''MegaFault'' is a 2009 television disaster film by

The Asylum The Asylum is an American independent film company and distributor that focuses on producing low-budget, direct-to-video films. It is notorious for producing titles that capitalize on productions by major studios, often using film titles and sc ...

, directed by

David Michael Latt The Asylum is an American independent film company and distributor that focuses on producing low-budget, direct-to-video films. It is notorious for producing titles that capitalize on productions by major studios, often using film titles and sc ...

, starring

Brittany Murphy Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack (; November 10, 1977 – December 20, 2009) was an American actress and singer. Born in Atlanta, Murphy moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and pursued a career in acting. Her breakthrough role was as Tai Fras ...

Justin Hartley Justin Scott Hartley (born January 29, 1977) is an American actor. He has played Fox Crane on the NBC daytime soap opera ''Passions'' (2002–2006), Oliver Queen/Green Arrow on The CW television series ''Smallville'' (2006–2011), and Adam New ...

Eriq Lasalle Erik Ki La Salle (born July 23, 1962), professionally known as Eriq La Salle, is an American actor, director, writer and producer. La Salle is best known for his performance in the film ''Coming to America'' (1988) and especially as Dr. Peter ...

Tamala Jones Tamala Reneé Jones (born November 12, 1974) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in films such as ''Booty Call'', '' The Wood'', '' Kingdom Come'', '' The Brothers'', and ''What Men Want''. Her prominent television roles include ...

, Paul Logan and

Bruce Davison Bruce Allen Davison (born June 28, 1946) is an American actor and director. Davison is well known for his starring role as Willard Stiles in the cult horror film '' Willard'' (1971) and his Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning perfor ...

. It is one of the last films to feature Brittany Murphy, as she died some weeks after its premiere.

Plot

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...

, Charles "Boomer" Baxter is setting mountain-top depletion explosives. He detonates the

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

, and an unprecedented

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

devastates the area. A few hours later government seismologist Dr. Amy Lane arrives at the quake's

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

. She realizes that the quake has opened a deep fault running through the center of North America, ending at the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizonta ...

. Any further instability will cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis, devastating

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and other cities all around the Pacific Ocean, leading to the deaths of millions. Dr. Lane and Boomer chase just behind the expanding crack in the Earth's crust, developing a plan to stop the next quake. They decide to use a satellite orbiting above the continent which can trigger earthquakes. They fire it off when they reach the Grand Canyon, thinking that when the new fault hits the canyon it will be forced to turn south into the Gulf of Mexico. When the fault crosses with the canyon, they fire the satellite at the canyon but plan goes wrong. Instead of heading south, the fault travels north, towards the

Yellowstone Caldera The Yellowstone Caldera, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano, is a volcanic caldera and supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park in the Western United States. The caldera and most of the park are located in the northwest corn ...

. They realize that if the fault crosses the caldera it will explode, expelling several thousand tons of ash into the atmosphere, killing millions and causing a

Volcanic winter A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by volcanic ash and droplets of sulfuric acid and water obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, particularly explosiv ...

. They decide to set explosives to block the fault's path. Later, when it reaches the park, Boomer detonates the explosives, causing the fault to stop just short of the volcano, but costing Boomer his life. In the end, an orbiting shot of the United States shows a giant canyon that stretches miles-wide across most of the continent.

Cast

as Dr. Amy Lane *

Eriq La Salle Erik Ki La Salle (born July 23, 1962), professionally known as Eriq La Salle, is an American actor, director, writer and producer. La Salle is best known for his performance in the film ''Coming to America'' (1988) and especially as Dr. Pete ...

as Charles "Boomer" Baxter *

as Dan Lane *

as Dr. Mark Rhodes *

as Marlena Johnson * Paul Logan as Major Boyd Grayson * Dana Tomasko as Female Tech * Anya Benton as Radio Dispatcher * Jack P. Downing as General Banks * Sarah Garvey as Jerry Blair * A.J. Haut as Guard #1 * Sheila Heubach * Andrew Stephen Pratt as Officer Armstrong * Miranda Schwien as Miranda Lane * Jack Goldenberg as Sebastian

Production

The film is a Sci Fi original film and is

's final TV role as she died unexpectedly on December 20, 2009. It was all shot in the

Quad Cities The Quad Cities is a region of cities (originally four, see History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are t ...

' Davenport, Iowa, with Davenport mayor Bill Gluba making a cameo appearance.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack featured Victoria Mazze, Chris Ridenhour, and The Divine Madness.

Release

It premiered on October 10, 2009 on the

Syfy channel Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...

and was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

on November 24, 2009. It premiered on December 10, 2010 in the UK on

Sky Movies Premiere Sky Cinema is a British pay television, subscription film service owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky UK, Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and i ...

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 1436432, MegaFault
AgonyBooth.com recap of ''MegaFault''
2009 television films 2009 films 2009 direct-to-video films 2009 science fiction action films 2000s adventure films 2009 independent films The Asylum films American science fiction action films American disaster films Films about earthquakes Films set in the United States Films directed by David Michael Latt 2000s English-language films 2000s American films