Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak
Film poster for Dante's Peak
Directed by	Roger Donaldson
Produced by	Gale Anne Hurd Joseph Singer Ilona Herzberg
Written by	Leslie Bohem
Starring	Pierce Brosnan Linda Hamilton Charles Hallahan Elizabeth Hoffman Jamie Renée Smith Jeremy Foley Grant Heslov
Music by	James Newton Howard John Frizzell
Cinematography	Andrzej Bartkowiak
Editing by	Conrad Buff Tina Hirsch Howard Smith
Studio	Universal Studios
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	February 7, 1997
Running time	109 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$116 million
Box office	Domestic: $67,127,760 Foreign: $111,000,000 Worldwide: $178,127,760

Dante's Peak is a 1997 disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton and Charles Hallahan. The film portrays the effect of a volcano erupting near a small town in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The film is loosely based on the real life volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. It was released a few months before Volcano and eventually received wider success. It has also been recognized for being more scientifically accurate than Volcano, despite gaining lower ratings. Dante's Peak was also one of Hallahan's last movie roles (the other being The Pest, which came out the same week) before he died of a heart attack nine months after its release.

Plot

Set in the fictional town of Dante's Peak, Washington, located in the northern Cascade Mountains, the film begins with the eruption of an unnamed volcano in Colombia during which volcanologist Dr. Harry Dalton’s (Brosnan) fiancée is killed as the couple tries to evacuate.

Four years later, Dalton is tasked with investigating possible volcanic activity in the Northern Cascades mountain near the town of Dante's Peak, which has not erupted for 7,000 years. Later, two backpackers (David Lipper and Heather Stephens) are skinny dipping in a hot spring when the water begins to boil, killing the couple. In Dante's Peak, the town is receiving an award for being "The second most desirable place to live in the United States, population under 20,000". Harry meets mayor Rachel Wando (Hamilton) who, along with her children, Graham (Foley) and Lauren (Smith), accompany Harry to the mountain's "high lake" to check the water’s acidity. After checking the acidity and picking up the mayor's estranged ex-mother in-law, Ruth (Hoffman), the five of them head to the town's hot springs. Harry notices the water still bubbling and grabs Graham before he dives into the boiling water. Rachel's daughter spots the burnt bodies of the dead backpackers.

Harry calls a town meeting to discuss putting the town on alert. His boss, Dr. Paul Dreyfus (Charles Hallahan), arrives and argues against the alert. Harry remains in the town to help Paul and the USGS crew evaluate the mountain.

Two weeks pass before Paul decides to withdraw, with no signs of the mountain erupting anytime soon. Harry, while out on his last night with the crew spots Rachel. They spend some time together and almost kiss but are interrupted. As Rachel fills a water glass from the faucet, she sees the water is a burnt orange. They both check the town's water supply plant and discover that sulfur dioxide has seeped into the town's water supply, a sign that an eruption is imminent. Afterwards, seismic activity and temperatures on and around the mountain begin to increase at an alarming rate, and Paul decides to evacuate the town.

During the emergency town meeting, the eruption begins, causing a stampede. Earthquakes bring down telephone lines and buildings, while simultaneously the massive quakes cause the elevated freeways, the only main routes leading out of town, to collapse, trapping the citizens and causing mass chaos.

Meanwhile, the mayor's children take her car and drive it up the mountain to Ruth’s cabin in hopes of evacuating her. Seismic readings indicate that minor eruptions are taking place all over the mountain, and that they are running out of time. Since a bridge is blocked, Harry drives into the river hoping to cross. Halfway across the two get stuck and another car t-bones the USGS vehicle, breaking the window and almost flooding the car, but the freeing truck's stuck tires. Harry and Rachel escape the water, and head up the mountain after the children. They find Ruth refusing to leave. Down in the town, the mountain has expelled large amounts of ash and most residents have evacuated.

As Harry and Rachel argue with Ruth, a lava flow engulfs all three cars and parts of the house. The five of them flee to the nearby lake and take a metal boat across the lake; the sulfuric acid in the lake starts corroding the boat and the engine fails. Ruth jumps out to pull it along to the pier before it sinks, screaming in pain. After they reach the shore they head down the mountain towards the town.

The USGS crew, meanwhile, is evacuated by the National Guard along with the remaining citizens. Paul gets on the radio to warn Harry that the rising temperatures of the mountain have caused the ice and snow to melt, and that the resulting mud flow is preparing to take out the river bridge which is now the only way out of town. The crew escapes across the bridge, but Paul cannot and is washed away in a lahar.

Ruth and Rachel reconcile before Ruth dies from her injuries. At a ranger station, Harry hot-wires a truck and drives the family down the mountain. When they arrive at the USGS operations center, Harry realizes that the mountain is about to experience a catastrophic eruption. As he leaves, he picks up E.L.F. (Extreme Low Frequency), a tracking device designed by NASA.

He and the family seek safe haven in the town's abandoned mines as Dante's Peak finally explodes and a giant pyroclastic cloud engulfs the town. The truck makes it safely into the mine but the town is destroyed, leading the USGS crew to believe Harry has been killed. Inside the mine, his former hideout, Graham leads the way to supplies. Remembering that he left E.L.F. in the truck, Harry leaves to activate it, but parts of the mine roof begin to fail, making Rachel and her kids think he has died. Harry makes it to his truck but not before breaking his arm. While in the truck, Harry is injured by falling rocks and has to reach the tracking device without causing a fatal cave-in. Eventually he reaches the truck but is trapped and nearly crushed inside the truck by falling rocks as he activates E.L.F. The device flashes for "one or two days" before the four are rescued from the mine.

