, it's good' flicks which work are the ones which try to be genuinely good but fail due to incompetence.  Movies which set out to be 'so bad, it's good' never ever work.  They're as boring as they are cynical.

[Icehaven]

Oh and before and after every single ad break the sponsor is  "Casillero del Diablo, wine from the Devil's cellars" and I can't help chiming in every. single. time. with "wine from the Devil's dumplings!".

The Devil's cellars would be a terrible place to store wine, being under Hell they'd be far too warm.

[dissolute ocelot]

There was a whole series of these movies starring late 80s teenage pop stars Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, initially one or the other, then both. As though the burning desire to learn if Tiffany can act better than she can sing is sufficient to make you watch a movie that is otherwise intentionally bad in every way. On the other hand, some feature Eric Roberts.

[Blumf]

The Devil's cellars would be a terrible place to store wine, being under Hell they'd be far too warm.

Not according to Dante: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_%28Dante%29#Ninth_Circle_%28Treachery%29

At the base of the well, Dante finds himself within a large frozen lake: Cocytus, the Ninth Circle of Hell. Trapped in the ice, each according to his guilt, are punished sinners guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships

But I don't think freezing temperatures are good for wine either.

[Spoon of Ploff]

But I don't think freezing temperatures are good for wine either.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Earthstorm (2006)
A lovely piece of hokum involving asteroids hitting the Moon and putting a massive crack in it so about a quarter of it was about to fall off and collide with the Earth causing an extinction-level event.  Starring Dirk Benedict as a military top brass who wants to use nukes when the scientists have better ideas.  We had the Apollo-13-style "we have to make something using only the stuff available to the astronauts", only instead of making an air filter they have to convert a nuke into some sort of EMP-type weapon to remagnetise the Moon's core to restabilise it.  Great stuff!  And you can tell it was made for TV because it was 4:3.

This evening we have Collision Earth (2011)
"The planet Mercury is struck by a solar flare that sends it on a collision course with Earth. A disgraced scientist must reactivate his defunct plans for a new weapons system to save the world, while an astronaut whose spaceship was orbiting Mercury faces a struggle to survive."

[Famous Mortimer]

I made an attempt to watch / review every SyFy Channel original movie (which it seems most of these are)...but then I got bored and stopped about halfway through.

If you see "Dark Haul" on the listings, though, give it a spin as I remember it being excellent.

[JesusAndYourBush]

^ Sounds like a goodun, I'll look out for it.

This evening we have Collision Earth (2011)
"The planet Mercury is struck by a solar flare that sends it on a collision course with Earth. A disgraced scientist must reactivate his defunct plans for a new weapons system to save the world, while an astronaut whose spaceship was orbiting Mercury faces a struggle to survive."

Oh, that was a good one.  Possibly one of the most way-out storylines they've done so far.  Utter bunkum, but quite entertaining.
In one bit, the magnetism of the planet Mercury (rapidly approaching Earth) is snatching cars up into the air and dropping them back down again.  There was a shot of a tractor being flipped over that looked like it'd been done on an Amiga.  Possibly the worst effect I've ever seen in a film.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Solar Flare (2008)

Another film abut solar flares.  A teenage prodigy discovers a way of predicting when solar flares will occur, then discovers a huge one is due to hit in 18 hours time!

The trailer just screams quality!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjLLGBlb8Yo

[JesusAndYourBush]

Earthfall (2015)

Warning: contains spoilers.  But I'm not using spoiler tags as it's a really crummy film.

A bunch of asteroids pass by Earth and slowly start to drag it out of its orbit. But the (US) government have a plan!  The planet stops rotating so one half is permanently facing the sun.  The American half obviously, otherwise the film would be set in permanent darkness.  But the government/military have a plan!  Asteroids keep crashing down, all coming in at a bunch of different angles, which is impossible.  Plus if America was on the side of the Earth facing the Sun the asteroids that are dragging the Earth along would be on the other side of the Earth, so America would be sheltered from being hit by asteroids. Yeah the whole film makes no sense. But the government have a plan.  Finally with 15 minutes of the film to go we're told of the plan.  They're going to fire a whole bunch of nukes at an oilwell somewhere in midwest USA.  This should cause an explosion and a huge jet of fire that should propel the Earth into the correct orbit. Oh boy I can't wait to see the cheesy effects for that bit!  So they fire the nukes, we see the shockwave of the explosion as an escaping helicopter is buffeted.  And the film ends.  We get no explosion and no special effects showing the Earth moving back into orbit.  We're not even told if they were successful. The film just ends. What a load of horseshit.  It's like they ran out of money and thought "Oh, that'll do."

