User reviews

Another cash-in on a potential blockbuster by none other than The Asylum, of course. There is no doubt about that "Apocalypse Pompeii" has seen the light of day because of the forthcoming "Pompeii" movie, just as what The Asylum did when "Pacific Rim" was about to come out, then they put out "Atlantic Rim", or the "Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies" just prior to "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer" came out.

Nevertheless, then I will say that "Apocalypse Pompeii" is actually not as bad as to be expected, and The Asylum did manage to put together a decent enough movie here. Sure, this is not a groundbreaking innovation in movie history, but still, it is enjoyable to watch - despite its predictability and cliché stereotypical built up.

The story is about an American family who has moved to Italy, and while the father Jeff (played by Adrian Paul) has to go to an important meeting, then his wife Lynne (played by Jhey Castles) and daughter Mykaela (played by Georgina Beedle) go to the ruins of Pompeii. A natural disaster takes place, causing Mount Vesuvio to erupt and the tourists trapped in Pompeii struggle to stay alive. Acting against the Italian government and American army, Jeff and his band of soldiers steal a helicopter to go to Pompeii to rescue his wife and daughter.

That was basically the entire storyline summarized in a few lines. The story is so predictable and cliché that it just drips with stereotypical ooze. There are no surprises here, and you see everything coming a mile away.

The acting in the movie was adequate for a movie of this caliber.

All in all, then "Apocalypse Pompeii" is good enough entertainment for a single viewing if you have nothing better at hand to watch or nothing better to do.

Apocalypse Pompeii is a production of The Asylum—a film production company known for making so-called 'mockbusters'. These mockbusters are films that are released to coincide with the release of big studio epics in order to capitalize on the hubbub surrounding the big-budget movies. They feature titles that are VERY similar to the bigger films—and the movie poster for Apocalypse Pompeii looks an awful lot like that of the upcoming Pompeii! A few other examples of their films are Atlantic Rim, Death Racers, American Battleship, Snakes on a Train…and many others. They also are the same folks who have given us the Sharknado franchise. Because of this, it's obvious the film will have a low budget and very modest pretensions—and most likely will be a film you'll see coming direct to DVD. Despite all this, it is surprising to see that the film actually was shot, in part, in Pompeii as well as…Bulgaria?! Also, the plot is radically different from Pompeii—with the big budget film being set in ancient times and the mockbuster being set in the present.

The film begins with a prologue showing some Hispanic family fleeing in terror from a volcano eruption. Oddly, however, this has almost nothing to do with the film—a film set on the other side of the globe in Italy! After the credits roll, you see a family in Naples. The father has a business meeting and he's brought his wife and teenage daughter with him. While he's at his big meeting, the rest of the family goes to an outing to nearby Pompeii—site of a huge mega-explosion that killed thousands in 79 A.D.. Not surprisingly, soon after the pair arrives at Pompeii, the mountain explodes—and folks run for cover. Fortunately for those who teamed up with the wife and daughter is the fact that the teen knows MORE about volcanoes and how to survive them than a team of volcanologist!! This all-knowing girl, again and again, knows EXACTLY what to do and helps this group survive long enough for the father to become a Rambo-like action hero! The dad (of course) is some sort of ex-military genius and he instantly assembles a team to help him steal a helicopter from a military base (!!) and head to Pompeii to look for his family. If it sounds like the plot is stupid and filled with significant plot problems, then you are pretty much right on the mark!

So is the film 100% bad? No. As I mentioned above, it does have some actual footage of Pompeii. It also keeps your interest, as the pace and music work fairly well and SOME of the acting is competent. Unfortunately, the plot is stupid and the characters are shallow—often coming off as caricatures. I wouldn't rush out to buy a copy or rent the film. Instead, I'd wait until it most likely shows up on the SyFy Channel and watch it if you have absolutely nothing else to do (and that includes washing your hair, checking your air conditioner filters and breathing).

