WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.
- The movie starts with a little girl, Cathy Bowman, walking away from her family on Isla Sorna's beach and heading towards the forest when a group of Compsognathus attack her. When her parents hear her screams and run to get her, there's a Reaction Shot of Mrs. Bowman stopping and screaming as she looks at her daughter off-screen. We're not shown what happened to Cathy (though you can just hear Mr. Bowman yelling at the compies to get off of his daughter, implying they had either brought her down or were eating her alive as she was still standing), but instead cuts to the next scene of Malcolm at a train station. Had it not been for Improbable Infant Survival, Cathy would have died. In a Deleted Scene Peter Ludlow passes around photos of Cathy's injuries at a board meeting; we don't see them, but the characters who do wince in horror.
- The ship captain who ferries Ian's team to Isla Sorna refuses to stay for longer than he needs to, citing his need to protect his son. He tells Nick that numerous boats have come to the island chain and never returned, and that the chain is locally known as Las Cinco Muertes—the "Five Deaths."
- In the novel, it's explained that the chain got its name from a native warrior who, facing execution one of five ways, chose all five - one way on each island. Moreover, InGen couldn't have had adult dinosaurs roaming the island for more than a few years by 1997, leading one to wonder what happened to all those other boats. The overall effect is actually quite unnerving - almost hinting there's something intrinsically wrong with Isla Sorna itself, that stretches back long before Hammond's ambitions.
- Not nearly as bad as any of the rest, but you gotta wince a bit for the guy during the InGen dino chase scene whom the Pachycephalosaurus headbutted. If you look closer, his legs are inside the door closing when it crumpled. There's no way in hell he didn't require medical attention after that, which ironically might've actually saved his life if he was medevaced away by helicopter.
- The entire sequence introducing the Buck and the Doe T. rexes
- When Sarah and Nick take the baby Tyrannosaurus back to the Mobile Lab, Kelly immediately realizes that, thanks to the loudly-shrieking and highly-distressed infant T. rex, they are all in very real danger. She begins panicking and tearfully begs her dad to take her somewhere safe, as she (and the audience) realize what's likely coming for them. Ian obliges and takes her to the High Hide, where Eddie is. He assures her that she's safe...only for the most enraged and bloodcurdling roar to sound off from not too far away. Ian, Kelly, and Eddie just freeze, especially Ian, who knows that roar all too well.
- A small detail to think about: After hearing one of the Tyrannosaurs roar in the distance and not getting a response from Sarah and Nick when he tries to call them by phone, Ian comes down from the High Hide and races back on foot to the Mobile Lab. Shortly afterward, Eddie and Kelly see something (two somethings, it turns out) large making its way through the trees directly beneath them. Ian makes it back to the Mobile Lab, but less than a minute later, a loud thud is heard, and Ian looks out the window to see one of the other vehicles rolling off the cliff. What does all this mean? The rexes were right on Ian's heels.
- Extra points for the massive panic you can see Ian sinks into that he's barely holding back. He goes from trying to comfort his daughter to visibly flashing back to Isla Nublar in the span of a single roar.
- For added Nightmare Fuel, put yourself in Ian's shoes. It's night, you're running like hell through a dark and wet jungle to warn your friends of coming danger...and you're being closely followed by two large, ferocious predators. It's a miracle the rexes didn't catch up to Ian sooner.Ian: Mommy's very angry.
- How do they announce their presence? By throwing a 1-ton Jeep over the cliffside. They didn't push it. They threw it. "Very Angry" isn't the right term so much as "ABSOLUTELY LIVID" could be at that point.
- And then they one-up that by pushing the trailer over the cliff, with Ian's team inside.Malcolm: Hang on, this is gonna be bad.
- Most of the Mobile Lab scene, but especially the part where Sarah has fallen onto the back windshield and only the glass is separating her from falling off the cliff entirely. And then the glass starts to crack... Yipes!
- Eddie's death. He was only trying to help out Ian, Sarah, and Nick by pulling them back up from falling off the cliff, but dies after one of the T. rexes bites him, carries him up, and shares the other half of him with its mate.
