Yep!
Town more concerned about reputation and money etc. than safety of a threat to their town. A beast that is always in the background, but begins to attack and scare.
Paul's surname - Dreyfus! Almost spelled the same as Richard Dreyfuss, who played Hooper in Jaws.
Anything else?
Looks like there's another post mentioning these points too! Love the film, still looks amazing now.
shareExactly! From the greedy town council to the outsider hero, and everything in between!
shareIs Grandma supposed to be Quint?
shareNo, I think she's based on the real life Harry Truman (not the president, obviously) who was killed in the 1980 Mount St. Helens explosion because he wouldn't come down off the mountain. He told reporters "This area is heavily timbered, Spirit Lake is in between me and the mountain, and the mountain is a mile away, the mountain ain't gonna hurt me." The writers of Dante's Peak gave the last part of that statement, almost word for word to the grandmother.
shareWhen Harry tells the kids that they're going to make it out alive and go deep-sea fishing, I was like, "Aw shit, that's where they collide with the Jaws>/I> universe..."
But seriously, after surviving a volcano eruption, I would not want to tempt fate again with Mother Nature like that.