Six million tons of icy terror!

Avalanche
1978 | 1 Hr 31 Min | PG | Action | New World Pictures

Director: Corey Allen

Writers: Corey Allen, Frances Doel

Stars:

Rock Hudson

Mia Farrow

Robert Forster

Synopsis:

The vacationers at a winter wonderland struggle to survive after an avalanche of snow crashes into their ski resort. Their holiday then turns into a game of survival.

If this is your first trip to the Cave welcome and thanks for joining me during the Rock Hudson Blogathon hosted by Love Letters to Old Hollywood and In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood. Pop some corn grab the sno caps and a cold Coke lets talk Roger Corman's big-budget flop Avalanche.

That's one fine good looking man.

With Corman getting a huge budget of 6.5 million dollars to do an action drama with a few big names you just can't miss right? Wrong, sadly Corey Allen who has well over 80 credit's to his name struggles to make a jump from the small screen to the big one. Avalanche comes hot off the heels of the disaster movies of the 70's but feels better suited for a Sunday Night movie on say CBS or ABC. But let's not talk about the small stuff and move on to its star.

Oh, those PG movies with there Nudity!

Even though this is a Corman production Rock Hudson came to work taking on the role of a hard ass and playing it to the end. His larger than life presence fills the screen all while he takes command. Hudson did not give a dam that this was a low budget snoozefest and quickly becomes the only reason to watch Avalanche.  Hudsons character Shelby is preoccupied with his grand opening festivities and is simultaneously trying to woo back his ex-wife played by Mia Farrow, who is attending as his guest. He's also busy trying to entertain his wise-cracking mother who is brought to life by Jeanette Nolan and does it well.

Stock Footage that is so scratched! 

Meanwhile, local environmental activist and nature photographer Nick Thorne (Robert Forster) becomes increasingly concerned about the massive buildup of snow on the mountain peaks that are directly in line with the resort. Intermingled with all of this are the expected subplots involving minor characters who are set up to be inevitable victims. The film follows the 1970's formula of the disaster film genre in that the victims-to-be are gathered for a major social occasion, unaware that nature is working overtime to thwart their fun.

Yep, its all gone Rock!

This film is way to easy to pick apart, with its scratched stock footage mixed in with poor special effects witch Corman admits where rather shoddy and recalls his outrage when he discovered the SFX company had added "red snow" there is little to hold this one together.  Robert Forster recalls that the "snow" was actually little pieces of plastic that were strewn all over the scenic landscape and it clearly shows. The Styrofoam used to augment the snow effects of the avalanche was discovered all over the Durango when the spring thaw hit, but by then, the company was long gone leaving a disaster of its own behind.

I was kind of hoping Mia would just fall.

If you can get past the fake looking snow poor script and Mia Farrow phoning it in "Avalanche" easily fits into the "guilty pleasure" category. It is not near the top of the heap of disaster movies but it certainly doesn't rank at the bottom of the pack, either. 

3 Stars out of 5