I've even gone to the extent of reading Arthur Hailey's Airport novel. the movie is a pretty faithful rendering of it. For that matter, i read both of the novels that inspired The Towering Inferno. (The Tower and The Glass Inferno) As soon as I run across a used paperback copy, I can't wait to read Arthur Herzog's The Swarm. From what I've heard, it bears little relation to the awesome crapfest that Irwin Allen unleashed on the public.

Hahah, I read those two towering inferno-inspiration novels, too.

And I liked the Arthur Hailey Airport novel so much, I read a few of his others as well. (Airport was a pretty faithful adaptation; Hotel not so much.)

...and Arthur Hailey also wrote "Runway Zero-Eight", which was based on his script for the 1957 movie Zero Hour!, the movie that Airplane! spoofs.

(According to Wikipedia, the story first appeared as a CBC TV Movie called Flight Into Danger, which I've never seen).

Raising the question of what makes a disaster film. Is it sufficient that people be put in peril? Does the peril have to be a gigantic natural force? Does the peril have to be a form of man's arrogance or complacency coming back to bite him on the ass?

Towering Inferno had arrogance but not a great natural force. Poseidon had both a natural force and man's greed/complacency in that the ship was insufficiently ballasted because they wanted to get it to port faster to scrap it.

If peril and complacency are enough, then maybe a little movie like "The Incident" is a disaster film: New Yorkers terrorized by thugs on a subway train. Or is that urban horror or a monster movie? Is "Alien" a disaster movie or a monster movie or both?

Apollo 13 was exciting, I suppose, but I don't think it inspired much reflection.

You have 45 minutes. You may begin.

I think scale plays a big part in defining a Disaster Film. Towering Inferno counts.

Alien (the first one), is famously an "Old Dark House" variant in outer space. So a horror movie, not a Disaster flick.

I'd imagine that the more fantastic the peril, the less it becomes a Disaster Movie. Perhaps the peril must be elemental: Earth, Air, Fire, Water...

The peril must be over-the-top. An All-Star-Cast of stereotypes must be employed. It must be fiction.

So a movie about The Twin Towers, Chernobyl or the 2004 Tsunami could not be disaster movies?

No.

Disaster movies must be fictional. No exceptions.


The "disaster" is not the only requirement of the genre. Too many movies would qualify. There is a certain "quality" (usually a lack of) that denotes Disaster Movie.

Well, maybe there are a couple of exceptions.

The San Francisco Earthquake, the Titanic etc. could be used as backdrops for Disaster Movies.

so could:

Well, Krakatoa is actually west of Java, so the one depicted in the movie is clearly fictional.