Krakatoa: East of Java (1969)
Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski

Film Review

Whilst it faces some pretty stiff competition in a very crowded field Krakatoa: East of Java probably rates as the most dismal disaster movie of them all.  The film doubtless has its supporters, those who are able to defend its multiple weaknesses and argue that it has some merits (okay so the effects are pretty impressive but since when have decent effects made a truly great film?), but it really is a film whose raison d'être is pretty slim, if not totally beyond the perception threshold of most mere mortals.  The film's problems undoubtedly stem from its troubled production, which saw multiple rewrites of its script and consequently no clear vision as to what the film was supposed to be about or who it was targeted at.  The eruption of Krakota ends up being one, albeit pretty cataclysmic, incident in an already over-convoluted plot that abounds with soap-style digressions and implausible, poorly developed characters.  It's not only a disaster movie, it's a complete disaster of a movie.

What could have been one of Cinerama Productions' most spectacular films ended up being the one that effectively killed the company off, although the critical onslaught the film attracted probably had more to do with that than its intrinsic failings.  A film that makes such an elementary error as to mistake the location of the titular volcano (Krakatoa is in fact sited to the west of Java) is unlikely to win many awards for credibility, but what makes it so unbearable is the complete lack of discipline and focus that is so clearly in evidence throughout the film.  Just when you are happily wrong-footed into thinking it's a family-friendly musical it presents us with a lurid striptease sequence and a pretty authentic visualisation of a state of drugs-induced delirium.  Muddled, tacky, lumbering and seriously overlong, Krakatoa: East of Java is a disaster of a film you will never want to experience more than once, and even then you may end up regretting doing so for the rest of your life.

Film Synopsis

In 1883, Captain Chris Hanson leads a deep sea diving expedition with the objective of recovering a fortune in pearls from a sunken ship off the coast of the volcanic island of Krakatoa.  Right from the start, the expeditions appears to be cursed but things look up when the sunken ship and its priceless cargo are discovered.  Unfortunately, at this precise moment the volcano decides to blow its top...