- The fact that Kelly probably witnessed all of this happening from her vantage point in the high hide.
- Dieter Stark goes off into the forest to relieve himself. He manages to get lost (which is a whole bundle of terror on its own, since it's incredibly easy for inexperienced people to get lost in forests in real life) then gets ambushed by compies. He fights them off the first time, but is badly wounded and trying desperately to drag himself back to camp. He clambers over a fallen tree, the compies leap over it to follow him, we hear him scream in agony, which fades away... and then we hear the dinosaurs settle down to eat, as the waters flowing beneath the tree are tinged red...Ian: Did you find him?Tembo: [grimly] Just the parts they didn't like.
- Remember the loud, almost-earthquake footsteps that Rexy made in the previous movie? Well, the those same thunderous footsteps return when the Rexes enter the camp where the InGen crew has set up for the night to rest. Ian freezes right away as he hears them, and as Sarah awakens to the steps, all she can do is say "Oh, no..."
- The scene where the Tyrannosaur buck pokes his head into the tent where Kelly and Sarah are, sniffing the blood on Sarah's shirt.
- It's more terrifying when you realize that the only reason why the buck doesn't gobble up both of them on the spot is that he's not sure if his infant is in there with them, so doesn't want to risk biting his offspring.
- The noises the Tyrannosaurus couple makes are similarly off-putting. The classic roar from the first movie is still present, but many of the other sounds are deeper, more snarling, and longer. They don't just sound like dominant apex predators like Rexy does; they sound angry.
- And the whole time, Ian is standing a short distance away, knowing that there's nothing he can do but stay quiet until the Rex leaves.
- Carter getting literally STOMPED to death by the Tyrannosaur doe as she chases the group through the thick trees. At first, he loses his footing and then gets run over and stepped on by his fellow comrades, then the doe lets out a huge roar and all Carter can do is scream in absolute terror before he meets his horrific but very quick end.
- Burke's death, silly as it is. You see the T. rex doe carry him outside the waterfall, hear a Sickening "Crunch!", and a segment of the falls is instantly dyed with his blood. Seeing Kelly whimpering in fear while Nick holds her reassuringly doesn't help.
- Even worse is how utterly pointless his death was. He panicked when a snake slipped into his shirt and stumbled out into the waiting jaws of the T. rex doe, except his panic was unwarranted because it was a harmless milksnake.
- To rekindle your fear of Velociraptors: The grass scene where the scared survivors are fleeing from the T. rex doe in the forest by running through the grass. Particularly that bird's-eye shot where they're charging through the grass, being loud, carving a big track, and the little trails snaking silently through the grass behind them...Ajay: Don't go into the long grass! Not into the long grass!
- Then, finally, the pack catches up to the fleeing survivors and begin ripping them to pieces. We only see their tails curling as they maul their victims, and then the survivors panic and try to run, to no avail. Finally, to announce their grand return, one raptor jumps high into the air from the perspective of its' unfortunate victim.
- Not just victims, but a good dozen armed mercenaries and hunters carrying shotguns, Hand Cannon pistols, and assault rifles. It didn't help them at all.
- Ian, Nick, Sarah, and Kelly are rushing through the tall grass a few minutes later and stop when they hear the din of the slaughter nearby. Ian listens carefully, only to hear the same blood-curdling growls he remembers all too well from Isla Nublar.
- Then, finally, the pack catches up to the fleeing survivors and begin ripping them to pieces. We only see their tails curling as they maul their victims, and then the survivors panic and try to run, to no avail. Finally, to announce their grand return, one raptor jumps high into the air from the perspective of its' unfortunate victim.
- When Ian, Kelly, and Sarah are looking for Nick at the Worker Village, the atmosphere is deadly quiet. There are no more screams, no more shrieks and roars, just almost pure silence. The first 50 or so seconds of the soundtrack piece during this scene, "The Raptors Appear
", perfectly represents the terror you'd feel wandering around the darkness of Isla Sorna at night, where so many have died and so many monsters are waiting to pounce and eat you... - The scene where Sarah and Kelly are holding off the stalking raptors in the shed. They board up one door to keep one raptor out, only for a second raptor to show up in the same hole that they were digging to get out!