I just created an account to make sure no one else watches this movie. Anyone involved in the creation of this failtrocity, from the director to the catering company, should feel ashamed. I'm ashamed that I've watched the whole thing. The "special effects" are awful, the acting is horrendous, the story plot is inexistent, overall I have absolutely nothing good to say about this movie. After the movie I had to look at my calendar to make sure we were still in 2014. With all the technologies available nowadays, I was hoping that at least the lava and the explosions would somewhat look real and cool, but this was not the case at all. Poking your eyes with a fork for 86 minutes will bring you greater entertainment than watching this movie. Cheers,

Oh My God I have seen some bad films in my 65 years of life, but this has to be the worst I have ever encountered. The acting was so wooden and the dialogue is brain damaging indeed. It is like been written by a ten year old kid and then directed by his ten year old friend. Why oh why spend money on making such crap I will never know. It feels like the two ten year olds woke up one morning and said let's make a disaster movie. No joke folks. The directors name is now embedded in my mind and I will for a while avoid anything directed by him. I feel like grabbing the writers, directors and producer by the neck and shaking them. Please please please do not bother with this crap. I actually forced myself to watch the first 25 minutes thinking that it cannot get any worse and it has to improve. Guess what? It got steadily worse until my brain screamed at me to stop watching.

Imagine a group of strangers involved in an apocalyptic event with no story and meaning behind their meeting. No development of the characters at all. Imagine volcano fumes that on one hand kill by-passers on the spot, but on the other hand are stopped by a glass&lead door. Imagine parents who take their daughter to a bus-trip to a volcano mountain, that is obviously waking up. Imagine all sorts of ridiculous things, e.g. a man going to a sort of job interview, coincidentally having with him 2 satellite telephones... Last but not least, imagine few busty slim cute chicks running away from a disastrous hot gases etc. And that would be the summon of evil of this movie :)

I liked the movie about as much as I liked any Asylum movie and that is to say pretty well. You have to know what you are getting into here with these kinds of movies and not have your expectations set so high is basically my opinion. Sure we can go through and ask why didn't they do this and why didn't they do that and why were the special effects worse than many video games and why was did the acting inspire me to think that maybe I could be an actor too if that's all it takes but you just have to set all that aside when you sit down to watch these movies and just take pleasure in them for what they are, a mildly entertaining distraction but one that like a book challenges you to use your own imagination a bit more than your Hollywood blockbusters that allow you to just sit back and have yourself fully immersed in the experience with little to no effort required on your part. Anyway, my advice is to substantially lower your expectations and then you will enjoy your movie much more. It's what I do and I've yet to be disappointed.

Seriously... the acting in this pile is so wooden I half expected them to get naked and start going at it at any time.

Or, actually, that is an insult to porn stars, as even they act better.

Effects look like something from a 1960s movie, plot is a joke, script is a roll of toilet paper (the used kind).

I guess you could sit down and watch it if you have nothing better to do with your time. Even though pretty much ANYTHING is better.

Your best bet would be to drink a LOT before sitting down if you want to last more than 5 minutes. Maybe then it passes into "so bad it's funny" territory.

This is a very low budget spaghetti movie, with the cheapest and worst special effects I have ever seen... the 30s called their special effects back ;)

Things are falling throughout the city, however the buildings and walls are not damaged in process. The English is lousy, the action is dull, the actors are boring, oh the horror. Action is slow, is there a plot line?

Couldn't be bored to watch more than 10 minutes.

Is this a movie, or some torture? Don't watch it, a waste of time. Words can not really describe how bad it is. Find some other movie.

Seriously. If you set out to make the worst movie ever you could not do a better job than this. Even the workman-like acting and confusing accent of Adrian Paul, the commanding presence of John Rhys-Davies and the awesome bust of the lovely Georgina Beedle could not save this travesty of a movie. Truly one of the most appalling things ever committed to film. There are so many things wrong with it that it boggles the mind. It makes a Troma film seem positively Shakespearean. Where to start? The writing is probably the worst part of this, the story horrible, the "science" idiotic and the dialogue just plain stupid,followed by the wretched "sets." No doubt hundreds of dollars were spent on sets and special effects. I honestly felt embarrassed for the producers of this travesty, it was so bad. Stay away.

