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                   Some of you are probably salivating at just the year this was made.  What is it about the 70's?  guys with mustaches smoking and driving gas guzzlers.  easy women.

               Anyway, this was a very good movie.  It is kind of sold as a disaster movie a la Airport, but it's more of a thriller/ evil genius with a bomb type of thing.  It's much... headier and  well made than you'd think.  It even has Richard Widmark, and the tension here is not unlike some of his noir classics.  When the going gets tough plot wise, there is some "cheating" in terms of suspension of disbelief, but relative to the era it 's  above par.  Susan Strasburg from "The Manitou" is in it!


           Some good walk on actors saying stuff like "hey man...what is that?"  and you never see them again.  and an awesome rock band playing at the park doing a song called"big boys" with a moody piano player who doesn't seem to play except at the end when he smashes his chair.

I'm a big fan of this film.  It was on Encore constantly in the 80s when the channel first popped up.  The guys behind the story are the same guys who gave the world Lt Columbo.  This was from my favorite phase of George Segal's career.  His barb trading with Widmark is, for me, second only to Michael Caine's scenery chewing competition with Widmark in THE SWARM.

For any fan of 70s movies, it's hard not to like this film.  It's got an exasperated Harry Guardino, a pre-pubescent Helen Hunt and even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by cinema giant Steve Guttenberg.  :thumbup:

I lucked out and snagged it on DVD a short time ago, along with another great Segal flick, Roger Corman's THE ST VALENTINES DAY MASSACRE.

That 'Magic Carousel' theme is almost impossible to get out of your head after watching, am I right? (It has a disturbing similarity to the level-completed music from the old Commodore 64 game Forbidden Forest to boot!)

It took a long time, but I was finally able to get a hold of Lalo Schifrin's gloriously '70s score.

Wasn't this originally released in 'SenseSurround'?

I like Michael Weldon's description of this techological marvel: It felt and sounded something like a giant vacuum cleaner being turned on.

I am also a proud owner of this DVD.  When it was originally released in theaters, it was in Sensurround (just like EARTHQUAKE and MIDWAY), but many (probably most) theaters opted to show it without the Sensurround system.  The theater I saw it in did not show it in Sensurround.

There were news reports about system cracking the walls and breaking windows in some theaters. I did see MIDWAY in SenseSurround. I remember it being really loud and making my eardrums feel like they were going to pop.

Of course in these days of thin-walled multiplexes heaven help you if you go see a quiet little film next to the theater showing the latest Michael Bay film.

Saw ROLLERCOASTER in Sensurround in its original incarnation in the theatre with my disaster lovin' friend who insisted upon it (he had also made me see EARTHQUAKE in Sensurround more than thrice).  Better than I expected but not as good as I thought it could have been, I do remember ROLLERCOASTER with George Segal and Timothy Bottoms vividly.  However, it has been 30 years and I haven't seen it since!! 

Oh, man --
They made this thing not so far away from where I grew up in Virginia -- There was this great old wooden roller-coaster that was going to be demolished at some amusement park near Virginia Beach -- Was it called Ocean View?  I think it was --
Anyway, the filmmakers got wind of it, and offered the local chamber of commerce to demolish it for free --
I bring this incident up whenever I talk to people who think that 9/11 was a "controlled demolition" job.  People, I was there:  They tried, not once, not twice, not thrice, but FOUR times to bring down this rickety old wooden roller coaster with gelegnite and all the modern blow-uppery that was available in 1976, and they couldn't do it!  And this is quite common in commercial demolition.  You'd see a big ball o' flame and black smoke & very impressive BOOOOOMMMBAAAA  . . . and nothing would happen!  Sorta makes the whole "World Trade Center Got Got in One Go!!" theory seem a bit . . . oh, I dunno, CRAZY?!!?
Anyway, I rode that coaster every other summer from the time I was 8 until I was about 14, and too "cool" for family vacations.
peter old/denny older

There was really only one disaster scene and that was the initial sabotage at the first park.  It was awesome though.  hahaha  "AAIIIGH!"

I saw Midway in sense surround. It helped that movie out a lot because quiet frankly,  it was a little soap operaish.


Helen Hunt was also in Roller Coaster as George Segal's daughter.

A surprisingly good film. I was surprised how much I liked it, when I saw it on television. And I believe the villain gets a nice comeuppsance at the end.