After being rescued from the mine, Harry is met by the rest of his crew. The kids and Rachel are rushed out of the mine. Harry reunites with Rachel's kids before catching eyes with a teary-eyed Rachel. The two burst into laughter and Harry pulls Rachel into a passionate first kiss.

Cast

• Pierce Brosnan (Dr. Harry Dalton)
• Linda Hamilton (Rachel Wando - Mayor of Dante's Peak)
• Charles Hallahan (Dr. Paul Dreyfus)
• Elizabeth Hoffman (Grandma Ruth)
• Jamie Renée Smith (Lauren Wando)
• Jeremy Foley (Graham Wando)
• Grant Heslov (Greg)
• Kirk Trutner (Terry)
• Arabella Field (Nancy)
• Tzi Ma (Stan)
• Brian Reddy (Les Worell)
• Lee Garlington (Dr. Jane Fox)
• Bill Bolender (Sheriff Turner)

Production

The film was shot on location in Wallace, Idaho with a large hill next to the town digitally altered to look like a volcano. Many scenes involving townspeople, including the initial award ceremony, the pioneer days festival, and the gymnasium scene were shot using the actual citizens of Wallace as extras. Many of the disaster evacuation scenes that did not involve stunts and other dangerous moments also featured citizens of Wallace; dangerous stunts were filmed using Hollywood extras. Mount St. Helens also makes an appearance at the very end of the movie; during the start of the closing credit crawl, the scene shows an image of a destroyed Dante's Peak community with the camera shot moving out to show a wider scene of disaster, and then showing what remains of the volcano itself. The volcano that remains is actually an image of Mount St. Helens taken from news footage just after the May 18, 1980 eruption.^{[citation needed]}

Exteriors were also shot at the USGS's David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory headquarters in Vancouver, Washington. The facility was named in honor of David A. Johnston, a young scientist who had precisely predicted the volatility of the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, and perished during the event.^{[citation needed]}

A brief scene in the movie was actually shot inside the crater of Washington State's Mount St. Helens. Specifically, it is the scene where one of the scientists gets caught in a rockslide and breaks his leg while trying to climb down to repair a malfunctioning piece of scientific equipment inside the crater of the volcano. The giveaway of this shot is a brief appearance by Mount Adams, a dormant 12,776-foot (3,894 m)-high peak 35 miles (56 km) east of Mount St. Helens, just above the crater rim as the view tightens in on the scientists.

Extensive special effects surrounding certain aspects of the film such as the lava and pyroclastic flows, were created by Digital Domain, Banned from the Ranch Entertainment and CIS Hollywood. The computer-generated imagery was mostly coordinated and supervised by Patrick McClung, Roy Arbogast, Lori J. Nelson, Richard Stutsman and Dean Miller. Despite a heavy use of CGI, the volcanic ash in the film was actually really finely shredded newspapers. Between visuals, miniatures, and animation, over 300 technicians were directly involved in the production aspects of the special effects. Due to the complexity of its visual effects, Dante's Peak was almost nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose Titanic, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers instead.

Locations

• Agua Dulce, California, USA
• Baker Hot Springs, Mount Baker National Forest, Washington, USA
• Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Washington, USA (establishing shots)
• Wallace, Idaho, USA (town exteriors)

Music

Dante's Peak: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by John Frizzell & James Newton Howard
Released	February 4, 1997 (1997-02-04)
Label	Varese Sarabande

The original score was co-composed by John Frizzell and James Newton Howard. Howard wrote the main theme (heard during the opening titles) and a number of cues, while Frizzell wrote the bulk of the score.

30 minutes of the score was released by Varese Sarabande; the short album length being due to high orchestra fees at the time of release. An expanded bootleg exists which contains almost the entire score.

The contents of the CD release can also be found on the region 1 DVD, on an alternate audio track during the 'Creating a Volcano' documentary.

The "Main Titles" cue is also featured on Varese's "The Towering Inferno and Other Disaster Classics" compilation album.

Dante's Peak: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Main Titles"	5:30
2.	"The Close Call"	1:49
3.	"Trapped in the Crater"	5:03
4.	"On the Porch"	2:31
5.	"The Evacuation Begins"	4:12
6.	"The Helicopter Crash"	1:28
7.	"Escaping the Burning House"	2:32
8.	"Sinking on Acid Lake"	2:37
9.	"Stuck in the Lava"	1:44
10.	"The Rescue"	3:05
Total length:		30:22

Reception

During its opening weekend, it grossed $18,479,435 USD on 2,657 screens, and ultimately grossed $67,155,742 USD, far short of its $116,000,000 budget. However, the film broke even thanks to a strong international campaign that saved the film from a total financial loss and it eventually grossed $178,127,760, making it more financially successful than Volcano, which grossed $122,823,468.

Despite having wider financial success, and being slightly more scientifically accurate than Volcano, Dante's Peak opened to more unfavourable reviews than its rival, and holds a 27% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Film critic Roger Ebert says, "Is it a case, for me, of ... being overfamiliar ... with the ways in which Dante's Peak is simply an old movie in new clothing?", referring to a similarity to the plots of films such as The Poseidon Adventure and giving Dante's Peak two-and-a-half out of four stars.

See also

• Volcano, another disaster film released in 1997
• "Volcano" (South Park)
• List of American films of 1997
• Mount St. Helens
• Mount Pinatubo

External links

• Dante's Peak at Internet Movie Database
• Dante's Peak at Rotten Tomatoes
• Volcanoes in Historical and Popular Culture "In The Movies" - Dante's Peak at U.S. Geological Survey website.