As a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers are unmarked as per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned!
Due to Jan de Bont's Twister's main focus being one of the most destructive forces of nature on planet Earth, it was inevitable that the movie would have moments that would really floor you.
- To start, the movie's opening act. It's dark, the winds picking up, and the lightning becomes more intense. And all it takes to give a better understanding of the situation is the words 'TORNADO WARNING', on the television.
- When Jo and her family get to the storm cellar, the door (despite being locked) begins to shake, and the tornado's forces try to pry it open. When Jo's father tries to keep it sturdy, his efforts are in vain, and it cost him his life.
- Put yourself in Jo's shoes, from the perspective of a little girl learning how helpless she is before the forces of nature.
- Look closely just before her father is killed. The door he's trying to hold shut? The tornado is ripping it to shreds.note
- While real-life tornadoes cannot roar like the ones in the movie, all the sounds the ones in the movie make are very intense. From the guttural growls, the scratching sounds from the waterspouts, and the almost human-sounding wind from the F-4 and 5.
- The F-1, despite it being the weakest tornado (excluding F-0), does provide some tense scenes when Jo and Bill have to duck under a wooden bridge to avoid the worst of its damage path. They get out unscathed, but Jo's truck is tossed into the air, a barn is demolished, and the floorboards of the bridge are ripped from the foundation. It's still a reminder that even weak tornadoes can still do some real damage.
- The Shifting F-3, while providing no tense moments, still serves as a reminder that various forces can cause tornadoes to shift their initial path, and a reminder how unpredictable they are.
- Albeit unrealistic, the triple waterspout scene is very intense and harrowing, with the high-pitched screeching they make, hurling a poor cow through the air, and violently spinning the truck. The close-up of them rotating around the truck show how big they are, before they dissipate with a final screech. Poor Melissa screams all throughout the scene and is trembling with a Thousand-Yard Stare afterwards.
- The Jumper is another twister that might be of similar strength to the shifting one, but Jo and Bill go through a lot of obstacles in order to get Dorothy II ready. It's certainly a tense moment, and it's All for Nothing when the sensors spill, and hammers home the unpredictable nature of tornadoes as a force of nature.
- The drive-in theater. One of the most (in)famous scenes in the movie. Where to begin?
- The prelude is that at a meteorological center, the news is coming in of a system going over Oklahoma. But when one worker announces that inbounds and outbounds have doubled, he stares at the screen in Stunned Silence, realizing that a merged storm system may be producing a tornado as they speak.
- The set-up. What was meant to be a breather session to relieve tension from the day, everyone settles down at a drive-in. However, everyone grows suspicious when the lightning grows frequently, and the wind picks up speed.
- When Mellissa is in a motel room, the broadcaster announces that a tornado touched down in the Canton area and that if you have friends or family there, don't help them, as you're more of a hindrance. Then the TV goes static, another sign of things to come.
- It's also horror on another level. Imagine having family or friends in a tornado-stricken area, and you're told not to go there as you'll be more of a hindrance than a help.
- The team's reaction when they realize that a twister is coming their way. This in turn spreads to the drive-in patrons. What doesn't help is that it's night, and the tornado can perfectly blend in the horizon.Dusty: (hears and sees his monitors beeping in alarm, checks his readings, and realizes the worst-case scenario is heading their way) Jesus...it's coming! JO!! BILL!! IT'S COMING!! IT'S HEADING RIGHT FOR US!!
Bill: (having realized it himself due to his tornado sixth sense) It's already here! EVERYBODY UNDERGROUND NOW!! - If you look closely at the screen during the lightning strikes, you'll see a monstrous twister heading for the theater, one never seen in the movie. Jo's reaction spells two possible (and equally unnerving) interpretations. Is it stunned silence from seeing how gargantuan tornadoes can get? Or is this tornado the closest picture Jo can get for the one that hit her family home back in 1969?
- For added measure, the tornado hits during a screening of The Shining. Narmy as that might sound, the fact that the screen is gradually being ripped away, only being completely destroyed at the "Here's Johnny!" scene has somehow succeeded in making that moment even more unnerving.
- As mentioned in the sounds bit, the sounds heard when the patrons and Jo's team take cover almost sound like human screaming. It sounds VERY wrong.
- Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize how many patrons sought shelter - and how many appear to have survived.
- Radio reports indicate that the tornado that hit the drive-in and Wakita was an F-4, the second-most destructive type. That is scary enough, but if that was an F-4, what would an F-5 look like?
- Wakita's destruction is both this and saddening. The crew driving by the town to see it demolished when they realized that the F-4 had already passed through. Hearing the cries of despair from the town, the fact there was no warning, and the crew trying to rescue Aunt Meg in a crumbling house is disheartening and frightening.
- Meg makes it perfectly clear when talking to Jo in the ambulance: She had no warning. Wakita's Civil Defense/Tornado Sirens went off only seconds before the F-4 struck, so no one had time to get to their basements or storm cellars before the town was ravaged.
- The F-5. ALL OF IT. When it appears on screen, incredible destruction will follow. No wonder it is the main focus of the climax and is the final tornado Jo and team encounter.
- The other tornadoes (even the F-4) looked somewhat natural. This one, conversely, is made up of swirling black clouds and exposed debris. It's design is intentionally done to make it look like it's not of this earth at all.
- This particular tornado can demolish anything in its path with relative ease, ANYTHING. Radio tower? Gone. Barn? Gone. Tractor store? Gone.
- There's also the fact that it rips a house from its foundation, leaving it intact regardless of that incredible power.
- Jonas and Eddie's deaths. Yes, Jonas was an asshole, but that is not a pretty way to go. Despite Bill and Jo's protests for Jonas and Eddie to get the hell off the road and to safety from the F-5, Jonas just tunes out. But the F-5 destroys a radio tower and some of its shrapnel heads for the car, going through the windshield. Eddie is immediately killed when it hits on his end, but Jonas is still very much alive when his truck is sucked into the cyclone and sent back to the earth where it becomes a massive fireball.
- The helplessness situation makes this worse. Jo's team and Jonas' team can only watch in horror as the truck goes down to earth, detached from the cyclone.
- Honestly, the entire movie is this. Every time a tornado strikes, it's a reminder of the awesome destructive power of nature, and how we are helpless to stop it even as it levels everything in its path.
