Trapped like a fish in a barrel.
Even though this is considered the most lighthearted entry of the Jurassic Park franchise by far, there's still many blood-curdling moments to be had.WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.
- The deaths of Those Two Guys on the DinoSoar boat at the beginning, particularly since we don't see what happens to them.
- Alan's nightmare onboard the private jet where he awakens to see the whole plane abandoned...and suddenly there's a Velociraptor in his face saying his name. Questionable as its execution may be, the very premise of the nightmare is legitimately frightening.
- As a whole, there's something about Isla Sorna that is so much creepier than in Lost World. In the previous film, Isla Sorna was mostly jungle with a few abandoned outposts. Here, there are several abandoned facilities that look downright post-apocalyptic, and they all have something deadly occupying them. Special mention goes to the cloning facility and "bird cage", which are both falling apart and very creepy. You just know something is off when the characters enter these places.
- The whole plane scene when the Spinosaurus is introduced.Paul: [hears a roar respond to his wife's megaphone use] ...What was that?Billy: It's a Tyrannosaurus.Alan: I don't think so. [hears gunshots in the jungle] It sounds bigger.
- Cooper being left behind when he fails to keep up with the others, with Udesky ushering everyone into the plain assuring everyone he can handle himself. Cooper manages to catch up to the plane, bloody and with an arm hanging limp as he frantically tries to wave them down, panicking and in tears. Nash grimly curses Cooper to get out of the way since they both know he can't stop the plane, and Cooper can only bitterly cry as he realizes it too. And then the colossal Spinosaurus erupts out of the jungle and snatches him up as he lets out a harrowing Big "NO!". It's sudden, violent, and a very quick preview of the horrors to come from this monster.
- Nash is the next of the mercenaries to go, when the Spinosaurus tears open the front of the plane to get to the prey inside. The pilots scramble out of their seats and try to get out of range, but Nash is just too late and the plane is too cluttered and cramped for him to make a clean getaway, and the Spinosaurus strikes true and chomps on his legs. Nash can only scream in agony and fruitlessly beg the others for help, but all they can do is pray that they aren't pulled away with him. Nash wriggles in the predator's mouth until he's dropped to the ground. He sees his chance to escape, though it seems he's already lost the use of his legs from the bite, and tries to pitifully crawl away. The Spinosaurus responds by stepping on him and then closing its' mouth over his head and upper torso. We then cut to the group giving a horrified reaction as they watch Nash be messily killed offscreen. It's possible Nash died instantly from being stepped on, but if not, his last moments were even uglier since the Spinosaurus eventually pulls back up with a bloody mouth and a victorious roar.
- The death of Udesky, who is horribly used as living bait by the Velociraptors. They pretty much paralyze him (but don't kill him... yet), wait for one of the other humans to try and help him, and spring out when Amanda does. However, the humans escape, and the raptors leave... but not before one of them snaps Udesky's neck, putting him out of his misery.
- Unlike their predecessors in the previous two films, the Velociraptors in this movie are a lot smarter, can communicate, are better parents, and are willing to work together to bring down their prey... their targets mainly being the protagonists.
- The Spinosaurus. It kills the T. rex. Let that sink in fully. The T. rex, the very dinosaur that seemed an unstoppable force that chased down cars, ripped apart a raptor pack, ran rampant through hunter camps and San Diego in the prior two films; goes toe-to-toe with the Spinosaurus and loses. note And the sail-backed super predator doesn't ever stop throughout of this and proceeds to be very persistent, chasing the protagonists across the island and surviving being shot by anti-vehicle rifles and getting rammed by a plane. No matter what is thrown at it, man's machine or beast of nature, it seems to never stop chasing its prey.
- Considering it was hit by their plane after being shot at, the reason why the Spinosaurus seems to have it out for the survivors is made very clear. It's really ticked off.
- It's also seen in broad daylight multiple times, so the often calm moments afforded by daylight are no defense this time ago. Once that juggernaut came barreling out to kill Cooper, it refused to stop.
- Re-watching Jurassic Park III after Jurassic World (or, more accurately, some of the promo material for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), the Spinosaurus becomes even more frightening. Let's just say that the Indominus rex was not the first experimental super-predator that Dr. Wu came up with...
- Building on that, the continually mounting fossil evidence that the real Spinosaurus aegypticus was not only extremely different from the one in this movie but may well have been one of the weirdest dinosaurs to ever live retroactively makes this spino even scarier. This thing just becomes more and more unnatural as time goes on, moreso than the Indominus, Indoraptor, and maybe even the Scorpios Rex, all of which were deliberately designed out-of-universe to be the genetically-engineered theme park monsters that Alan derides InGen's dinosaurs as. Because those ones weren't meant to be real dinosaurs; even the artistic liberties with the raptors can be handwaved as "Oh, this really is a real dromaeosaurid, they just have a different name in this universe" and the dilophosaurs were merely a demonstration that you can't know everything about an animal just from its bones. But the Spinosaurus is supposed to be a real animal, and it only becomes less of one with every new discovery.
