The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A catastrophe refers to a vast and cataclysmic event that disrupts society. This can be everything from Nuclear War to Alien Invasion, from Plague and Pandemic to Monster Movies and the zombie apocalypse to list some of the most common examples.
A catastrophe is anything that wrenches life out of the everyday and affects society on a wide scale. Society can refer to everything from the entire world, a whole country to a city or a small town. Catastrophes can range from widespread mass destruction to environmental ones to those on a small scale where people unexpectedly lose their senses or memory.
The Catastrophe film is often related to the Disaster Movie, which is a more melodramatic form featuring clearcut characters and their dramas as they are caught in the midst of a catastrophic event, although it should be made clear that not all catastrophe films are disaster movies.
An adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion novel modernised into the era of mass data surveillance, social media and Amazon delivery drivers. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
There is a great title and the germ of a good idea here – two rival street gangs and a white cop are forced to set aside their difference and cooperate to deal with the zombie apocalypse. Alas, as a directorial outing from the writer of the Sharknado films, this emerges cheaply and tattily
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie – this one featuring a tornado that rains boulders that explode upon landing. Everything runs to the usual formula plotting and cheap CGI effects of these types of movies
A disaster movie made early into the CGI era based around the ludicrous notion of an active volcano suddenly appearing in Los Angeles
As the spectacle of mass destruction goes, you could hardly get more epic in scale than this. On the other hand, as someone whose hometown was obliterated by an earthquake in 2011, I find it offensive that such devastation is arranged for our enjoyment while the suffering and even the idea that anybody has been killed has been edited out
Another formulaic Syfy Channel B-budget disaster film. The film’s sole distinction is a more outlandish premise than usual – where the storm appears initially to be caused by a UFO that has been shot down
This was dismissed as a copy of a A Quiet Place and had an almost identical plot about survivors sheltering from creatures that attack the smallest sound. In actuality, this was based on a book that predates A Quiet Place
Wannabe in the fad for Young Adult films. An alien invasion story that takes place without drama or engagement in anything that happens. This seems more interested in its teen love triangle than combatting the alien threat
Baffling and incomprehensible Japanese SF film about a catastrophe that is causing people to turn to stone
A film that relentlessly celebrates its own brainlessness. Michael Bay directs an asteroid collision film amid plenty of loud noise, mass destruction, flag-waving patriotism and resolute heroism