Is it warm out here or is it just me?
Volcano isn’t knowing for its scientific accuracy but for what it lacks in accuracy, it definitely makes up for when with its many heart-stopping and fiery moments.- The public works utility worker who escapes the storm drain at the beginning of the movie. His fellow workers are able to get him out of the tunnel but he can barely breathe and is gasping for air and they ask him what happened to the other guys and he slowly says with a smoke burnished voice that “ They burned up hot......” before passing out and revealing the right side of his face which has been badly burned.
- The second scene in the storm drain where Roark and Gator investigate. It’s very dark and creepy, especially with the tree roots coating the walls. The soundtrack doesn't do much to help either, being full of suspenseful effects and strange noises, nor is the fact that seven people burned to death and the one who survived got sent to hospital only a few minutes prior.
- Roark and Gator nearly being burned alive and barely escaping with their lives as the hot gases suddenly spew out of the concrete lining and flood the tunnel. They were barely able to keep the hatch door closed and seal it shut with the force of the gases pushing hard against them. When they climb back up to the surface, they literally look like they just came from hell and can barely breathe.
- When the second earthquake strikes and due to it being much more powerful than the previous one, all of the lights and power in Los Angeles slowly go out... It's very similar to Jurassic Park when all of the Dinosaur paddock alarms go off when all of the systems around the park fail.
- The steam screaming out of the manholes, flinging manholes everywhere; that alone could have killed people!
- The large amounts of volcanic smoke coming up from the Tar Pits, the lightning also striking down from the sky in the smoke and the Prehistoric Mammoth slowly sinking-melting into the sizzling water of the Pits. One minute before that everything seemed normal, as everyone was just making their way through Wilshire Boulevard... and chaos suddenly ensues! The creepy theme leading up to it doesn’t help either.
- The lava bombs shooting up from the Tar Pits. Several buildings and cars are hit, but one hits a fire truck, sending a couple of firefighters flying into the air and then hitting the hard concrete. Especially considering one of the firemen suffered a fractured skull and the other one suffered a broken leg... Ouch.
- The demonic papier-mâché mask catching on fire in a store window is unnerving; almost suggesting a demonic force is responsible for the unnatural eruption in Los Angeles.
- Roark and Amy both find a homeless man near the County art museum as the lava approaches him and try to get him to safety but one of the burning palm trees falls to the ground, trapping them between the tree and the bus (that was used to protect the museum from the lava) and the lava itself which is quickly approaching. Thinking on his feet, Roark yells for one of the firemen to lower the ladder on his truck to pull him, Amy, and the homeless man to safety. The firemen can't pull them in due to the homeless man's weight on the ladder, which is causing it to buckle and he is forced to swing them to the other side of the street and over the lava. To make matters worse for the trio, the radiating heat from the lava ignites the fire hose which causes the homeless man to kick around in panic and causing the ladder to buckle even faster while Roark and Amy are precariously hanging on over the lava. Fortunately for everybody, the ladder only gives out on the other side of the street and on safe ground.
- Another scary thing about the scene is the difference in tone between both Roark and Amy. Roark remains very calm throughout while Amy is screaming at the top of her lungs. Although who could blame her when you’re literally hanging over hell? And what if the ladder had buckled or their grip gave out? It would have been a Hotter than Hell style death.
- In the red line tunnel on the derailed train, all the passengers have fallen asleep or unconscious due to the severe heat and toxic gases. The driver has tried to open all the doors on the train but to no avail due to the power being out and the hydraulics being broke due to the fallen rubble. As he reaches the rear end of the train and manages to open the window on the door, he and the audience see that the entire tunnel behind him is completely engulfed with smoke and flames. The steam also radiates a demonic red glow as the lava slowly approaches the hapless train...
- As Stan leads the rescue team down to the tunnel, he and the team find the derailed train nearly completely covered in fire from the incoming lava flow. They get to the train and find the passengers still alive but unconscious. While Stan and the other members of team is tending to the passengers, Pete spots the lava coming and alerts Stan to it by asking “What the hell is that?” Stan glances at it for a couple seconds before realizing what it is and IMMEDIATELY orders the team and all the passengers off the train but one of the members notices that the driver is missing and Stan stays on and goes through the rest of the train to find him despite Pete’s protests and the lava rapidly approaching.
- Stan's death. He finds the driver unconscious but still alive and picks him up and carries him through the train, which is burning and melting from the lava flowing underneath it. Knowing that the both of them might not make it, he tearfully starts reciting the Hail Mary before finally reaching the first car of the train, which the lava has outrun. The other members of the rescue team urge him to leave the driver and save himself, but after a few seconds he braces himself, jumps as far as he can into the lava flow, and throws the driver to safety. While it's awesome he saved the driver's life, hearing him screaming in agony, only seeming to die after several horrible seconds, as his entire body melts into the lava, is haunting. It's not made any better by the horrified reactions of his comrades, and the very depressing soundtrack.
- Even if it wasn't accurate? It still gave a generation of children nightmares.
- If you try watching the movie without sound, the deaths of Anne Heche's partner Rachel and of Stan are particularly traumatic.
- The scene of the dog trapped in a house not too far from the Tar Pits. A few seconds before the lava goes through a door, you can see a sinister orange light coming out of the door gap. Imagine yourself as a child looking at ''your'' living room door and noticing the same light.
- While the outcome in the movie wasn't as grim, it's not fun to be made to imagine what it would be like for your house to burn or your beloved pet roasted alive...