It's silly so many people took it so seriously. I saw the cover and knew what I was getting into cuz I have a brain. Watched it with my teenage daughter and we giggled throughout the entire thing.

How can you not laugh at those meteors? The special effects were top notch. The lava flowing through the city was wonderfully done. I give this movie a ten out of ten.

Carlo is even a real actor. I recognize him from lord of the rings. His acting was the best out of all of them yay. Go Carlo.

I recommend everyone watch this movie if you want to laugh. I laughed the whole time. Character limit finally.

It's an asylum movie so you can't expect that much. However, if you overlook the mistakes and just focus on the theme it can be a fun movie. As most of their films are.

I don't even know what to say. I'll usually give anything a go but this is just... just... I just can't even put it into words. Like a high school film assignment. Calling this a B-grade movie would be an insult to B-grade movies.

Now I know that The Asylum is known for churning out B movies But this pile of crap will go down in the history books as the worst movie ever made. The Plot Mother Father Daughter are in Italy as the father has a meeting,The reason for this meeting I could not tell you or I was so board by the first few minutes I could have missed it. Also watch out for the Briefcase in the first 10 minutes that gave me a good laugh (you will see why if you watch it) So Mother and Daughter take a tour bus to Pompeii Volcano erupts they get trapped,Now why the tour guide did not take them back to the bus when this happened is a mystery only the Director knows the answer. Now the Father seeing the eruption from a window quickly grabs his Briefcase and goes out to rescue them.

Do yourselves a favor watch Plan 9 From Outer Space instead

-100 out of 10

First of all, I gave 1 out of 10 because I don't have the option of giving a rating below 0. Words like cheap trash, time wasting, mind scrambler spring to mind! I am ready to sue somebody for my precious 30 minutes of life wasted away on this...this...I'm speechless. I am deeply disappointed with me for not letting it go after the trailer! In my 4 years of using IMDb I have never felt compelled to make an account. I had to now, in order to warn people about this movie. Do not watch it! Warn your friends. Protect your children!! No plot, no special effects, no acting, no directing, just a beautiful scenery badly used. Sir David Attenborough would cry his eyes out. Ben Demaree, please, I beg of you, learn to brew coffee or make beagles or something, and pick up another career. It's really not to late for you do do something with your life! This...this...this will just not work!

Asylum should hang their heads in shame - what a disaster of a movie! So much wrong with this, it would be difficult to know where to start. As someone pointed out, if you've ever been to Pompeii you know what it's like - you can't drive up in a coach, hop off and walk straight into the ruins - there's a bus and coach park, and a ticket office where you have to buy entry tickets. At one point, the characters walk past 2 bodies (remains of the victims of the 79 AD eruption) - wrong again, the bodies are kept in a secure location, not just left in the street. After the first tremors, the cast are seen walking close to a wide expanse of fields (nothing like that near Pompeii). Despite Vesuvius erupting, there are frequent scenes with blue skies, no darkening of the skies, smoke or anything in the air. There's no large museum like building in Pompeii (it's in Naples), a mud flow doesn't flow that fast and the lava flow? Engulfs the building and chases the cast up to the roof of a large building - the entire area around would be under feet of lava - give me a break!! And a pyroclastic flow flattens everything in its path (see Dante's Peak) but yet the cast survive and it's announced towards the end that some of Pompeii still stands. Do yourself a favour and avoid this at all costs!!

I must say that I kind of like these unapologetic bad movies. It has everything a B movie should have. Bad script, bad acting, bad special effects, senseless plot. Everything is so bad that I couldn't even blink waiting to see what they would come up next, which ultimately made it very entertaining. This is actual dialog from the movie: -if the vesuvius erupts again it will be much worse than the last time.

-really? How bad?

-does krakatoa ring a bell?

