'' is a
1997 Action -
Adventure Film starring
Pierce Brosnan and
Linda Hamilton . It portrays the effect of a
Volcano erupting in a small town in the
Pacific Northwest . It was released a few months before ''
Volcano '', another movie of the same
Disaster genre which did equally well at the box office.
- ''The pressure is building''
The film was actually credited by
Geologist s for portraying the geological activities in the film fairly accurately.
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The movie is set in the fictional town of Dante's Peak,
Washington in the
Cascade Range but was actually filmed in
Wallace, Idaho , with the image of the volcano superimposed over the footage of the town (Wallace does not have a real volcano nearby). Based somewhat on the real-life eruption of
Mount St. Helens in
1980 and the active status of other volcanoes in the Cascade range such as
Mount Rainier , Dante's Peak depicts the efforts of a geologist to warn the townspeople about the impending eruption, and the subsequent efforts to rescue victims of the volcano including the family of the town's mayor.
Since the release of ''Dante's Peak'', the "avalanche" part of the
Universal Studios Backlot Tour has been redesigned to be a volcano and retitled "Dante's Peak."
A brief scene in the movie was actually shot inside the crater of Washington State's Mount St. Helens. Specifically, it is the scene where one of the scientists gets caught in a rockslide and breaks his leg while trying to climb down to repair a malfunctioning piece of scientific equipment inside the crater of the volcano. The giveaway of this shot is a brief appearance by Mount Adams, a somewhat extinct 12,776-foot-high peak 35 miles east of Mount St. Helens, just above the crater rim as the view tightens in on the scientists.
Mount St. Helens also makes an appearance at the very end of the movie. During the start of the closing credit crawl, the scene shows an image of a destroyed Dante's Peak community with the camera shot moving out to show a wider scene of disaster, and then showing what remains of the volcano itself. The volcano that remains is actually an image of Mount St. Helens taken from news footage taken just after the
May 18 ,
1980 eruption.
Exteriors were also shot at the USGS's David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory headquarters in Vancouver, Washington. The facility was named in honor of
David A. Johnston , a young scientist who had precisely predicted the volatility of the
May 18 ,
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. That eruption cost him his life.
During the death of Dr. Paul Dreyfus, the infamous
Wilhelm Scream can be heard.