- Although it overlaps with Visual Effects of Awesome, the first eruption and the lava flow burning through the fence and a trafficked road is extremely unsettling.
- The music makes this especially effective.
- Just before the eruption, the steam geysers whooshing from the manholes stop abruptly, bringing about an eerie silence with absolutely no other sound as Roark, Jaye and the reporter in the car look around in confusion. Then the ground starts to rumble and the volcano explodes, shattering nearby windows and raining dangerous shards onto people as lava begins to pour out.
- The music makes this especially effective.
- As the lava approaches Mike’s GMC Suburban, Kelly gets out and yells for Mike and he rushes over to her as the lava begins melting the car. To make matters worse? A lava bomb lands near Kelly and ignites her leg but Mike gets over just in time and uses his suit to put it out. Now trapped between the Tar Pits and the Lava Flow, Mike and Kelly jump on to the hood of the burning car as the lava completely overtakes it which causes Mike to barley keep his balance but after a few seconds he gathers himself and then jumps the both of them to safety right before the lava engulfs the car.
- The firefighters burned alive inside their overturned fire engine, especially since the second firefighter stays in the cab to try to rescue the trapped engineer, refusing to leave even as the engineer yells at him to save himself. The bad thing is they don't melt like Stan: they just burn as it is supposed to be in Real Life. At least there's no glimpse of their carbonized corpses.
- The loud and agonizing screams of both men are also both disturbing and depressing at the same time.
- Mike seeing it and then shielding Kelly’s eyes away because this is probably the first time Kelly has ever seen someone die.
- Also the newscaster reporting it from his car and the absolute panicked and terrified reaction in his voice when he yells “TWO FIREMEN JUST BURNED ALIVE!!!”
- The worst part is the fact that they could have been saved, but didn’t entirely because of Kelly.
- The subway train derailing during the second earthquake and the falling rubble falling on the train. The driver tries to stop the train but to no avail...
- Rachel's death. She falls into a chasm filled with boiling lava and deadly gas with no hope of escape or being found. Her piercing shrieking as she is being cooked alive by the hot gases is especially unnerving.
- The weird suction-effect that draws the toxic steam back into the gaping chasm Rachel just vanished into is more than a little creepy. On the one hand, it hints at how devastatingly fast the lava is moving underground, to have generated such a vacuum in its wake; on the other, it almost makes it look like the nascent volcano is alive, and breathing.
- An alternative interpretation, if you're of the religious sort, or taking the later demonic paper-machie mask seriously, is that the Gates of Hell opened up just to snatch up Rachel, and seeing as how it closed after she fell in, and how fast the volcano emerged in the film overall, might just not be an impossible thing.
- However you look at it, Rachel's death scene is terrifying on so many levels.
- The blocking of the first flow can be a mixture of both amazing and frightening because of the weight of the lava pushing up against the k-rails and the long wait for the water tankers.
- Also the shot of the lava completely engulfing Wilshire and then being pressed up against the k-rails with all the city workers, fire trucks, construction trucks and etc makes the whole scene look like a battle between mankind and hell.
- After blocking the first flow, Mike and Amy suspect the eruption hasn't stopped yet, and to prove this, they check with a video camera a Red Line tunnel from a manhole. At first it seems there's nothing to worry about. Much to their surprise, they don't notice another huge fast-moving lava flow until it engulfs the lowered camera. Thank God they didn't decide to go underground at the wrong place at the wrong time.
- The other shots of the lava flowing extremely fast through the tunnel on its way towards the Cedar Sinai Hospital and the Beverly Center can be seen as unnerving due to the tunnel insulating it and keeping it super hot and fluid. Also the fact that Mike and Amy only have 30 minutes to come up with a plan to block it from flowing towards the injured patients and the rest of the Westside of Los Angeles before it arrives.
- The second eruption. While its very awesome and even more impressive than the first one, its also more deadly as the injured patients, the hospital staff and the national guard desperately try to vacate the area but the power of the eruption sends several people flying into the air and small segments of the lava end up flying everywhere and hitting several of the patients, setting them on fire and severely burning them.
- Mike witnessing the little boy Tommy wandering out into the street while the explosives level the Beverly Center Tower... and then seeing Kelly also join him. His eyes widen in absolute horror as he screams for them to get out of dodge and for the demolitions team to stop the explosions but none of them can hear him.
- Gator and the injured member of the SWAT Demolition both flashing their eyes towards the sound of the explosions reaching the tower and then the tower exploding.
- Granted, Gator decided to stay and help his comrade to get him out from the column that had fallen on his leg even though he told him to run for it and they were willing to give their lives to save many but it still doesn’t make it any comfortable knowing that they were going to die and that there wasn’t anything to do to stop that from happening.
- Mike running to save both Kelly and Tommy from getting crushed is both this and awesome because he has to go between both the erupting lava flow and the collapsing Beverly Center Towers.
- Also the horrified reactions of Kelly and Tommy don't help either.
- Emmit tries to call Mike to see if he’s okay as the plan to reroute the lava has worked but he gets no answer. The LAPD and National Guard search for him appears to be all for nothing as it looks like he, Kelly and Tommy were crushed, but all three of them turn up from the rubble completely unscathed...
- Before the end credits roll, the audience is treated to this gem from the C.I.G.S Volcano Databank description of the New Mountain-Volcano that Angelenos will have to deal with despite lava flows being put down. “C.I.G.S Volcano Databank. Name: Mount Wilshire. Location: Los Angeles, California. Status: A C T I V E……….”