[dissolute ocelot]

Earthfall (2015)
We're not even told if they were successful. The film just ends. What a load of horseshit.  It's like they ran out of money and thought "Oh, that'll do."

Sounds like they're ripping off the classic British sci-fi The Day The Earth Caught Fire, which ends on a "will they save the world?" cliffhanger, only that was enjoyable without any earth-bending special effects.

[JesusAndYourBush]

40 Days and Nights (2012)

I've seen some stupid films but this out-stupids the lot of them.  Due to a tectonic shift, the sea levels are rising.  It's not explained, it's literally tossed off in one sentence and never referred to again.  And it's not just the amount of sea level rising you'd expect from the icecaps melting, but a whole ocean just materialises in the Sahara desert with a huge splosh.  The Americans have been building an ark for 2 years, with a year left to finish it, but now they've got to finish it in 5 days.  This ark is supposed to hold 250,000 people but it looks tiny.  It keeps showing shots of the ark but it's like one of those optical illusions where your attention is drawn to the wrong part of the image and you can't see what you're supposed to.  In this case the ark just looked like a bit of ragged grey pipe.  After the 4th time I realised I was supposed to be looking at the thing inside the pipe.  It still looked crappy though.  The special effects look like they were done on an Amiga.  It gets 2.4/10 on IMDB.  Even the really crappy ones usually get at least a 4.

[Bazooka]

What's the romance like?

[idunnosomename]

Not according to Dante: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_%28Dante%29#Ninth_Circle_%28Treachery%29
But I don't think freezing temperatures are good for wine either.

dantes satan has three mouths so he can drink three bottles of chilean merlot at once

[JesusAndYourBush]

What's the romance like?

In 40 Days and Nights?  There wasn't any to speak of, or if there was I've forgotten it already.  The closest you came to someone worrying over their loved ones was someone worrying about their family not being able to get on one of the other arks because the other cities were destroyed and even if they hadn't been - the other arks hadn't been built. Again tossed off as one sentence early in the film, then at the very end someone says "Oh by the way they did build some of the other arks and your family is on one of them."

[gilbertharding]

Is this the thread to mention The Linda McCartney Story (2000)?

[dissolute ocelot]

Best title ever:

Fatal Flip
A couple's renovation on a recently bought house takes a sinister twist when the assigned handyman develops an obsession with wife Alex.(Dominique Swain). (2015)

[JesusAndYourBush]

A few days ago we had Stormageddon (2015)

When a computer program, Echelon, takes over America's computer systems it gains the potential to manipulate the weather. Now two robots, Adam and Cain, fight to gain control of Echelon before its too late.

The robots were so good they just looked and behaved like normal men, although at one point one of them cut his arm and it looked a bit shiny inside.  The weather manipulation parts were very brief.  Almost as if they'd finished the film and decided that what a film about robots and a computer system that was going to take over the worlds computers needed was a global weather disaster element.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Age Of Ice (2014)

IMDB rating: 1.8

When sudden and massive earthquakes open the Arabian tectonic plate, the result is unstable weather and freezing temperatures that will be unsurvivable by nightfall. Attempting to reach safety, a vacationing American family in Egypt, the Jones', must battle the rapidly cooling temperatures that usher in a new Ice Age, covering the Sphinx, Pyramids, and Sahara Desert with mountains of snow.

Probably one of the worst films I've ever seen.  Some sort of earthquake starts it all off, it'a a bit vague.  A laughable shot of a huge ship being flipped into the air.  Suddenly it's snowing and the pyramids are half-buried in ice... and all before nightfall.  Some really awful dialogue, and did I mention nothing makes sense.

You know when they redub dialogue because a scene was filmed outside and the dialogue sounded less-then-audible?  Well they didn't bother! : a scene where they're going along on camels and a conversation with the son who's about 12 or something - mmmph mumble gurk mmpg mgmgmg.  He might as well have been speaking Serbo-Croat for all I know.  Or been channeling Kenny from South Park.

At one point they need to get down an 80 foot cliff and they use that little winch thing that American cars always seem to have at the back whenever it's useful to the plot.  Half the people have been lowered down the cliff when the car falls off the edge of the cliff and crashes down.  Cut to the next scene where they're all merrily driving along in the car, undamaged from it's 80-foot drop.  The people who were stranded at the top of the cliff are also in the car, having magically managed to get down the cliff unaided.

In the most bizarre scene in the film they reach the base of a dam which right on cue starts cracking and bursting in some cringingly awful cgi, and our team of lunatics just stand there laughing in hysterics.

