Uploaded September 2012 | Updated September 2026, 16 hours ago

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Official Home Video Trailer for Dante's Peak (1997)

Dante's Peak is a 1997 disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton and Charles Hallahan. The film portrays the effect of a volcano erupting near a small town in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The film is loosely based on the real life volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. It was released a few months before Volcano and eventually received wider success. It has also been recognized for being more scientifically accurate than Volcano, despite gaining lower ratings. Dante's Peak was also one of Charles Hallahan's last movie roles (the other being The Pest, which came out the same week) before he died of a heart attack nine months after its release.

Dr. Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) is a volcanologist for the USGS; after losing his girlfriend to falling debris while trying to evacuate from a volcanic eruption in Colombia four years prior, Harry has become more cautious around the phenomena.

Harry is sent to the fictional town of Dante's Peak in Washington state, in the shadow of a dormant volcano along the Cascade Mountains, to investigate possible seismic activity. Harry finds the town celebrating as a national magazine has named it as the second most desirable small town to live in. Harry meets the mayor, Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton) and her children Graham (Jeremy Foley) and Lauren (Jamie Renée Smith). Rachel offers to drive Harry to the local hot springs higher on the mountain near where her estranged ex-mother in-law, Ruth (Elizabeth Hoffman) lives, bringing the children along to let them swim in the springs. When they arrive, Harry starts noticing signs of excessive heat, and stops the children from entering the springs just as they discover the bodies of two unfortunate backpackers that were boiled alive by the excessive heat.

Harry contacts the USGS to warn them about possible activity, while trying to convince the town to be alert. His supervisor, Dr. Paul Dreyfus (Charles Hallahan), and several technicians arrive. Though Paul argues about being overly cautious, he and Harry and the team start to survey the mountain. After two weeks, Paul is convinced there is no activity, and orders the team, including Harry, to leave the next day. Harry, who has grown closer to Rachel over the period, enjoys one last meal with her, but during this, Lauren discovers that the tap water has turned brown. Harry and Rachel check the town's water supply, finding it to be contaminated by sulfur dioxide, which Harry insists indicates the onset of an eruption. As small earthquakes occur and temperatures rise, Harry convinces Paul that the eruption is real, and they start to prepare the town for evacuation. After earthquakes damage the main bridges out of town, the USGS team helps to conduct an orderly evacuation while waiting for the National Guard to arrive.

Rachel finds that Graham and Lauren have tried to drive up the mountain to get Ruth, and she and Harry follow as the mountain starts erupting ash. They soon unite with Ruth and the children as lava starts flowing down the mountain, blocking their path back to town. They are forced to cross a nearby lake in a rowboat to escape the lava. The lake water is now highly acidic and eats away at the boat and its propeller falls off. Realising the boat will not make it to shore, Ruth sacrifices herself by climbing out and pushing the boat to the other side, and soon dies. They find a vehicle at a nearby ranger station and quickly flee back down the mountain as more lava spews forth.

With the residents evacuated, the USGS team is escorted out of town by the National Guard, but the volcanic heat has melted ice and snow and made a lahar under the last bridge out of town. While the rest of the team makes it safely across, Paul is caught in a vehicle and washed away as the lahar strips the bridge from its foundation. Harry, Rachel, and the children find their way out of town completely cut off, but Harry remembers that Graham had mentioned an abandoned mine that should be safe. He stops by the abandoned USGS base to get an E.L.F. (Extreme Low Frequency), a tracking device designed by NASA. They then race ahead of the pyroclastic cloud that wipes out much of the town and safely reach the mineshafts, the tunnel collapsing behind them. Graham leads them to an area where he has cached food, water, and other supplies; Harry returns to the truck to retrieve the E.L.F. but is nearly crushed by the collapsed roof. He manages to activate E.L.F., whose signal the USGS team picks up a few days later. Rachel and her children are safely rescued, and Harry is eventually found alive, and pulled to safely. He and Rachel kiss, and the four of them are evacuated by helicopter, with Harry holding to his promise of taking them fishing somewhere safe.

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