Flood (2007)

Directed by: Tony Mitchell
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Jessalyn Gilsig, Tom Courtenay, Joanne Whalley, David Suchet, Nigel Planer

Setup is for sissies. Flood wastes no time to get things moving, drowning a gloomy Scottish town even before the titles have hit the screen. Where many disaster movies spend the first half hour or more on heavy-handed exposition, Flood hits the ground running.

Terror on the 40th Floor (1974)

Directed by: Jerry Jameson
Starring: John Forsythe, Joseph Campanella, Anjanette Comer, Lynn Carling, Laurie Heineman

Terror on the 40th Floor is usually said to be a rip-off of The Towering Inferno. I’m sure it is, though according to the IMDb, Terror was actually released a few months before Inferno. Maybe the producers of Terror read about Inferno in the trades and decided to beat Irwin Allen in the race to the screen (though this one was made for the smaller screen). Who knows? And, more to the point, who cares?

Poseidon (2006)

Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett, Andre Braugher, Kevin Dillon

The Poseidon Adventure is one of the classic disaster films of the 1970’s and a personal favorite of mine, so I’ll admit I approached Wolfgang Petersen’s remake with some skepticism. And no, the 2006 version of Poseidon doesn’t even come close to the original in terms of atmosphere, characters or suspense. It does deliver some nice action sequences, though.

2012 (2009)

Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover

So is 2012 the disaster movie to rule them all? Well, not quite, though Roland Emmerich certainly tries his damndest, in the process delivering some of the biggest, most spectacularly over-the-top destruction sequences ever committed to film. 2012 is big, loud and stupid – but also very good-looking and very entertaining.

Megafault (2009)

Directed by: David Michael Latt
Starring: Brittany Murphy, Eriq La Salle, Bruce Davison, Justin Hartley, Paul Logan

Mockbuster producers The Asylum proudly proclaimed that their Syfy original movie Megafault is their biggest production to date. What you have to keep in mind is that that’s not really saying much at all. Sure, there are a couple of recognizable names in this one, along with very many explosions, but it’s still a bargain bin production.

Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York (2006)

Directed by: Robert Lee
Starring: Costas Mandylor, Michael Ironside, Alexandra Paul, Eric Breker, Pascale Hutton

Yes, folks, it’s time to watch the Big Apple get devastated again. This time in so inept a way that it makes Aftershock: Earthquake in New York look like a high-end production.

Twister (1996)

Directed by: Jan de Bont
Starring: Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith, Cary Elwes

You wouldn’t know it from looking at her, but Helen Hunt is one of the densest objects on Earth. She’s so heavy, not even an F5 tornado, capable of hurling trucks around like confetti, can lift her off the ground. At least that’s my conclusion after watching Twister, where Helen and co-star Bill Paxton more than once remain firmly grounded while vehicles and buildings in their immediate vicinity are torn apart or whisked away into the air.

Aftershock: Earthquake in New York (1999)

Directed by: Mikael Salomon
Starring: Tom Skerritt, Charles S. Dutton, Sharon Lawrence, Lisa Nicole Carson, Jennifer Garner, Erika Eleniak-Goglia

Choosing New York as the epicenter of a major earthquake isn’t exactly an obvious choice, as The Big Apple isn’t particularly known for being located in an earthquake zone. Googling the subject, it turns out there are indeed some fault lines beneath the city that might pose a bigger threat than previously thought. I don’t know if the makers of this made-for-tv movie (originally aired as a two-part miniseries) had an unexpectecly deep knowledge of geology, but I suspect they really didn’t care. You see, the quake that devastates New York is first and foremost not a physical event – it is an opportunity for the people affected by it to learn valuable life lessons and get closer to each other. Oh yeah, it’s a Hallmark production.

Atomic Twister (2002)

Directed by: Bill Corcoran
Starring: Sharon Lawrence, Mark Paul Gosselaar, Corbin Bernsen, Jonathan Blick, Daniel Costello, Carl Lewis

Surely, Atomic Twister is one of the greatest disaster movie titles ever? Not only will there be twisters, but they’ll be radioactive! Or something! Sadly, this made-for-tv movie doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the title.

The Last Voyage (1960)

Directed by: Andrew L. Stone
Starring: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, George Sanders, Edmond O’Brien, Woody Strode, Tammy Marihugh

“How much EXCITEMENT can explode in 91 minutes?” asks the trailer. Well, not that much, to be honest. The Last Voyage has some nice moments but is overall a rather pedestrian affair as disaster movies go.