Platypuschow I'm not a fan of the disaster genre, they're always the same. Introduction of charactersExpert warns people of imminent disasterPowers that be ignore expertDisaster happensThen either a lot of running and talking about what is happening until it ends or some pseudo science to fix itThis is no different and what's strange is just how little of the film the disaster takes up.Starring Robert Forster, Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow this is more like a soap opera where an avalanche just so happens to take place.Swinging 70's, polystyrene snow and merciless deaths this has it's merits but certainly pales in comparison to the better films within this sub genre.The Good:Cast do a decent jobThe Bad:PredictibleSoap opera likeSFX are poor even for its timeThings I Learnt From This Movie:Unless your name ends in Campbell don't be a Bruce, you are no worthyDeath by polstyrene looks as painful as it sounds

tarwaterthomas Well do I remember this disaster movie classic from the 1970s, brought to one and all by Roger Corman and his New World Pictures outfit' ol' Rog was rather late to the party. Anyhoo, this fractured flicker takes place in the Colorado Rocky Mountains (where this movie was shot, but fortunately recovered). Rock Hudson plays a bazillionaire businessman who owns a ritzy mountainside hotel where a sports competition is taking place. We're talking ice-skating, folks. Mia Farrow plays his former wife whom he's trying to woo once again. Then there's Robert Forster, who's an environmentally-conscious forest ranger and he's trying to alert Rock and company about an avalanche that will happen unless somebody does something. There are some cannon shots that loosens the snow, but the titular disaster happens when an airplane smacks into a snowy peak. And away we go. The surprisingly good visual effects were accomplished by an uncredited Gene Warren (who with Tim Barr and Wah Chang) snared an Oscar for Best Special Effects on THE TIME MACHINE (1960). This movie is finally available on DVD, thanks to Olive Films. Next year marks AVALANCHE's 40th anniversary. Check it out. And look for the well-written novelization of the movie; the tie-in novel was written by Robert Weverka and issued by Bantam Books. That's all. One more thing. I promise. The avalanche sequence was borrowed by American International for METEOR (1979) where an avalanche covers a Swiss ski resort thanks to a fragment of the big rock.

Rruffin83 I gave it a 3 because of Robert Forster's acting. Mia Farrow was horrible and Rock Hudson was annoyingly bad. The director must have given them one take per scene, Forster nailed every one and the stars missed big time. The snow that someone kept throwing across the windows every 2 seconds was hilarious. Do chunks of snow really bounce off you? lol

MisterWhiplash Once again, I'm not so certain if it were not for the return of Mystery Science Theater and having this particular title (one of the many that they've taken on over the years from Roger Corman) I would have gone out of my way to see it. And surprisingly it has a pedigree cast, and for a Corman production for one of the handful of times in his career he spent a little extra money - though, also as well, it didn't make money back. The reasoning to make it seems fair enough: cash in on the disaster-movie binge of the period (Irwin Allen became for a short time a little like a bigger-ish spending Corman for these disaster flicks with Towering Inferno for example), and have a little of Jaws in there for good measure. Of course the creature this time is the actual avalanche itself, though that doesn't happen for more than halfway into the movie.What we get stuck with, then, are the human beings and their (sorta) dramas and conflicts; a day later after seeing the movie, I remember that Mia Farrow - who looks like she sorely needs some actual direction to work from - is trying to avoid having to talk long with her ex played by Rock Hudson, though since they're in the same spot she doesn't have much of a choice. While he is running what is a sports competition (I think?) and there's also some small drama involving an ice-skating competition (yes, this is a plot point, and it comes back around during the act of the title), and not to mention Robert Forrester, who I didn't even know was in the movie until watching it, who is the Sheriff ala Jaws of the movie trying to warn people about the oncoming avalanche that could happen.So many stupid things happen here (not least of which how the avalanche gets started), and Farrow and Hudson have less than zero chemistry. What makes it fun (outside of the robot commentary) is that the actors are taking this ever so seriously, even Farrow who seems like she should be having fun (and, occasionally, like when she's in the car trying to get away with some of the others after the avalanche happens, is having *too* good a time, smiling and looking like she has that less-than-zero direction going on), and the cheesiness of the effects. But the funniest WTF part of all goes to Rock Hudson's character's mother, who has some of the battiest dialog in moments. Oh, and I'd be remiss not to point out a moment where a character falls out of a moving/spinning-out-of-control car as it then careens off a cliff. That's pretty hysterical and awesome to behold, commentary besides.I think the frustrating part of Avalanche is how long it takes for it to happen, and then how comparatively to what comes before how fast the post-avalanche events occur. There's a death-defying rescue of characters, and Hudson and Farrow sharing some champagne (I won't say when they do it, that's a spoiler, pshaw me to do such a thing for AVALANCHE!) And then... the movie just ends. It's a slim 90 minutes where we get to see characters who don't have much chemistry act off one another - Forrester is a little better than Hudson with Farrow, but not by much - and other side characters who don't get much developed aside from their tropes. So it's a knock-off of what was already a silly genre of the 70's - and man oh man is this very 70's (a performance midway through at the ski-lodge by the rock band Paladin is evidence of that), but for the purposes of MST3K it works like gangbusters.