Nightmare Fuel / Falling Down

• The story Foster tells to the family after he crashes their barbecue, that ends with him and his family "all sleeping together in the dark", which seems to imply that Foster intends to kill his wife, his daughter, and himself once he gets to them. The dreamy way he tells the story just makes it worse, as he genuinely seems to feel that is the right thing to do.
  • The whole sequence is pure nightmare fuel for anyone with a family, and unlike the Whammyburger scene, which has some elements of Black Comedy to it, this unintended hostage situation is played completely straight and deadly serious. Imagine having a nice backyard BBQ at your boss's house, when out of nowhere a crazed looking man in army fatigues carrying a shotgun hops the fence and starts ranting about income inequality. Then, when he hears police sirens, he grabs your daughter's hand and ushers you and your family into a nearby shed at gunpoint, holding onto your terrified daughter with a loaded pistol in his hand right next to her. It's not until the father offers himself up as a replacement hostage that Foster even seems to realize what he's doing is wrong.
• Foster's constant phone calls to his wife, which progressively become more chilling and threatening with each one. She calls the police over to her house twice, and both times they leave quickly, determining Foster to be a non-threat, and give her the mere advice to keep her doors locked in case. Foster's final phone call provokes Beth to pick up her daughter and leave the house from out the back when she realizes that he's calling her from right down the block.
  Foster: Did you know, Beth, that in some South American countries it's still legal to kill your wife if she insults you?
• The whole movie becomes this once you get to the end, in part due to Paranoia Fuel. Given that many people find Foster sympathetic, it makes one wonder just how easily this could actually happen to them or someone they know.
  • Really just Foster himself. Basically, he's a guy who had a really bad day. An average joe, the white collar working man, a simple human being who feels pushed into a corner and is lashing out in various, brutal, over the top ways as possible. And, do you want to know the real scary part? ... There are people just like him.
• The Whammy Burger scene can be this for some, considering that this could happen to anyone.
• Nick, the Neo-Nazi freak whose favorite possessions are an anti-tank weapon and a used can of Zyklon-B; the latter which was thought to have been used in gas chambers during the holocaust. Even Foster is clearly disturbed by him, to the point of even calling him sick.
• The Latino gangbangers try to kill Foster in a drive-by shooting. They miss Foster, but do hit several other people by accident. Imagine being one of the innocent bystanders, especially the mother, who got shot out of the blue without knowing why.
• James Newton Howard's soundtrack deserves special mention. It's a dark, menacing score that perfectly matches Foster's broken mental state and his descent into rage and violence, with prime examples including the main title and the scene where Foster first encounters the gangbangers.
  • You want unnerving, however, there's the final confrontation between Foster and Prendergast, where the theme that plays as Foster has a Heel Realization gradually shifts into guitar noises almost sounding like hellish groaning. He already decided he was better off dead than alive once he gets a short time to think it over, resulting in the fatal final draw where the noise only fully stops once Foster is ready to fall from the revolver round he was shot with.

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