Recently, some ding-dong made a movie called The Happening where people run away from evil wind. Well, a long time ago Sam Strange made the ULTIMATE movie where people run away from evil wind! It was called Twister, and it blew you away.
Aside from rampaging Nadoes, Twister is about the lost love between two rugged people who used to work together. The movie begins with a bit of back story. Rugged Guy has quit the rugged life and Rugged Lady in favor of middle class laziness. Instead of chasing Nadoes with a lady who will go down on him, he’s decided to become a television weatherman with a lady who thinks oral sex is only for gays. As the movie begins, he and his fucking lame-ass wife are driving to Nado Town so his rugged ex can sign her divorce papers and finally free him from all his past ruggedness.
Nado Town is a place in Oklahoma where eight or nine Nadoes occur every twenty-four hours, each one bigger than the last. It’s absolute heaven for Nado people. He thinks he’s manly enough to withstand the temptations he’ll find there, but the joke’s on him because as it turns out, he’s ultimately TOO manly to resist. This is proof that when you try and put your ruggedness behind you, you no longer have a grasp on how manliness works.
As soon as he and his lead ball show up, all his old buddies say hi to him in really exciting ways while shooting confused looks at the Sunday School teacher he’s shackled to. He can feel those looks and they hurt. Next he talks to the ex. The smell of her B.O. makes him dizzy with nostalgic ecstasy. He becomes deeply ashamed of his aftershave. After that, the sky darkens and starts to mean business. His penis perks up and says, “Follow me, not your brain. Your brain is an asshole. I have never led you astray. I have to go pee.” He pees on a tree. The wind blows it all over his pants and he realizes how much he missed that, too. Before he can think it through, everyone is getting into trucks to chase the day’s first Nado. His new lady walks up to him with a change of pants. “No!” he says. “You can take those pants and your weatherman job and your no sex before marriage and shove them up your noseholes! I’m done with you and your therapy and yoga and daily showers! I’m a Nado man! And that ain’t ever gonna change!” He’s off to join one of the trucks before she can yell at him for saying “ain’t”.
This, in the movie biz, is what we call a badass first act. Catharsis! Now that all that’s out of the way, let’s get to some fucking Nadoes!
Now, chasing Nadoes for ninety minutes would be fun, but I felt there had to be some kind of purpose to it. This is a film after all, and there needs to be some kind of beatable aspect to these Nadoes. Well, I came up with a doozy. See, while Rugged Guy is in it for the excitement, his ex is there for far more Charles Bronson reasons. As a child, she watched an F5 Nado take away her daddy, and now she wants revenge. So during their research time together, the Rugged Couple developed a weapon that can kill F5 Nadoes. In his absence the weapon was completed. Now all the have to do is chase Nadoes until one of them turns into an F5, at which point they will try and kill it.
I made a bold decision to go to the real Nado Town and film actual Nadoes. I’m still not sure if it was worth it. On the downside: five dead crew members. On the upside: Twister! I’ll let you be the judge.
Also, while filming real Nadoes made them look great, I didn’t think they sounded quite menacing enough, so our sound people mixed in a hodge-podge of animal roars to make it seem scarier. Therefore, when you hear our twisters, you are actually hearing the sounds of pigs, lion, crocodiles, elephants, and one very lucky T.Rex. We lost people doing this as well, but the results are awesome enough that my conscience doesn’t give a shit.
Back to the plot! The crew drives from one Nado to the next and each time crazy shit happens. There are flying cows, a part where they have to dodge falling tractors, and one scene where a house falls into their path and they drive through the living room. Fun stuff, but none of it is F5 material. Apparently, there is a classification for Nadoes based on how much they make you shit your pants. F1-3 is equivalent to the pesky birds and henchmen you have to fight in a videogame. F4 is kind of like the boss at the end of a stage. But an F5 will make your Nintendo fucking explode and cover your little sister in shrapnel. The idea that these people are trying to track one down proves that they are crazy. The idea that they are going to kill it proves that they are heroes.
While all this is going on, a group of less rugged, more funded Nado hunters follows our group around trying to steal their glory. The main asshole is played by Westly from Saw 1. He’s all smug and full of bullshit. When he realizes that Rugged Guy is back in action, he gets threatened and starts acting brash and stupid. This is called hubris and it’s a real killer of assholes. Sure enough, while chasing a Nado our group follows instinct and turns left, while this guy follows computers and turns right. Guess which guy ends up getting stabbed through the head with a flying propane tank! His whole caravan explodes and the Nado sucks up the fire, turns it into fireballs, and shoots them at the rugged group. They dodge the fireballs like pros and flip off the Nado. The Nado screams in frustration and backs off to gather some F5 energy. The rugged group use this brief reprieve to eat some steak and prepare their weapon.
Here’s how the weapon works: eight interns shoot the Nado with chain shooting guns. This should hold the Nado in one place. If they’ve done their job correctly, rugged guy can aim the gun, which is loaded with four cartridges of California Sunshine, and fire. If even one of the sunrays hit the Nado, it’s done for. The sunlight penetrates and forms a gaping hole, causing the Nado to slowly lose power and bleed to death. Nado blood is made out of crude oil and fear. All of this has been mathematically proven to work thanks to some rugged calculations scribbled on a napkin one night at Golden Corral.
But of course this is an action movie so nothing goes the way it should. While everyone is gathered up and going over the final plan, an innocent, baby-shaped cloud crawls across the sky. They all look up at it and marvel how adorable it is. When it’s right above them, Rugged Guy realizes their mistake. But it’s too late. The Nado tosses aside its cloud disguise and strikes, killing all the interns. Rugged Guy and Girl leap out of the way just in time. They try to get to the gun, but the Nado picks them up right when they almost have it. Whirling around in mid-air, the Nado shows them its true face (James Coburn cameo) and says, “I’m an F5, fuckers! Did you really think you could defeat me? I’m gonna blow your souls out of your asses!”
Rugged Guy sees two things that give him hope and both are flying around the Nado with him. One, a saddled horse, and two, his Sungun. He jumps on the horse and rides it through the air, constantly dodging chimneys and El Caminos. His horse gets hit by a canoe but he leaps from it just in time catch his gun, turn around, say “The forecast calls for some sun, motherfucker,” and fire! The Nado screams, “NOOOOOOOO!” and everything lands softly onto an Earth that is covered with crude oil. The F5 is Fdead.
Rugged Guy finds Rugged Girl. She’s been stabbed with a telephone pole. She asks, “Did we get it?” and he tells her they did. They kiss each other, and she dies in peace. He cradles her in his arms and cries in a way no man should be ashamed of. It sounds kind of like Chewbacca.
The film cuts to a classroom twenty years later. A teacher tries to tell the kids about Tornadoes, but none of them know what she’s talking about because Tornadoes went extinct long before they were born. The end.