History Film / DantesPeak

* ClosedCircle: [[spoiler: Dante's Peak apparently has two ways out of town. The highway bridge collapses during the initial eruption earthquake, cutting off one exit, and the other exit, the bridge, is washed away with Paul when the dam bursts, forcing Harry to hide in the abandoned mine with the Wandos to escape the pyroclastic cloud, since there's no other way out of town to get to safety.]]

* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler: If Harry isn't right about the mountain blowing up, there's no movie.]]
** Also, [[spoiler: the radio cutting out as Harry tells Paul to evacuate, followed by Paul's immediate decision that he's not going to, all but confirms to the audience that Paul's not going to make it.]]

* HeroicBSOD: Harry has a brief one when [[spoiler: Marianne]] is killed.

* HollywoodScience: Although the film is known for being relatively [[ShownTheirWork scientifically sound]], there is a major inaccuracy. Volcanic ash should have all the main characters either dead or dying because it's incredibly fine and will get into their lungs and kill them. But seeing as this is just a disaster movie, this is excusable.
** spoiler: Sheriff Turner and the National Guard troops are shown wearing masks as a partial attempt of subversion, but Harry, the Wandos, and the USGS team never do.]]

** Paul as well. [[spoiler: While his call ends up wrong, everything he does is with the town's best interests in mind. He gives Harry ample time to prove himself, and when Harry does finally get the evidence before their departure, he immediately jumps into action, apologizes to Harry for doubting him, and stays behind to help however he can during the town's evacuation. He's the last character to leave Dante's Peak before the mountain blows, and only does so because there's nothing he can do to help Harry at that point.]]

* MyGreatestFailure: For Paul, [[spoiler: it's his decision to evacuate Mammoth Mountain, as the volcano didn't erupt, but the after effects ruined the town financially. It's the driving force behind why he refuses to put the town on alert early. While his call turns out to be wrong, he's justified in the sense that the town ''does'' have a major financial investor looking to make improvements that would immediately move on if he feared the town would be destroyed in an eruption. And while his call was wrong, Elliott, the investor, immediately demonstrates that Paul was right about the evacuation causing investor panic, as Elliott almost immediately decides to get out of Dodge during the town meeting discussion on the town's evacuation. Of course, by that point, people are far more worried about survival than the town's financial properity.]]
** For Harry, [[spoiler: It's Marianne's death. After the time jump in the beginning, we see that Harry still has a picture of her in his apartment, and it's clearly had an effect on his work, to the point that Paul initially holds off on Harry's suggestion to evacuate until he has conclusive proof. Rachel ends up breaking him out of his shell.]]

* DisappearedDad: The Wando children's father left Rachel and them. Ruth, his mother, holds Rachel responsible for that, and their relationship is adversarial as a result.

* HassleFreeHotwire: Harry can hotwire a pickup in about two seconds.

* HeroicBSOD: Harry has a brief one when Marianne is killed.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Paul reprimands Harry and overrules his warnings about Dante's Peak erupting. But the evidence at that point was inconclusive and he knows from past experience that the consequences of a false alarm can be disastrous for a small town. He proves that he wasn't simply being a {{jerkass}} about it when he receives stronger proof and immediately reverses his position (and apologizes to Harry).

** Paul as well.
* JumpScare: The thought of seeing a kid almost jumping into the very same hot spring where two people were [[CruelAndUnusualDeath boiled alive]] really hits home.

* MustHaveCaffeine: "Coffee! Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee! Cappu-'''cci'''-no!"

* ShownTheirWork: Although not perfect, it does get a lot more of the science right than usual, maybe 60% to 70% of it. That's a ''good'' percentage for Hollywood.

* DeathByMaterialism: When the volcano is erupting, a helicopter pilot is bribed by Elliot, the would-be investor (and would-be alternate suitor for Rachel) to get him out of the danger zone. Against his better judgment the pilot takes the money, but the volcanic ash in the air fills up his engines and every occupant dies in the crash.

** [[spoiler:You'd think a trained pilot would know better than to attempt to take-off in the middle of an ash storm. There's a good reason civil aviation grinds to a halt when there's a major volcanic eruption. Now he's the richest man in the cemetery.]]
** [[spoiler:Rachel's two kids steal her truck so they can drive up the mountain to rescue grandma. [[LampshadeHanging Even they realize that it's a dumb idea]]. Harry and Rachel save them before the lava flow can kill them, making this a subversion.]]
** [[spoiler:Grandmother Ruth refuses to listen to the warnings of a member of the ''USGS'' and stays on her mountainside home, and is still there long after it's started to erupt, to the point of actively denying that it's even erupting when it's raining ash all around her home. Subverted because Harry and Rachel then come to save Rachel's kids who came to convince stubborn Ruth to leave. Then double subverted when Ruth sacrifices her life to save Harry, Rachel, and the kids, which wouldn't have been necessary if she had left in the first place. It's even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by her in her last moments.]]
** [[spoiler:Harry's co-worker at the beginning of the film. Seriously, if she'd just left earlier, they'd have missed being in the path of the rock that killed her. Although, considering that lava bombs were unpredictable and falling everywhere, it may have been more shit luck than anything. But it still counts because she wanted to ''stay behind and record results while everything was going to hell''.]] Not wise. She'd also have survived if they'd stayed awhile. Leaving a sturdy structure in the middle of a natural disaster is almost certainly a recipe for death.

