History NightmareFuel / Terminator2JudgmentDay

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjatJ36cJvM Sarah's nightmare]] (as seen in the picture to the right), which depicts a ''chillingly'' realistic portrayal of a nuclear holocaust. Even the crew was disturbed during filming.

** One set of subtitles outright calls it’s final noises “unearthly screams”. At that point, it feels less like a machine created on Earth, and more like a GODDAMN [[{{Franchise/Alien}} XENOMORPH]].

* When the T-800 is telling Sarah and John how Skynet comes to be. The entire scene is terrifying because of how it plays on your paranoia that machines can become self-aware and wipe out their creators. Plus [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Arnold]]'s monotone really does make it scarier, especially when he is telling how the future will turn out bad. We also find out that Skynet only decided all humans are a threat [[NiceJobBreakingItHero after its creators tried to destroy it in a panic because it became self-aware]], making the attempted genocide of humanity an extreme self-defense move.

** The T-1000 is sheer nightmare fuel in the way it pursues its prey. The first film's T-800 would break off if it saw too great a risk, and could back up and rethink and plan. The T-1000 can do that too, but it largely doesn't need to, because it's ''way more powerful'' than anything the 800 model packed. It causes chaos and destruction on its first chase after John, and then when the truck it's in is destroyed and its prey gets away, it slips away and tries another tactic. When it catches up to them in the hospital, things get straight-up ''scary''. The T-1000 works its way in, and it's all the T-800 and Sarah '''combined''' can do to keep it at bay. The elevator sequence comes to mind; it's ''right on top of them'', literally, they're trapped inside, it's inches away from killing them, and they are truly in the belly of the beast. It's a miracle they get away at all.

** This is even worse in context: T2 was made right after The UsefulNotes/ColdWar ended and takes place in 1995 with the RedScare still in people's minds. And it wasn't Skynet responsible for the nuclear holocaust; it was Russia, merely retaliating against the use of American weapons. ManipulativeBastard much?

** Not to mention Miles's ''son'''s situation: Having the only home he's ever known shot to pieces, being rushed from the room by his terrified mother, seeing his father injured, trying to shield him from an oncoming killer as he pleads for his father's life, and being shoved away for his own protection by his bleeding dad. Danny is ''eleven or twelve'', tops.

** Miles also has one of the most painfully believable death scenes in movie history, due to Joe Morton having suffered a collapsed lung a few years before and knowing ''exactly'' what it felt like to have to fight for every breath.
** As Sarah narrates the Terminator explained everything to Dyson of future events to come, nuclear armageddon and the war against the machines, you can overhear him say a nuclear winter sets in. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Dyson feels like throwing up]]. It doesn't matter if humanity eventually defeats Skynet - the planet is wrecked and the victors will either starve to death... or resort to cannibalism.
** There's a subtle, probably unintentional, layer of subtext to the attack on the Dyson house. Miles and his family are black, and all of the sudden, from out of nowhere, their house is getting shot up by someone with a suppressed assault rifle, and the attacker is revealed to be a blue-eyed blonde woman in paramilitary garb. Miles had to be wondering if a racist lunatic had targeted his family simply because of the color of their skin. It adds an uncomfortable layer of real horror to the scene, completely divorced from the cyborgs and time travel elements of the plot.

** Nobody seems to ever describe Sarah's nightmare (although to be fair, ''it is that creepy''), but for those who ''don't'' want to see the clip: Sarah is just standing behind a fence, looking at a park filled with happy people and children, one of which being herself in an alternate timeline where she lives a happy life. She beats at the fence in horror and fear, but [[AndIMustScream nothing comes out of her mouth]]. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Then the nuke is dropped]]. Cue (both) Sarah(s), ''[[WouldHurtAChild those kids]]'', and their parents horribly burning from the effects of the nuke as the aftershock blows through Los Angeles, turning everything into ash and dust, all while Sarah's body (that is gripping onto the fence) '''explodes into a skeleton'''. [[SarcasmMode Sweet dreams!]]

** Nobody seems to ever describe Sarah's nightmare (although to be fair, ''it is that creepy''), but for those who ''don't'' want to see the clip: Sarah is just standing behind a fence, looking at a park filled with happy people and children, one of which being herself in an alternate timeline where she lives a happy life. She beats at the fence in horror and fear, but [[AndIMustScream nothing comes out of her mouth]]. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Then the nuke is dropped]]. Cue Sarah, ''[[WouldHurtAChild those kids]]'', and their parents horribly burning from the effects of the nuke as the aftershock blows through Los Angeles, turning everything into ash and dust, all while Sarah's body (that is gripping onto the fence) '''explodes into a skeleton'''. [[SarcasmMode Sweet dreams!]]

** Nobody seems to ever describe Sarah's nightmare (although to be fair, ''it is that creepy''), but for those who ''don't'' want to see the clip: Sarah is just standing behind a fence, looking at a park filled with happy people and children. She beats at the fence in horror and fear, but [[AndIMustScream nothing comes out of her mouth]]. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Then the nuke is dropped]]. Cue Sarah, ''[[WouldHurtAChild those kids]]'', and their parents horribly burning from the effects of the nuke as the aftershock blows through Los Angeles, turning everything into ash and dust, all while Sarah's body (that is gripping onto the fence) '''explodes into a skeleton'''. [[SarcasmMode Sweet dreams!]]

* Sarah's care and that of the other patients is entrusted to a facility where the psychologists are too unobservant to notice that [[OrderliesAreCreeps one of their own staff enjoys]] ''[[{{Squick}} licking stuporous patients' faces]]''.

Just because ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' is an ActionisedSequel, doesn't mean that its predecessor's horror elements have been stripped away.