Disaster

 Twister

When Twister arrived in theatres backing 1996, it blew audiences away (excuse the pun) with its awesome special effects. They were realistic back then, and they still hold up pretty well today. At the time of its release, the “Disaster” film had been laying dormant for a while. It seemed that any possible disaster scenario that could have been portrayed in the movies had been done. But when “Jurassic Park” graced us with its presence three years before Twister, big, booming special effects films were all the rage and the pressure was on for the visuals to be as realistic as possible.

Twister starred the ever reliable Bill Paxton and the “on-the-rise” Helen Hunt, who had found fame with the hit TV series “Mad About You”. In Twister, Paxton and Hunt play a divorced couple who are reunited for a day to realise their dream of studying tornados up close and personal – closer and more intensively than ever before. Following behind our two leading scientists, are a mix of Storm Chasers; outgoing, unorthodox, crazy individuals. The most memorable of these being the unusual Dusty, played by the then little known Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Twister is a thrill ride of a film. The story is simple, the dialogue is often cheesy and poorly written, but lets face it… that’s not why you watch the film. It’s all about those windy forces of nature tearing through the countryside, and lifting cars and buildings like pieces of paper. Once they hit the screen you can’t help but be swept up in the carnage as the tornados get bigger and bigger, leading up to the monstrous F5 towards the end of the movie.  

The film puts the audience in the path of the tornadoes like never before, and one of the most memorable shots from the film and of any film of the 90’s was watching a yellow pick up truck drive furiously through a field, with a tornado following closely behind, smashing a barn to smithereens and scattering the remains every which way, forcing the truck to weave in and out of the falling debris. And let’s not forget the flying cow!

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