★★★ Watched 04 Aug 2019
Anytime I can watch a 70’s disaster film, I will. My love for films like Earthquake, Airport, and Rollercoaster gave me a natural desire to see this film when we decided to spend the weekend watching nothing by movies from the 70’s.
Avalanche is not an award winning film by no means. With an IMDB score of 3.7 out of 10 stars doesn’t give me much hope on even being good. The descriptions of the film say that vacationers vacationers at a winter wonderland struggle to survive after an avalanche of snow crashes into their ski resort. First of all, I don’t really think of them as vacationers. There is a competition of some kind happening at the resort. Figure skaters are competing, ski-jumps, and also downhill racing. The people who are at the resort are either the athletes, the trainers, or crowds. I guess this is probably irrelevant in the grand scheme of it all.
What we have really is a power hungry hotel owner (Rock Hudson) that is working on building more along the mountain and doesn’t care what he is doing to the snow caps. We also have a naturist (Robert Forster), who is warning the owner about the potential danger of the snow coming down the mountain without the correct building codes in place. This just foreshadows disaster.
The actual avalanche scene is so over the top and sadly, unbelievable. There is no way people don’t see it coming or even hear it. This what makes it friggin’ hysterical. It’s a fun genre film produced by Roger Corman and is pure 70’s cult magic.
This first part of the film leaves you wanting more action, but once the avalanche comes, it’s awesome goodness. Too bad it doesn’t last too long. You have the last 20 minutes saving everyone. Wish it would have been a little more suspenseful all around.
