Nightmare Fuel / Civil War (2024)

• The general premise of it all (especially how it more or less hits home and reality given the real world state of affairs). The President of the United States is seen as corrupt and hated enough that nineteen states have successfully seceded from the US, in addition to the fact that the country is now being sent in a downward spiral now that extremist partisans now commit atrocities between one another in almost every state.
  • It should be noted that there is no clear indication of when and how the Second American Civil War actually started, with only a handful of brief comments relating to events under the POTUS's tenure being brought here and then. If these acts weren't a catalyst for the start of the civil war, what kind of egregious act(s) did the POTUS do upon taking the office that caused Texas and California to team up out of all states?
• Throughout the film the journalists pass by several smouldering battlegrounds while en route to Washington DC. During the early phase of the trip, they have to pass by a highway of hundreds of destroyed civilian vehicles (with Joel telling Jessie that she has to see this in order to give her an insight of what she is about to encounter as a war photojournalist). The scene in question eerily resembles the infamous Highway 80 in Iraq (or the Highway of Death). One must wonder what the locations were like during the heat of the battle in addition to how the civilians were caught in the crossfire.
• The trailer in general is pretty nightmarish, given that its premise of a Second American Civil War breaking out due to ideological friction between America is not entirely implausible as the country has become increasingly more divided in Real Life. A particular moment stands out when the journalists get cornered by a soldier. When Joel tries to defuse the situation by clarifying that they're Americans, the soldier asks them what kind of Americans they are, showing just how bad the division has gotten.
  • Not only that, but when the camera zooms out to a wide shot of the scene, there's a very visible corpse lying right next to Jessie. Assuming the person wasn't already dead by the time the journalists came across him, it speaks a lot of volume that this soldier was willing to kill someone right in front of a teenager. In the film itself, the journalist was shot by the soldier right in front of Jessie. Another one is killed shortly after, solely because he's from Hong Kong.
• The protagonists stopping at a gas station and coming across two people who have been publicly hanged. Jessie is understandably horrified by it and even Lee, a seasoned journalist who has experience with being in war zones, seems shocked at the sight.
  • Made even worse by the fact the man are hanging, but not hanged to death. They are severely injured from repeated torture, and likely to die if left in this state much longer, but still able to speak. It's later revealed they were executed right in front of Lee and Jessie.
• The journalists' encounter with an unnamed militiaman played by Jesse Plemons (and his silent buddy) is absolutely terrifying. Heck, Plemons's character might be the single scariest person in the movie, thanks to his bone-chilling performance. The way he casually executes Bohai and Tony on the spot is horrifying enough. However, the shocked reactions from Jessie and Joel (and Tony, just before he is killed) sell this scene as well. The icing on the cake is Jessie falling into a pit with corpses right after Sammy rams the truck into the militiamen to save the group.