- After Kelly kicks an attacking raptor through a window, there's a surprisingly bloody shot of it impaled on a stake, confirming she killed it.
- It's bad enough that there's an unsafe theme park full of aggressive dinosaurs on an island. But here, they end up being shipped to US soil, at a well-populated city, no less!
- The SS Venture. What the fuck happened?
- We may never know, but the Tyrannosaurus buck breaking free of the cargo hold and beginning his rampage is terrifying enough.
- The Tyrannosaurus buck is high on amphetamines. To reiterate, a Tyrannosaurus rex, the long-extinct apex predator that feeds on anything small enough to fit in its mouth, high on amphetamines which, in humans, can spark reactions ranging from run-of-the-mill mania all the way to cannibalistic face-eating. This should terrify anyone old enough to realize what a terrible mix these two things are.
- Sarah compares the drugged T. rex buck to a locomotive. Worse, we get to see exactly what she means. After she and Ian crash their car into a warehouse during the chase scene and they continue fleeing on foot to the docks with the infant T. rex, the buck comes crashing right through the wall while Sarah is barely out of shot, barreling right after Ian, Sarah, and the baby rex. It's awesome and scary to see something so large and powerful move so terrifyingly fast.
- The shot of the T. rex buck stomping through a suburban neighborhood. Imagine you're out late at night, just minding your business, when you see that making its way down the street.
- A kid, Ben, wakes up to see the T. rex buck outside his bedroom window. Though the buck doesn't seem to really notice him (or is otherwise uninterested if he can, since he's looking for water), Ben doesn't seem to process the very real danger he's in, either. He goes to wake his parents. Meanwhile, the family dog, leashed up outside, barks at the invading dinosaur as he drinks. The buck recognizes the dog's aggression and growls at him to shut him up, and the dog appropriately retreats inside his doghouse. By the time Ben and his parents return, the poor dog has been devoured by the T. rex, leaving behind only a chain and his now-empty doghouse. The parents are frozen in terror until Ben takes a picture. The flash upsets the T. rex, causing him to roar in rage. And we never see the outcome of this scenario, either.
- During the big downtown rampage, the T. rex buck is chasing down a bus, which is too slow to outrun him despite the passengers begging the driver to speed up. He then bashes against the bus, caving in the entire front and blowing the passengers out the windows on the opposite side. The remains of the bus then crash into a nearby Blockbuster with the people inside having next-to-no warning.
- Imagine this from the perspective of the hundreds of San Diego citizens caught up in the incident. As far as they know, dinosaurs are extinct (InGen having covered up the Jurassic Park incident) and gone from the world. Then there's a dinosaur, and not just any dinosaur but perhaps the most feared and well-known one in history, rampaging down the street towards you!
- Sarah and Ian have the baby T. rex in their car and are trying to rouse the drugged, groggy infant to get his father's attention. Meanwhile, the buck sniffs at the air, then looks over at the protagonists to shoot them an animalistic Death Glare and growl at them before charging at them while unleashing a hellish, enraged roar.Ian: Won't know we have it if the thing won't make some kind of sound![Low growl and snarl]Sarah: ... He knows.
- One poor sap gets the idea to stop running directly away from the T. rex buck and dash off to take shelter in a building. However, this is what seals his doom as the predator immediately notices one of his prey breaking off from the "herd" and promptly devours him. The poor guy can only scream "no" in rapid succession as he realizes too late he's made a horrible mistake, and then the ugly squeal he makes as he's crunched like a candy bar...
- What's worse is, his plan almost worked. But in his panic to escape he fails to notice the door opens outwardly and tried pushing it. Unfortunately, the precious few seconds he needed to wrestle it open was enough for the T.rex to nab him.
- Ludlow's death. He follows the infant T. rex down into the Venture's cargo hold to re-capture it. Then the infant's father shows up, seeing Ludlow attacking his child. The T. rex buck chews Ludlow's leg, crippling him, and allows his baby to finish him off.
