Steven Quale’s upcoming disaster film, Into the Storm, isn’t a sequel to 1996’s Twister – they’re not even related on a tangential level – but the above trailer gives a sense that the former is attempting to follow up the latter all the same. Sequels, after all, are all about trumping the original, bringing more spectacle that’s greater in scope so as to outmatch their predecessors, and that’s exactly what we appear to be getting here: not just one tornado, but multiple tornadoes, ripping through a hapless burg in small-town America.
Apart from that, though, we don’t appear to be getting much else. Into the Storm actually has an impressive cast that starts with Richard Armitage (The Hobbit) and ends with Matthew Walsh (Veep), with the likes of Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) and Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights) in between; what it doesn’t have, at least if we take the teaser at face value, is much by way of a story, though maybe the script got blown away by the gale force winds of Into the Storm‘s gang of tornadoes.
The lack of a narrative here is probably part of the point, though. With films like Into the Storm, your ticket is bought and sold based on the concept, and not the narrative backing it; you’re either into movies of this genre, or you’re not, and you know you’re going to hit the multiplex to check it out even before you know any plot details.
Of course, there is a plot here, involving storm chasers as they set out to document a multiple vortex tornado that touches down in Silverton (Colorado, perhaps?) and promptly begins to lay waste to every last inch of scenery that gets caught in its path. If one tornado is bad news on its own, then we can only imagine what kind of damage a herd of cyclones could do.
Here’s the full synopsis:
In the span of a single day, the town of Silverton is ravaged by an unprecedented onslaught of tornadoes. The entire town is at the mercy of the erratic and deadly cyclones, even as storm trackers predict the worst is yet to come. Most people seek shelter, while others run towards the vortex, testing how far a storm chaser will go for that once-in-a-lifetime shot.
Seems like Armitage, Callies, Walsh, and Sumpter all play one of those aforementioned stormchasers, though that little summary doesn’t really give away much in terms of specifics. Presumably, a future teaser will be a bit more forthcoming with introducing characters and setting up relationships. For now, enjoy some unapologetic mayhem, courtesy of Mother Nature and Quale, whose stint as director on Final Destination 5 may benefit him as he figures out how to creatively dispatch his supporting cast members.
In addition to Into The Storm‘s trailer, New Line has also released the first one-sheet for the film. It’s just as basic and bare-bones as the footage, but it’s striking in its own way – the sense of scale, with the lone human facing down the cyclone, is certainly appreciated.
What do you think, Screen Ranters? Will Into the Storm be a worthy entry in the cinematic niche of natural disaster movies? We’ll find out in the waning days of summer.
____
Into the Storm hits US theaters on August 8th, 2014.