That it is from The Asylum is a big indicator of what to expect, though they've had a few tolerable exceptions. Apocalypse Pompeii is not quite bad enough to be down there with their bottom-of-the-barrel movies but it is very, very close. Not even the Bulgarian/Naples scenery or John Rhys Davies- who usually is one of the better assets of bad movies- can save it. The movie is edited far too choppily and looks far too drab for us to appreciate the scenery(a shame seeing as there is some beautiful scenery in Bulgaria and Naples). And while Davies is the least bad actor in the cast, he really does do his best, he is sadly wasted with very clumsy dialogue and an insignificant character. When the movie wastes the best and the most well-known actor, that tells you all you know about how truly horrendous the acting is. Adrian Paul in particular is unbearably wooden, carrying Apocalypse Pompeii who no charisma or spark at all. Apocalypse Pompeii joins the already large group of Asylum movies that contains attractive women whose best acting they can come up with is acting vapid. There have been worse special effects, however that's saying very little as the special effects here are dire being poorly textured and very artificial-looking. The dialogue is awkward-sounding and unforgivably dumb, the "snappy" banter making the toes curl. Any attempts at drama is taken to melodramatic, ham-fisted and mawkishly-sentimental-to-giving-you-a-cavity levels. The story is far too ridiculous to be taken seriously and is far too dull to be entertained or engaged with it. The severe lack of thrills, suspense, fun and tension, as well as nobody seeming indifferent to what's happening, makes the atmosphere completely unconvincing to non-existence, an example of a disaster movie with absolutely nothing to it. We don't give a damn about any of the characters either and the director is as flat as a badly made pancake. In conclusion, for a disaster movie Apocalypse Pompeii is an epic disaster with no redeeming values, anything potentially redeeming such as the scenery and a dependable actor like John Rhys-Davies are gone to waste(which is unforgivable). 1/10 Bethany Cox

Giving it 1 star because ZERO stars is not available. Not worth the electricity I used to put it on my big screen.

Since I've said all I need to say, but this review requires 10 lines minimum, I'm going to paste what tiprout9 said so well:

"I just created an account to make sure no one else watches this movie. Anyone involved in the creation of this failtrocity, from the director to the catering company, should feel ashamed. I'm ashamed that I've watched the whole thing. The "special effects" are awful, the acting is horrendous, the story plot is inexistent, overall I have absolutely nothing good to say about this movie. After the movie I had to look at my calendar to make sure we were still in 2014. With all the technologies available nowadays, I was hoping that at least the lava and the explosions would somewhat look real and cool, but this was not the case at all. Poking your eyes with a fork for 86 minutes will bring you greater entertainment than watching this movie. Cheers!"

The only other thing I might add, is that's the first time I ever saw hot lava travel UP a flight of stairs. Now that's somethin!

This "movie", Ladies and Gentlemen, is the reason IMDb should have a "Zero" rating. We, The Good People of the World, must be able to exercise our Roger Ebert given right to vote "Zero Stars" for a load of crap like Apocalypse Pompeii.

• Writing that is worse than, well anything I can think of - Worse acting than a Wayan brothers movie - Worse directing than Michael Bay (Where are you Alan Smithee?) - Laughable special effects - Etc - Etc - Etc

This is a movie so bad that you should not even download it from (insert your favorite torrent site here)

Well this movie is nowhere as bad as some movies I have seen over the years, even some made by major studios. This was a director's first feature and as so he has a lot to learn about directing people.

The major actors have done a load of work and I'm sure with better directors they have done well. Overall I thought the Visual Effects were exceptionally good. If this movie has been made in the 1950 s it would have been thought of as a lot better.

I actually lived through the Mt St Helens eruption in the early 80s and the fear that the actors showed in this movie was exactly similar to what happened at Mt St Helen's. I had to drive 100 miles through falling ash and the next day my house was surrounded by 3feet of ash. The car was ruined.

People have to really experience an eruption to know what it is really like. I have been through 3 different eruptions and survived. No lava was involved in the ones intent through.

Yea it may not deserve this high of a rating but in all reality it was fun to watch. Not at all believable but most movies are not. I give these b-rated movies a chance and this one kept me watching till the end.