The Stories that Made Me: Dante's Peak

So, I thought we'd step away for a bit from my childhood memories of television shows and into the world of movies.

Originally I was going to talk to you all about my favourite two disney films, but then I paused for a moment and thought - no - wait - actually before I do that - let's talk first about a film that really impacted my childhood.

A film that, for the longest time gave me terrifying nightmares as a little girl - nightmares about being swallowed up by a volcano. Nightmares of watching my family die from lava. I still have no recollection how I saw this film as a little girl, since my parents were very strict on what we watched. They would never had permitted me watching this - but - yet - somehow I did.

And oh - oh did it have a lasting impact on me. For a really long time I could only remember one scene in the movie. Just one scene. The scene of the grandmother's death, in which she saves' her family by jumping out of a boat into acidic water and all her skin burns off. I actually still can't watch it. I always fast forward it. It's to traumatic. I don't like the suffering.

Some years ago I was sitting at my computer and I just thought - oh - whatever was that movie that traumatized me as a little girl. So I started googling keywords related to that one scene and sure enough - I found it.

Dante's Peak.

It came out in 1997 and starred Pierce Brosnan as volcanologist Harry Dalton and Linda Hamilton as Rachel Wando, small town mayor, single mother and coffee shop owner.

Basically it's a disaster movie about a small town impacted by the eruption of a volcano, and focuses on the survival of Linda Hamilton's character, her children and how Pierce Brosnan's character aids them in getting out.

So besides giving me nightmares as a little girl - why am I saying this is a "story" that made me? Well, I'm pretty sure this movie is one of the reasons why I love disaster movies, or disaster stories. I have also remained fascinated by volcanoes, and even wrote one into my main series as a centrepiece setting. I believe my thinking, at the time, was that if I was so scared of them, why not face that fear by forcing my characters to experience what I was afraid of. Something funny like that am sure.

When I rewatched D