''MegaFault'' is a 2009 television

disaster film A disaster film or disaster movie is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters may include natural disasters, accidents, offensive (military), military/terrorism, terrorist att ...

The Asylum The Asylum is an American independent film production and distribution company based in Burbank, California, known for producing low-budget, direct-to-video films, in particular mockbusters, which capitalize on the popularity of major studio f ...

, directed by

David Michael Latt The Asylum is an American independent film production and distribution company based in Burbank, California, known for producing low-budget, direct-to-video films, in particular mockbusters, which capitalize on the popularity of major studio fi ...

, starring

Brittany Murphy Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack (; November 10, 1977 – December 20, 2009) was an American actress and singer, known for her work in both comedy and drama. Born in Atlanta, Murphy moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to pursue a career in a ...

Justin Hartley Justin Scott Hartley (born January 29, 1977) is an American actor, television producer, and director. He has played Fox Crane on the NBC daytime soap opera '' Passions'' (2002–2006), Oliver Queen on the WB/ CW television series ''Smallvill ...

Eriq Lasalle Erik Ki La Salle (born July 23, 1962), professionally known as Eriq La Salle, is an American actor, director, writer and producer. La Salle is known for his performance as Dr. Peter Benton in the NBC medical drama '' ER'' (1994–2002; 2008� ...

Tamala Jones Tamala Reneé Jones (born November 12, 1974) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in films such as '' Booty Call'', ''The Wood'', '' Kingdom Come'', '' The Brothers'', and '' What Men Want''. Her prominent television roles include ...

, Paul Logan and

Bruce Davison Bruce Allen Davison (born June 28, 1946) is an American actor who has appeared in more than 270 films, television and stage productions since his debut in 1968. His breakthrough role was as Willard Stiles in the 1971 cult horror film '' Willard' ...

. It is one of the last films to feature Brittany Murphy, as she died a few weeks after its premiere. On Italy's CPOP, the movie is listed as the sixth best Tsunami Disaster Film movie. However, the movie received a severely negative reception from many viewers, critics and fansites, declaring it one of, if not the worst Disaster Movies to have ever been released. With

Collider A collider is a type of particle accelerator that brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Compared to other particle accelerators in which the moving particles collide with a stationary matter target, collid ...

saying it is the third worst Disaster Film ever made.

Plot

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

, Charles "Boomer" Baxter is setting mountain-top depletion explosives. He detonates the

TNT Troponin T (shortened TnT or TropT) is a part of the troponin complex, which are proteins integral to the contraction of skeletal and heart muscles. They are expressed in skeletal and cardiac myocytes. Troponin T binds to tropomyosin and helps ...

, and an unprecedented

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

devastates the area. A few hours later government

seismologist Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

Dr. Amy Lane arrives at the quake's

epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...

. She realizes that the quake has opened a deep fault running through the center of North America, ending at the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental Fault (geology)#Strike-slip faults, right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly through the U.S. state of California. It forms part of the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Paci ...

. Any further instability will cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis, devastating

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and other cities all around the Pacific Ocean, leading to the deaths of millions. Dr. Lane and Boomer chase just behind the expanding crack in the Earth's crust, developing a plan to stop the next quake. They decide to use a satellite orbiting above the continent which can trigger earthquakes. They fire it off when they reach the Grand Canyon, thinking that when the new fault hits the canyon it will be forced to turn south into the Gulf of Mexico. When the fault crosses with the canyon, they fire the satellite at the canyon but plan goes wrong. Instead of heading south, the fault travels north, towards the

Yellowstone Caldera The Yellowstone Caldera, also known as the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field, is a Quaternary caldera complex and volcanic plateau spanning parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. It is driven by the Yellowstone hotspot and is largely within Yel ...

. They realize that if the fault crosses the caldera it will explode, expelling several thousand tons of ash into the atmosphere, killing millions and causing a

Volcanic winter A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, sulfur-rich, particularly explosive volcanic eru ...

. They decide to set explosives to block the fault's path. Later, when it reaches the park, Boomer detonates the explosives, causing the fault to stop just short of the volcano, but costing Boomer his life. In the end, an orbiting shot of the United States shows a giant canyon that stretches miles-wide across most of the continent.

