“I, and my studio, did not design scary dinosaurs. We designed real dinosaurs.” These words come fromspecial effects artistStan Winston, who helped with the animatronics forJurassic Park(1993).He said this during a segment discussing the film as part of the 2004 docuseriesBravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments, where he explains the goal wasn’t to create movie monsters. He wanted them to be as authentic as possible and, by doing so, that made the dinos scary to moviegoers. His words have echoed throughout the franchise ever since 1993, although there has been something lost in translation. In the newer installments, “real” has been overtaken by “scary,” resulting inJurassic World Rebirthintroducing yet another genetically engineered movie monster. But when the credits roll, the Distortus Rex isn’t the one you will be frightened by, not when there is another dinosaur who remainsthe scariest prehistoric creature to encounter in seven movies.
The first moviesits you inside a park jeep with human visitors, who find out how vulnerable they are when a T. rex stomps around them.The sounds kept to what is heard in-world intensify the scene, without turning to jump scares or mood-setting music bycomposerJohn Williams.A raging storm at night makes you as curious (and worried) as the characters inside the jeep about looking out the rain-slicked windshield to find what is making a thunderous noise that is getting closer and closer. After the T. rex breaks out of her paddock, she angrily roars, eats a frightened lawyer, and tries to kill a pair of kids. It does all of this, but it’s not some evil beast.
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Rexy’s size, strength, and speed are terrifying precisely because she behaves like a wild animalfrom the Cretaceous Period, now living in the 1990s. When the T. rex kills the snarling Raptors, who almost sneer at prey, it’s not done out of a sudden change of heart to saveSam NeillandLaura Dern;rather, she does it as the apex predator of the failed park. That makes herthe scariest dinosaurin theJurassicmovies, no matter the purposelymonstrous dinosaurs that get unleashedin the most recent installments.
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Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) stands next to her boss as they stare into the fortified cage of the deadly Indominus Rex. “Think it will scare the kids?” she asks. Masrani (Irrfan Khan) replies with certainty, “The kids? This will give the parents nightmares.” The Indominus Rex in 2015’sJurassic Worldand the Indoraptor inFallen Kingdomare very meta in how they areknowingly designed to be horror movie-like killing machines. The science experiments gone wrong continue inRebirth, where if the Xenomorph and the Rancor had their genes spliced, it would create the mutated Distortus Rex.
The destructive giant D. rex is almostlike a kaiju, surely not a mistake givendirectorGareth EdwardsmadeGodzilla(2014).ButRebirthmakes the odd decision to give limited screentime to the D. rex, not having it appear after the opening minutes until the finale. It doesn’t build up a threatening presence, it makes audiences forget about it. Straying further away from the sense of realism to what is frightening about the T. rex, these mutated or hybrid beasts are a far cry from what Stan Winston’s intentions were back in 1993. No rex named Indominus or Distortus can beat how frightening the T. rex is inone anxiety-inducing scenethat returns to what will always make her a threat.
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When the Delgado family gets hunted by the T. rex, it’s because they wandered into its territory. The first sighting finds the dinosaur sleeping, not prowling for a meal, but the family learns quickly how perilous their encounter can be with the wild animal.A shark swimming toward a humanis fear-inducing enough. Seeing the T. rex swim around the raft the family uses raises the fear level. Underwater shots then watch asthe family gets dumped out of the raft and must evade the T. rex’s jaws, pulling tension from the difficulty in moving too fast in the rushing water. A girl, the youngest member of the family, soon gets stuck in the upside-down raft and there is a horrifying visual of the dinosaur’s teeth attempting to rip through the material to get to the girl.
The T. rex is not good or bad, nor is it mutated tohave a sinister design like the D. rexor the hybrid Mutadons. The roar is as terrifying in the 2020s as it was in the 1990s. If it kills the Raptors going after humans, it will turn on them if they stand around too long. The T. rex continues to be the scariest dino on Isla Nublar or any research island, no matter the new monsters introduced into the franchise in theJurassic Worldtimeline.
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