I saw this in the theater
yep, in SENSURROUND
on July 13, 1977, and I'll never forget it. Mostly because after we left the theater in Times Square and began to walk back to our hotel, all the lights in New York City went out, people started screaming and glass started breaking
but that's another story.
"Rollercoaster" has more suspense and less action than many of the 1970's genre disaster movies whether or not that's a bad thing depends on your point of view, I suppose. For me, I didn't find many aspects of it that really stood out, and 20 years or so after I'd seen it in New York and finally watched it again, I found I remembered almost none of it except for the crashing coasters. None of the plot and none of the characters had stuck with me oh, I remembered the kid with the bomb fetish, but not in any meaningful way. (Tim Bottoms looks like a cross between Ryan O'Neal and Ted Bundy, by the way.) Just last week my dad offered me the loan of his DVD, and I immediately said "oh, the blackout movie!", and he too remembered it well being trapped with two children in a pitch-dark, paralyzed metropolis filled with looters and muggers hundreds of miles from home appears to be seared into the man's memory, far worse than any "disaster" that could be presented on a movie screen. This third time through, my expectations were a bit lower and I found I enjoyed it more than I had the second time.
There are a couple of things that really date it can you imagine in this day and age finding a bomb on an amusement park ride, simply taking it off, and then deeming the ride safe and starting to load it with unsuspecting people? "Nah, it's fine, we found the bomb okay folks, step right up, no problem, you'll have a blast er, a great time." There's also a lot of smoking I don't object to it; I just notice it and get taken back to 1977 by it. I'd also have to say I found the end a bit abrupt and simplistic. That was IT? Not "The Poseidon Adventure" and not "The Towering Inferno", two superior period disaster flicks, but an interesting enough little movie.
"Rollercoaster" has more suspense and less action than many of the 1970's genre disaster movies whether or not that's a bad thing depends on your point of view, I suppose. For me, I didn't find many aspects of it that really stood out, and 20 years or so after I'd seen it in New York and finally watched it again, I found I remembered almost none of it except for the crashing coasters. None of the plot and none of the characters had stuck with me oh, I remembered the kid with the bomb fetish, but not in any meaningful way. (Tim Bottoms looks like a cross between Ryan O'Neal and Ted Bundy, by the way.) Just last week my dad offered me the loan of his DVD, and I immediately said "oh, the blackout movie!", and he too remembered it well being trapped with two children in a pitch-dark, paralyzed metropolis filled with looters and muggers hundreds of miles from home appears to be seared into the man's memory, far worse than any "disaster" that could be presented on a movie screen. This third time through, my expectations were a bit lower and I found I enjoyed it more than I had the second time.
There are a couple of things that really date it can you imagine in this day and age finding a bomb on an amusement park ride, simply taking it off, and then deeming the ride safe and starting to load it with unsuspecting people? "Nah, it's fine, we found the bomb okay folks, step right up, no problem, you'll have a blast er, a great time." There's also a lot of smoking I don't object to it; I just notice it and get taken back to 1977 by it. I'd also have to say I found the end a bit abrupt and simplistic. That was IT? Not "The Poseidon Adventure" and not "The Towering Inferno", two superior period disaster flicks, but an interesting enough little movie.