Earthquake (1974)

Earthquake (1974)

Director: Mark Robson

The movie I had chosen to watch and respond to was Irwin Allen Flick’s Earthquake; the movie was directed by Mark Robson. Although the movie was made to be a drama, this film is very bad.  At times the sheer awfulness provides amusement, while at other times it's yawn inducing. I wasn’t expecting anything great since special effects was very limited in 1974 but I wasn’t expecting the boredom I experienced from the bad acting and use of bright red fake blood. When the earthquake had taken place in the movie, it appeared as if the camera man literally had shaken his camera from side to side to provide the appearance of chaos from the earthquake.

The film featured prominent stars such as Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Lorne Green, and Richard Roundtree. Gardner is supposed to be Lorne Greene's daughter in the film when in actuality she looks older than Greene. The editing at times is nothing short of bizarre. There is no logic to some of the film's cuts whatsoever, leading to a jumpy, confusing story. Once scene showed Heston and his co-star conversing and the next transitional scene showed the two putting their clothes on from love making.

During the earthquake in the film, there was a scene showing people trying to escape the building. Within the scene, a countless number of people pushed their way onto a crowded elevator as if that was the smartest thing to do during an earthquake. The in your face gore which accompanies this scene clearly served no purpose other than shock value. When the elevator collapsed causing the people to fall to their deaths, a splatter of red paint flashed across the screen emphasizing death and blood. My husband and I both laughed at this scene because we found it beyond amusing.

The ending of the film was not what I was expecting. With Charlton Heston being the hero within the movie as well as the lead actor, I was not expecting his role to end the way it did. Overall, the ending was not a great one. Earthquake may be worth sitting through once if one enjoys cheesy disaster films, but in my opinion, this was more of a comedy instead of a drama.