Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23725 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-10-27
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Customer Reviews

Sens-surround Feature Did Not Work on Home Version!!
YES, I saw this feature in the theatre as a young fella and like a handful of other mid/late 70's (Earthquake,Midway) it was hyped as being in "Sens-surround" which I remember as being some VERY BIG speakers that made the floor of the theater vibrate during the scenes with the rollercoasters. In hindsight, it was a pretty dopey effect, but it was novel at the time and worth noting.
The film itself is a decently paced thriller. Segal playing a saftey inspector/detective trying to find the cuckoo who's been bombing rollercoasters and blackmailing the amusement park bigwigs in the middle of peak season. Of course, upper management won't do the sensible thing and shut the parks down, so Segal must work extra hard while trying to nab the offending bomber. Segal also tries to quit smoking, which is not a good thing to quit when you are stressing as he definitely is ( and you may be too while watching the defuse scenes)
Great early appearances of Craig Wassam and Helen Hunt as well as odd L.A rockers Sparks-a band led by the Kael brothers, Hitler look-alike pianist and a pretty boy vocalist.

Jaws in an Amusement Park?
I vividly remember seeing this movie in the theater as a kid -- it was summer and a few years after Jaws. The gimmick was "Senssurround!" but we really believed it -- it did seem like the theater shook during some of the rollercoaster scenes.

Watching it now, many years later, it holds up well as a Jaws-inspired 70s film. In the summer people love to go to the beach....or to an amusement park. Imagine Timothy Bottoms as the shark -- the director surely does -- as he swims around the amusement park, while Lalo Schiffrin provides a Jaws-like menacing score, before Bottoms slowly and methodically strikes again.

George Segal makes a decent Brody, though it's impossible to look at his performance now and not think it's a bit camp. You have the same crew of town elders like you do in Jaws, seeking to suppress and downplay the threat due to business concerns. And you have the same summer kids, in their 70s outfits and feathered hair, enjoying what should be innocent fun...until Bottoms strikes again.

As a reviewer mentioned, there is a short clip of Sparks performing at Magic Mountain in the final showdown, which is a plus. And a very cute and very young Helen Hunt.

In all this is an enjoyable, slightly campy, view down memory lane, when all it took to scare you was a land shark and some big speakers.

rollarcoaster
An excellant suspense film which hops from several amusement parks across the country.This film is a good film to watch when there is nothing on cable.