Cast

as Dr. Amy Lane *

Eriq La Salle Erik Ki La Salle (born July 23, 1962), professionally known as Eriq La Salle, is an American actor, director, writer and producer. La Salle is known for his performance as Dr. Peter Benton in the NBC medical drama '' ER'' (1994–2002; 2008 ...

as Charles "Boomer" Baxter *

as Dan Lane *

as Dr. Mark Rhodes *

as Marlena Johnson * Paul Logan as Major Boyd Grayson * Dana Tomasko as Female Tech * Anya Benton as Radio Dispatcher * Jack P. Downing as General Banks * Sarah Garvey as Jerry Blair * A.J. Haut as Guard #1 * Sheila Heubach * Andrew Stephen Pratt as Officer Armstrong * Miranda Schwien as Miranda Lane * Jack Goldenberg as Sebastian

Production

The film is a Sci Fi original film and is

's final TV role as she died unexpectedly on December 20, 2009. It was all shot in the

Quad Cities The Quad Cities is a region of five cities (originally Tri-Cities, later four, see #History, History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport, Iowa, Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, Bettendorf (the fifth to be included) in southeaster ...

Davenport, Iowa Davenport ( ) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 cen ...

, with Davenport mayor Bill Gluba making a cameo appearance. The DVD includes a behind the scenes, cast and crew commentary, trailers and an extended version of the movie.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack featured Victoria Mazze, Chris Ridenhour, and The Divine Madness.

Release

It premiered on October 10, 2009 on the Syfy channel and was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

on November 24, 2009. It premiered on December 10, 2010 in the UK on Sky Movies Premiere. In the autumn of 2015, Italy's

Italia 2 Mediaset Italia Due, commonly known as Italia 2 (pronounced ''Italia Due'' ), is an Italian television channel, operated by Mediaset and owned by MFE - MediaForEurope. It was founded, and started to broadcast, in 2011. Italia 2 currently broadcas ...

broadcaster, would premiere the movie

Reception

Italy's Everyeye said that the film was a horrendous piece of Cinema, declaring that: "in the genre of Disaster Films, it has now become abbundantly clear that they are the most shameless products that mankind could ever savour to create. With horrendous acting, the shallowest of effects and a narrative that is as fine as an

expiration date An expiration date or expiry date is a previously determined date after which something should no longer be used, either by operation of law or by exceeding the anticipated shelf life for perishable goods. Expiration dates are applied to some f ...

". Proceeding to say that: "From Black River Mountain To Yellowstone's

Volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

, the movie tries to balance the little it has, but failing to change even a miniscule comma." Ending by saying: "Megafault is nothing more than a rehash of the rehashes, in a movie where the world is again in danger by strange inhuman forces, inside a severly expired horror formula and

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...

blander than a

multiverse The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...

." Rating it a 4 out of 10. Kevin Carr from 7M Pictures said that it: "manages to tell an ongoing story while throwing enough special effects at you to keep your eyes busy." Saying that the acting is also one of its best bits. However, he disliked the acting and the story's writing, giving it a 3/5 rating. ILoveDisasterMovies said that: "For what is obviously a low budget movie, Mega Fault refuses to bow down and be a chit-chat film and tries its best to be full action from start to finish. Yes, the script is pretty awful but thankfully there’s not too much of it. This combined with a generally decent standard of acting (and not too much over acting) makes it much easier to forgive Mega Fault’s shortcomings and concentrate on its strengths." Continuing by saying that the effects are as similar as every other film, "showing you that the movie is higher budget than what it actually is". Ending by saying: "I throughly enjoyed Mega Fault. It’s one of the best low budget disaster movies I’ve seen in a long time. It cuts out the shmucky plot, the love triangles and the padding and gives us 90 minutes of low budget thrils and spills. As a result, it gives decent bang for its buck and doesn’t feel quite so out of place compared to its big screen rivals. At its best, you can disengage your brain and enjoy and at its worst you can laugh at its silly science." Kevin Matthews from FlickFeast said that the acting is horrendously bad, the script is awful and the whole movie is a joke, saying that it's "Laughably entertaining in all the wrong ways".

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

has a 17% Popcornmeter, declaring it is a movie to watch as a joke.

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

has a rating of 3.1

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 1436432, MegaFault
AgonyBooth.com recap of ''MegaFault''
2009 television films 2009 films 2009 direct-to-video films 2009 science fiction action films 2000s adventure films 2009 independent films The Asylum films American science fiction action films American disaster films Films about earthquakes Films set in the United States Films directed by David Michael Latt 2000s English-language films 2000s American films English-language science fiction action films English-language independent films English-language adventure films