The film quickly reaches its conclusion as they got the pacing wrong and need to finish it up quick.  So they go down a tunnel revealed when the dam cracked, luckily it's one of those special dams where there's not much water.  And they go down some soft of log flume with an invisible flume so they're just shooting through the air... And they're on a beach and it's nice and warm and the Jordanian Navy are rescuing everyone.

The iciness in Egypt isn't resolved by some kooky scheme as is the usual in these films, presumably at sundown everything froze and everyone died by nobody cares about them because our American Family and friends are saved.

Worth seeing just because of how awful it is.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Nuclear Hurricane (2007)

A highly advanced computer in a nuclear power station malfunctions and turns on the human crew. As the operators battle frantically to pull the plug before it causes a meltdown, they also have to contend with a tropical storm striking the area.

The 3.2 it gets on imdb is far too generous.  A very intelligent computer with a realistic female voice causes havoc at a nuclear power station.  When the crew of 2 (a man and a woman, naturally) try to do anything it tells them they don't have the authorization. This comes as a surprise to them.  At this point any normal person would ask it "Who does have authorization?" but that would shorten the film and we can't have that.

There's a subplot involving a man and a woman caught it a rainstorm.  It's not particularly windy, nothing deserving of the name 'hurricane'.  At the end of one scene it gets a bit windier for about 10 seconds.  That's the extent of the hurricane.  It's not mentioned again and never interacts with the nuclear power station in any way.

Back at the power station with 5 minutes to meltdown the guy accesses a system file (written in C++) despite not having authorisation to do so.  A few seconds of button mashing and he declares "I'm in", and a few more seconds and meltdown is averted.

A truly awful film.

[JesusAndYourBush]

The Apocalypse (2007)

IMDB rating: 1.7

Warning: Contains spoilers.

You thought Age Of Ice was bad... this is way worse.  Some small asteroids hit Earth... but wait... there's a bigger asteroid coming that's the size of Texas and it'll cause an extinction-level event.  There's some really appallingly bad dialogue, and badly recorded too so sometimes you have to turn the volume up really loud to hear what's being said.  People keep disappearing... it's The Rapture!  There are scenes with two people travelling on foot and they've not seen another person for hours,  then there are scenes where aircraft sounds drown out the dialogue.  Plus I'm pretty sure the aircraft aren't part of the film, otherwise the characters would have surely noticed them, what with there being not many people left and all.  There are also parts where the dialogue just fades out for no reason even though it's not being drowned out by anything.  More people disappear / are raptured.  Normally in this sort of film there are scientists/NASA and usually the Earth is saved by nukes/a laser/etc, but that doesn't happen here, there's never any science of any sort.  More people get raptured. It dawns on me that this is probably a diasaster movie made by Christian fundamentalists.  They've seen all the other disaster movies where science saves the day and this is their response.  The father finds his daughter in the nick of time, but they haven't found The Lord so they don't disappear and BLAM! Asteroid hits Earth. The end.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Oceans Rising (Syfy/The Asylum 2017) (2.4 on imdb)

I saw this last night and it was so bad, so appallingly bad, so much bad science, but that made it amazing in an odd sort of way.

Spoilers...

A scientist is fired from where he works because they don't believe his warnings about what's going to happen to the Earth (their initials are NOAA, which seems relevant, Noah's ark and all that, except he's fired within the first 10 minutes and you never hear from them again).  3 years later and he has a tiny little boat (not an Ark) and his warnings came true... some guff about the rotation of the Earths core slowing down.  In his tiny little boat he rescues a handful of people and sails to a collider (like the Large Hadron Collider but in the US) and leaves half a dozen people there and tells them they have to build a wall around the facility with sandbags - a wall 70 metres high to keep out THE ENTIRE OCEAN - with sandbags and a few bits of scaffolding.  The guy the sets sail for CERN... it'll take 37 days but he has enough fuel to get there.  Arriving off the coast of some place which he casually identifies as France, they get off the boat and there's a remark about having to cross the Alps to get to CERN and then they skipped all the awkward crossing the Alps without any gear etc and 30 seconds later they're at CERN.  They have to do something with the LHC and the other collider in the US simultaneously to create two black holes which will sink to the centre of the Earth and jump- start the core.  The last 15 mins with the two colliders was just AMAZING!  So much bad science, but that made it amazing that anyone had the audacity to make such a bad film.


(By the way Sony Movies Action was renamed Great! Movies Action some months ago.  Presumably Sony disowned it?)