DVD Review: Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens: Explosive Evidence for Catastrophe Length: 58 minutes Publisher: Institute for Creation Research

Source: I own the VHS, but this film is also on DVD.

DVD Description, modified from VHS cover:
Geologist Steve Austin, Ph.D. shares the exciting results of his explorations on Mount St. Helens and its adjacent Spirit Lake. Relive the 1980s eruption, view the geological structures that formed rapidly (strata, canyons, log deposits, etc.), and apply this information to better understand the origins of these features in other places (Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, coal deposits, etc.). And, finally, see how this information relates to our understanding of Biblical events, like Noah's Flood.


Review:
Mount St. Helens is a Christian science film about the 1980s Mount St. Helens eruption. Geologist Steve Austin, Ph.D., described the stages of the eruption and its aftermath. While there was video of him doing a live presentation to people in an auditorium, it was mixed with a large number of still pictures taken at Mount St. Helens, video overflights of the area, and video taken of Dr. Austin doing research at Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake. So it's not a "talking head" lecture film.

Dr. Austen explained how geological features that geologists thought had to take long periods of time to form were seen and documented here forming rapidly in a few hours to a few days. Dr. Austen then explained how seeing this helped him better understand how canyons could rapidly form through solid stone, how coal could be formed using a Flood model, how petrified trees at various levels on a hill could have occurred from one event, and how the fine layering of strata in stone could form rapidly.

A 13-year-old girl watched the movie with me. It was late at night and she was tired, but the movie kept her interest the whole time and got a few "oh, wow!" and "huh!" comments from her. She's seen some books and movies that talk about the problems with biological evolution, and she quickly concluded that biological evolution couldn't be true. However, she didn't believe the earth really could be only about 6,000 years old until after watching this movie. Afterward, she made some comments about how she couldn't understand why her public school history and science teachers were teaching long ages for history and that things took millions of years to develop if these things really could happen quickly.

Overall, I'd highly recommend this film to all Christians ages 10 on up. It probably would also be an effective film to show non-Christians on the topic.


If you've watched this DVD, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the DVD in the comments.