* ChekhovsVolcano: The town is at the foot of a dormant volcano, so course it's going to erupt.

* CoolCar: Harry's 1987 Chevy Suburban. That beast waded through a frickin river.

* AssholeVictim: The helicopter pilot.

* BareYourMidriff: Lauren Wando's outfit in the scene where they playing dominoes.

Unlike so many other disaster movies, ''Dante's Peak'' is noted for its relative scientific accuracy, although they did [[RuleOfCool embellish a little]] for the sake of the action. [[http://www.geol.umd.edu/pages/facilities/lmdr/dante/dante.htm Some geologists]] say they enjoy this movie because they get to see volcanologists in the field and some factual science along with their explosions.

* DeathBySex: [[spoiler:The couple that goes SkinnyDipping in the worst possible lake.]] Their deaths actually sets up the plot.

* HellishCopter: The helicopter pilot attempts to take off in the middle of the ash storm. The ash is ingested into the turbines, the engines seize, and the chopper crashes to the ground.

* StockScream: Paul lets out a Wilhelm Scream as he [[spoiler:falls off the van and into a volcanic mudflow.]]

* KarmicOverkill: The only major sin [[spoiler:Paul Dreyfuss committed was not immediately believing Harry 100% that the volcano was going to erupt at the very start. Not only did Paul have very legitimate reasons for waiting to push the panic button, he even has the team stay long after they normally would at any other investigation, waiting for something to happen, even beyond the time frame he initially allotted. When the seemingly inactive volcano finally does show legitimate proof that it is preparing to erupt, he immediately presses the panic button, does everything he needs to do to get the town prepped, apologizes to Harry, and orders the rest of the team to safety while offering to stay behind himself in the danger zone to try and help Harry off the mountain (the rest of the team stay too). Despite all of that, he dies from drowning after the military orders their evacuation and the bridge he's on collapses from under him. Definitely a heavy-handed death for someone that was nowhere near an outright villain, or a Mayor Vaughn.]]

United States Geological Survey Vulcanologist [[IgnoredExpert Dr. Harry Dalton]] (Creator/PierceBrosnan) is sent to the area to check out the volcano; after a few incidents involving par-boiled skinny dippers and some flirtation with Mayor Rachel Wando (Creator/LindaHamilton), he tries to send the town on alert. Unfortunately, he is [[WeNeedToGetProof shut down by his superior]] [[CommanderContrarian Dr. Paul Dreyfus]] (Charles Hallahan). The town [[TemptingFate happens]] to be second place in the 'most desirable small town to live in the US' list, and they don't want any "crazy" accusations scaring away the tourists, which the town's economy depends on. Besides, there's [[MillionToOneChance a million to one chance]] that it could go off. [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong What could happen?]]

* {{Expy}}: Dante's Peak is clearly one for Mount St. Helens, being a Northern Cascades-region dormant volcano.
** Ruth is undoubtedly one for [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_R._Truman Harry R. Truman]], the legendary mountain man of Mount St. Helens; both live in cabins by a lake which they refuse to leave no matter how clear it becomes the mountain is going to blow and [[spoiler: both are killed during the inevitable eruption]].

* AdvancingWallOfDoom: [[spoiler: The climactic eruption of Dante’s Peak sends a massive wave of pyroclastic flows into the town below. These avalanches are so powerful that the nearby forests are flattened, any buildings hit by it are demolished and vehicles are torn to pieces. By the end of the film, when the ash and smoke finally clear and we finally get a proper look at the devastation, the entire town and surrounding area has been razed to the ground.]]

* KarmicOverkill: The only major sin [[spoiler: Paul Dreyfuss committed was not immediately believing Harry 100% that the volcano was going to erupt at the very start. Not only did Paul have very legitimate reasons for waiting to push the panic button, he even has the team stay long after they normally would at any other investigation, waiting for something to happen, even beyond the time frame he initially allotted. When the seemingly inactive volcano finally does show legitimate proof that it is preparing to erupt, he immediately presses the panic button, does everything he needs to do to get the town prepped, apologizes to Harry, and orders the rest of the team to safety while offering to stay behind himself in the danger zone to try and help Harry off the mountain (The rest of the team stay too.) Despite all of that, he dies from drowning after the military orders their evacuation and the bridge he's on collapses from under him. Definitely a heavy-handed death for someone that was nowhere near an outright villain, or a Mayor Vaughn.]]

* SecondPlaceIsForLosers: Dante's Peak was recently named the second most desirable place to live in America. When Harry enquires which town came first, he gets an irate response from a local resident.

* DisasterDodgingDog: For some reason, the main characters' dog, Roughy, ends up trapped between two lava rivers (one which already developed a colder crust and another flowing across the only untouched strip of gravel). Unlike most examples of this trope (where the dog finds shelter on its own), this dog needed a [[ConvectionSchmonvection fire-proof car]] driven by Pierce Brosnan and a [[ContrivedCoincidence good timing]] to save its skin.