- The sound of the phone is still ringing in the Spinosaurus's belly. It can give one chills when it's discovered standing several feet behind the surviving group when they realize their mistake.Paul: How did you know we were here?
Eric: The phone! That stupid jingle from the store! I heard it!
Paul: (genuinely confused) My phone?
Eric: Yeah, your satellite phone.
Amanda: Where is it?
Paul: I don't have it.
Amanda: Well when did you use it last?
Paul: On the plane. I got a call on the plane, and...
Amanda: ...what?
Paul: I loaned it to Nash. He must've had it when he—
*dee-dee-deedly-deedee-DEEdee* - The way the Spinosaurus is just standing there, barely moving beyond what it needs to breathe. It could've charged the group immediately since they didn't notice it approaching, but it chooses to wait and stare down the group until they finally turn around and look at it.
- Then its whole concluding scene with the boat. The Spinosaurus, chiefly portrayed by the largest and most powerful animatronic Stan Winston ever created, chases down the boat into the river and proceeds to tear it apart during a full torrential downpour. During said scene, we're led to believe that Paul was Killed Off for Real as Amanda and Eric cry for him. Fortunately, it turns out that he's OK.
- The boat scene itself starts with a Shark Fin of Doom in the form of a sail peaking out of the water. Between that, the Spinosaurus having an entirely silent approach, and the claw marks on the tour boat from the opening where the attack was obscured by a fog bank; and we're given a pretty good implication of what killed the DinoSoar crew.
- Billy has a machine sculpt the resonating chamber of a Velociraptor and blows into it to demonstrate. The look on Alan's face is priceless; it's clear that he has nightmares about that sound, and it's enough to make your teeth curl.
- Such a thing is even discussed in an earlier scene, where Alan talks about his new theory with Ellie.Alan: Do you remember the noises they made?
Ellie: I try not to. - When they trap one raptor in the facility, it starts making a panicked, but consistent noise. Alan has a major Oh, Crap! moment, as he realizes his theory about raptor intelligence was right on the money.Alan: It's calling for help.
- While it's almost certainly coincidence, at a couple points, the raptor's call almost actually sounds like a heavily-stuttered version of the word "help".
- Such a thing is even discussed in an earlier scene, where Alan talks about his new theory with Ellie.
- The whole scene with the Pteranodons. The introduction is specially frightening. First, Amanda crosses the foggy bridge before her son does and, once on the other side, calls for her son to cross over. Once Eric goes, Alan soon realizes that they're all in a "bird cage." Cue Eric alone on the foggy bridge as an ominous, tall, and inhuman shadow appears in front of him. Then the screaming starts...
- The shadow alone. The Pteranodon is surrounded by Ominous Fog and giving an impressively menacing stride in Eric's direction in a way that makes it look utterly unnatural. It's like what the Slender Man would look like if he were an animal!
- Just before the reveal, as Eric is crossing the bridge, the railing suddenly vibrates, as if something just landed hard, and Eric freezes. Then, he starts to hear something coming towards him, and at first thinks (or hopes) it's his mom. It's not. It's also pretty creepy that despite the thick fog, the Pteranodon could see Eric.
- Then we're led to believe that Billy was killed after being stabbed and pecked at by a pair of Pteranodons. He tries to get away, but the pterosaurs keep dunking him into the river with so much force that he eventually is unable to get back up. All he can do is scream for them to get away from him as he's carried downstream, and this is when Paul stops Alan from trying to go after him, seeing it's apparently too late. The last we see of Billy, we can barely even see him as he's floating down the river with the pterosaurs aggressively pecking him with their giant beaks until they go offscreen. The next scene then shows a terrified Alan looking into the glaring eyes of a third Pteranodon before running away.
- Even worse is that the water starts turning red. The last time that happened, the results weren't pretty.
- Eric was almost eaten alive by a large group of Pteranodon babies. All while on top of a small cliff. There was even a human skull found in the nest.
- Even without the pteranodons, their aviary is pretty nightmarish: a misty and dark place of harrowing cliffs and decaying walkways that crumble with the slightest step. It feels like something out of The Lord of the Rings.
- Amanda gets hit with a Peek-a-Boo Corpse (her boyfriend, no less).
- A Deleted Scene makes it even worse when you know what caused him to meet his end. According to the deleted scene, after Eric managed to release himself from the tree but before Ben was able to drop from his parachute, they were beset by a pack of Velociraptors. Eric was forced to flee, leaving Ben behind. And considering Ben's skeletal remains were found still suspended by the parachute cords, they killed him before he ever even had the chance to free himself. Imagine being trapped in your own parachute after just surviving that ordeal, being ripped apart by Velociraptors, possibly even having your legs torn away from you while still alive, knowing how they feed. Truly gruesome to imagine.
