User reviews

The only reason to watch this film (aside from the beautiful scenery of my home country) is for NZ actor Antony Starr, who moves on to bigger and better things with the fantastic TV Series "Outrageous Fortune". The rest of the film is terrible. I mean, 'Terror Peak' is obviously computer graphics, for there is no giant volcano that close of Auckland, and if there were, and it was erupting like in this film, they would need to evacuate more than just the local village which is what happens in this film.

Lynda Carter is painful to watch as a retired vulcanologist who has come to NZ for a honeymoon with her new husband and her daughter, who funnily enough is played by a New Zealand actress, Emily Barclay. The poor girl fails to pull off an American accent. Another NZ actor, Peter Elliot of "Shortland Street" fame plays a Scotsman. Go figure - that is if you want to waste your time.

Apart from ... Peter Elliott as Patrick. At first I thought it was a bad Scottish accent. Then I thought ... 'No!' It's a bad Northern Irish accent. And by the end of the film (I watched it, on and off, for two hours) I decided I preferred it 'Off'.

I wasn't expecting much from this lunchtime TV movie, so I wasn't disappointed! Admittedly the production values don't appear to reach that of a blockbuster, but overall it was fine! Occasionally exciting, occasionally informative, occasionally heart warming!

I know people will pity me for this...but as a background to revision, I liked it! I've seen much worse!

If you're bored and up for some mindless entertainment - give it a go!

i have just watched this movie on television, and i have to admit that i think i have just wasted two hours of my life.

half way through the movie i thought to myself "where is this going"? the storyline was very weak and unrealistic.

the main characters kept going on about "evacuating a village" - well i cannot recall seeing this village they spoke of at all through the movie, and if i did it was obviously not interesting enough to remember. one cannot feel empathy for the village if one has no emotional attachment to it - and i certainly didn't.

the story mainly focuses on two teenagers getting caught in a cave and trying to escape. why on earth they went into a cave in the first place instead of running away from an erupting volcano like most normal people would is beyond me! one of the teens is a girl, who's only purpose in the movie seems to be to scream and cry annoyingly at the first sight of danger! towards the end of the movie i began to hate her character.

another character breathes through an inhaler every 5 minutes, making one think that he is dependent on it, however during the eruption he loses his inhaler, but still carriers on breathing fine without it. i think this element of the story was pointless.

there is also a spirit woman that pops up onto the screen ever so often, this is completely unrealistic and stupid. any elements of truth that the story has is demolished by this character! seriously, during a volcanic eruption what person would seek out a primitive elderly woman for help? apparently the characters in this film!

also, the end of the movie is a joke. i was screaming at the television screen in fury when i saw it! if you don't want to be informed of the ending then i suggest that you stop reading this NOW! anyway, somehow a helicopter outruns a volcanic eruption on little fuel and safely lands. the characters then get out and dance around hugging each other in happiness. in reality, the eruption would probably extend to areas 100s of miles away from the volcano itself, so why they think they are safe after flying a relatively short distance i don't know! the characters even evacuated a village 15 miles away, so why they think they are safe i don't know! at the start of the movie one of the characters even states that the mount saint Helen's eruption had effects on the land 150 miles away! so why they think they have escaped this eruption when they are still so close to the volcano (i estimate 1 - 2 miles) astounds me!

unless you have nothing better to do (and i mean NOTHING!) then this film is definitely for you!

I usually say nothing if I can't say anything good; however, in this case, I make an exception. A very poor movie; tried and tested story (i.e. unoriginal), every volcanic cliche in the book, no eruptions of brilliance, highly questionable effects and a vast range of technical inconsistencies.

New Zealand never fails to impress by its scenery: pity about some of the actors! The most notable effects were those in the latter part of the movie when memebers of the cast were running to their airlift point (that was strangely devoid of any sign of ash, darkness or other tell-tale signs of volcanic activity): the said effects were strangely reminiscent of those used by Tim the Magician in Monty Python's Holy Gail. Even more surprising was the loss of the top half of the volcano prior to any major eruption occurring.

After this, even 'Volcano' looks polished, professional and credible!

I stood about 30 minutes of this before turning it off. The Irish driver who has to emergency stop twice en route to the volcano, nearly driving over a cliff the second time, who ignores all the danger signs but insists on saying he puts safety first, who has treated his Maori partner badly; Jason, the young boy who puts girls at risk with his adventure sports and allows them to wonder off in the dark; the female vulcanologist who can read all the signs... Men who are stupid and thoughtless, women who are clever and talented: this is a dull and witless male-basher, with nothing going for it. There's no terror in the film, but I've been watching a lots of 'female-friendly' broadcasting recently - daytime weekdays - and it looks like what's being dished out at these times is largely low quality, women are marvelous and men are shits programming. I guess that's what a lot of people thing 'equality' means.

