Editor's note: This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of Twister's theatrical debut. Being good Oklahomans, we here at The Pickup decided to celebrate this milestone with a full slate of stories about severe storms and the Okie preoccupation with them.
I’m no stranger to the trappings of nostalgia. I’ve lost count of the number of pop culture touchstones from my childhood that no longer hit like they used to.
Podracing and Darth Maul cannot save something as bad as Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace even if I saw it in theaters 11 times. Space Jam on VHS might’ve made for the sickest sleepover in middle school history, but it was an 88-minute toy commercial on its best day. I still can’t believe my mom took me out of school for Pokémon: The First Movie. However, Twister was a dizzying box office hit in 1996 and still delivers the goods.
Growing up in Oklahoma, I did not enjoy the annual tradition of an epic NBA playoff run or a bevy of streaming options on Netflix. No, I had a Blockbuster card to rent movies with and—as far as I could tell from the shelves—Oklahoma! was just about the only notable flick featuring my home state. Sadly for Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bill Paxton does not drive a red 1995 Dodge Ram 2500 through a house in that one. That is their loss.
Twister pummeled my eight-year-old senses with golfball-sized hail and possibly caused some permanent hearing loss. It also scared the shit out of me, imparting the fantastical impression that a tornado was something that humans could conquer. All you needed was a firm belief in science, Helen Hunt at your side and a strap of leather. How’s that for a boost of confidence?
I was pleased to feel that sense of terror from my childhood return on my recent rewatch. Elder audiophiles may recall that Twister was the first home release to be certified by THX, the famous audio company.1 Those crazy sound effects that would shake your parents’ living room walls make Twister endlessly rewatchable and genuinely scary.