Just Like The Shining, Twisters Tears Through Another Classic Horror Movie

(Warning: This article has major spoilers for "Twisters," so proceed with caution.)

The hit 1996 disaster movie "Twister" is packed with memorable moments. Whether it's one of the visual effects-laden sequences that put Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in the middle of several deadly tornadoes, including that one with a flying cow (which isn't duplicated in "Twisters"), or the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman throwing around phrases like "the suck zone" and "imminent rueage." But perhaps the most visually striking moment of tornado mayhem comes at night when a destructive funnel cloud is only visible amidst flashes of lightning that surround it. 

During one of the moments of levity between intense storm-chasing sequences, Jo (Helen Hunt), Bill (Bill Paxton), and the rest of the crew (including Bill's fiancée Melissa, played by Jami Gertz) are relaxing near a motel with a drive-in movie theater just next door. "The Shining" is playing on the screen, showing the moment Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is swinging an axe at the bathroom door, trying to reach his frightened wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall). The tornado tears chunks of the screen away just as Jack's axe is buried in the door, creating a terrifying juxtaposition of two very different scenes of horror. This scene has even fueled an urban legend about a tornado actually hitting a drive-in while "Twister" was playing on it.

Warner Bros.

When it comes to "Twisters," there aren't any tornadoes threatening drive-in theaters. After all, there are probably significantly fewer operating drive-in movie theaters today, nearly 30 years after "Twister" arrived, so why destroy an endangered species? But director Lee Isaac Chung still managed to include a significant sequence that feels like a direct callback to that drive-in scene, but this time with a small town, indoor movie theater in the midst of playing another horror classic.

In the third act of "Twisters," another storm brings about a tornado amidst a record number of outbreaks in Oklahoma. This is the one where our heroes Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Tyler (Glen Powell) will be testing out their recently (hopefully) perfected experiment where they try to disrupt the dynamics of a tornado in an effort to make it collapse and dissipate. But of course, with that storm comes real danger when it veers towards the rural town of El Reno, Oklahoma. 

El Reno, Oklahoma is a real town too, and it previously appeared on the big screen in the Best Picture winner "Rain Man," as one of the locations Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman made on their cross-country road trip. It's here that the tornado threatens a bunch of citizens trying to enjoy a nice summer day at the farmer's market, while others are taking in a monster movie marathon in one of those classic brick building movie theaters with a vintage marquee out front. As people try to find shelter, we catch a glimpse of the horror movie that's playing on the big screen, and it's "Frankenstein," one of the earliest pieces of the Universal Monsters franchise that includes "Dracula," "The Mummy," "The Wolf Man," The Creature from the Black Lagoon" and more. Much like the similar moment from "Twister," the tornado makes its most devastating blow at the perfect moment. 

During this sequence, it's clear the theater is not exactly the safest place to be in the storm. It's a very old building that doesn't have a basement for storm safety, and before the massive tornado is right on top of them, chunks of the ceiling are already falling around them. As the tornado gets even closer, it slowly tears at the wall behind the theater screen, and once it's ripped away enough, the entire wall collapses and the screen is sucked into the air.

Creating another moment of harmony between the dangerous storm and what's being projected on the screen within the movie, just as the tornado starts sucking the screen out of the theater, you can hear Dr. Frankenstein beginning to frantically say his legendary repeated line, "It's alive!"

Since these tornadoes are essentially the monsters of this blockbuster movie — especially the one that appears with almost no warning in the middle of a rodeo — having the tornado tear through "Frankenstein" just as the monster is coming to life is a wonderfully plotted moment. Unlike "Frankenstein," however, this tornado isn't stopped by fire. In fact, before the storm hits El Reno, there's a spectacular sequence where the tornado sweeps through an industrial facility, sparking a massive fire that briefly turns the tornado into a fiery funnel of death. It's exactly the kind of sequence you love to see on the big screen.

"Twisters" is playing in theaters everywhere now.