Terror Peak is a nice little volcano movie about a new family that travels to New Zealand to find and fund a possible new tourist attraction. The husband is the tourist agent and the wife is of course an ex vulcanologist with a tragic history with volcanos. The teenage daughter is a typical teenage daughter. The kids get lost inside the now active volcano and have to be rescued. Some OK special effects for a low budget film. Dialog was a little too touchy feely, but it worked pretty well. Some OK action and not to many continuity breaks. Good suspense. It is not true to the science of vulcanology, but it wasn't meant to be.

Former WONDER WOMAN actress Lynda Carter finds herself down on her luck in this makeshift disaster movie about a family caught in and around an erupting volcano. The only thing this film has going for it is that it's a Kiwi production, so the New Zealand scenery looks fantastic and there are various Maori supporting characters in the story for novelty value. Other than that it's business as usual.

Most annoyingly, TERROR PEAK plays it safe throughout and none of the peril sequences convince because you know everybody's going to make it. The usual gamut of poor special effects and worse acting make this an entirely familiar outing for the genre, and even Carter's worthwhile efforts in the acting department can't help it. What hurts it the most is that Carter's screen daughter is given the most obnoxious personality ever and has such a prominent role in the proceedings; big mistake. Plus there's an odd timbre to the audio which makes all the voices sound too-loud and theatrical.

Worst film I have ever seen. The acting was dreadful and the filming was pretty rubbish for a 2003 movie.

The special effects consisted of 1 badly placed smoke machine I would never watch this film again.

I found this film so that even the most basic premise of a plot. Didn't see this is so called village at all and all of the acting was either over the top totally dramatic or completely unbelievable. Believe it or not when people cry they tend to have tears coming out of their eyes but no not in this film it just looks like a baby pandering to Mummy I really didn't enjoy this film. The acting was extremely poor the plot was extremely thin and honestly not much really made any sense. I get this is an old film but the effects are pretty poor as well. This isn't something that I think the whole family was enjoy to be honest with you what something else.

I've read all the negative reviews on this movie and frankly I'm I'm a bit aghast at the outpouring of "talented" reviewers. I watch movies because they're fiction and a bit of fun. If I want fact then I'll watch non-fiction.

This is a heart warming movie with a message about family; If you want to be picky and precise and decide if New Zealand has volcano's or whatever then don't bother, hit the back button now. If you want something that's light and just a feel good movie then continue on. Personally I get tired of reading the "expert" reviews and the cynics who have never actually "done" anything in there lives - whatever, it's a very entertaining movie that you can lose yourself in for a couple of hours. Parker Stevenson is a wonderful presence and there are glimpses of the "Craig Pomeroy" character he created in Baywatch years ago.

I feel sorry for those that can only write a review to bag the movie; If they're so good at judging these things, then go make one yourself and put it up for the judgment of the world - what? no takers?

The one thing setting this low budget disaster picture apart from myriads of others is its New Zealand setting ,which at least ensures we have some attractive scenery to look at when the main activity gets a little predictable .

Lynda Carter plays a vulcanologist who is in New Zealand with her second husband and daughter by a previous marriage .He is the owner of an adventure holiday company scouting the island for a possible new venture when a volcano long believed dormant erupts trapping the daughter and a young Kiwi guide below ground .Carter organises the overall rescue attempt while the husband -played by Parker Stevenson -tries to rescue the trapped couple .

Stirred into the brew are the owner of the local tourist lodge and his former partner ,a Maori -and these play a key role in the climax of the movie .There is also some rather half-baked mysticism in the form of a Maori prophetess and this does not really work too well

There is nothing new here -we even have the standard ploy of the authorities refusing to give creedence to warnings of impending catastrophe until it is almost too late ,and the bringing together of the family group in the face of danger

Budgetary restrictions are evident in the scenes of eruption and the acting is no more than adequate but it is a passable time waster

The New Zealand Scenery was beautiful. The Production values were bad, but probably not so bad, I'm sure the budget wasn't huge. No worse than Bay Watch, Xena, or other syndicated series. Former seventies sex symbols Carter and Stevenson headline as newlyweds.

Have not been able to finish this rubbish. No cliché is overlooked as Wonder Woman Lynda Carter (whining b*tch) is just as completely unconvincing but actually less irritating as Emily Barclay (spoiled b*tch) as her daughter.

This is really a waste of time, especially for those watching. And the special effects really do resemble those of Star Trek TOS, just less convincing.

Actually the story telling also resembles STTOS (especially that of the worst Season 3 episodes). The pacing is agonizingly slow, the plot twists are ridiculous and the characters are cardboard. But hey, STTOS was a sixties TV show and what's more: it was SCIENCE FICTION. The stories where supposed to be ridiculous and at least they were imaginative. "Terror peak" is not.

The title is well chosen, though. Its another kind of terror, but it surely peaks.