Game over.
- Russell Van Pelt is probably 10 times more threatening than the original Van Pelt. Instead of an Egomaniac Hunter like the 1995 version, this Van Pelt is a ruthless mercenary who'll stop at nothing to get his hands on a mysterious jewel called "the Jaguar's Eye."
- He has one eye tinted a sickly green (a side effect of stealing the jaguar's jewel), making him look quite menacing.
- When he first invokes the power of the Jaguar's Jewel, he summons a swarm of rats in almost Biblical-Plague-like fashion.
- He doesn't even flinch when a centipede crawls into his ear!
- When his goons fail to catch the heroes, Van Pelt is furious.
Henchman: Don't worry, it won't happen again.
(Van Pelt grabs him by the collar and pulls him close to his face)
Van Pelt: I know it won't.
(a scorpion crawls out of Van Pelt's mouth and stings the goon on the back of the neck, killing him)- His pet vulture is no slouch either. This buzzard of black feathers constantly follows the heroes through the jungle like your typical villain's messenger. The screech it lets out ain't no slouch either.
- His death is also unsettling: When Spencer/Bravestone succeeds in placing the Jewel back into the Stone Jaguar, Van Pelt screams in agony as he disintegrates into a horde of rats.
- Entomophobes (fear of insects) and Arachnophobes (fear of spiders) are NOT going to have a good time seeing Russell Van Pelt for the first time post-cutscene. Or relatively soon after when a centipede crawls into his ear.
- The "Freak House". It's seen better days, and after the disappearance of Alex in 1996, the house has fallen into disrepair. It's neglected, its paint has peeled off, and it has an old gate installed all around it. It's an unsettling reflection of its owners' distrustful and paranoid mindset.
- What's more, the way its owner, Mr. Vreeke, grimly talks to Spencer about how "this world will eat [Spencer] up". There was a time when Mr. Vreeke was a friendly man with a laid-back view of the world, but no more.
- The scene where the kids get sucked into the game, which manages to be just as creepy as when it happened to Alan in the original movie. After Spencer presses start, the Jumanji drums start beating, wild jungle noises are heard, and the system starts shorting out. After Spencer unplugs it, it pauses for a brief second, then starts up again without any electrical power. Spencer then gets sucked into the game. The other kids freak out, even moreso when Martha realizes the same thing is happening to her. A second later, it happens to Bethany. Fridge, the last kid to get sucked in, is clearly hyperventilating the whole time.
- The snake in the basket. That is all.
- Even worse, it's a Black Mamba, which is considered to be one of the most dangerous venomous snakes out there.
- Fridge/Mouse's chillingly accurate description of black mamba venom's effects on humans.
- At the bazaar, one of Van Pelt's goons hurls knives at Spencer, and almost kills Fridge with a knife to the face. Fortunately for him, Spencer catches it just in time, but Fridge is understandably freaked out.
- Also, the field of snakes Martha/Ruby has to tiptoe carefully over.
- The entire sewer escape sequence. Imagine if Alex wasn't there to warn the party...
- The sewer tunnel is much narrower in space than many other sewer levels in video games. Claustrophobic ones, beware.
- The arrow trap. Without Alex's warnings, the entire party would have been shot out of nowhere.
- There's actually a decaying skeleton stuck to the wall that the arrows fly into. Seeing it for the first time is disturbing.
- The party is nearly cut to pieces by a sliding blade trap. Martha's expression upon narrowly dodging the trap completely sold it.
- Some of the party members nearly being eaten by crocodiles while crossing a plank over their pool.
- Alex has been trapped in Jumanji for twenty-one years and is completely unaware that that much time has passed; had the others not shown up, he would have been doomed to, at best, live forever in a vast jungle, as the only real being, without even real animals for company, and he was on his last life as it is.
- Each player has 3 stripe tattoos on their wrist indicating the number of lives they have to complete the game. If they lose all three lives, then as Spencer so puts it, it's "Game Over". (It's never explicitly stated exactly what happens, and perhaps it's better not to know.)
- Bethany/Shelly getting devoured alive by a hippo. Sure, she immediately plummets back into the game (since every player of the game has three lives and Bethany/Shelly used up her first), but imagine actually feeling the pain of getting gnawed by one of the bulkiest animals in Africa.
- Martha/Ruby after the group escapes the biker mercenaries by jumping off a cliff into a lake, discovers she's been shot in the chest with a disturbingly realistic delayed response, and then just implodes into a small red cloud.
- Spencer/Smolder and Fridge/Mouse get into an argument and Fridge shoves Spencer off a cliff, wasting one of his lives in a rage. Later, Spencer throws Fridge to a pack of rhinos to retrieve the Jewel, and while played for laughs, it is still disturbing for Spencer to casually waste one of his friend's lives, leaving him with only one.
- That moment towards the ending where Spencer ALMOST decides to remain in the game. He really fools the audience when, instead of giving Nigel his hand, he hands him the backpack in his hand.
- The drums after the credits implies that, although the group smashed the game with a bowling ball, it may have taken another form...
- One of the (apparently many) endings pitched was Jumanji turning itself into a mobile game, and uploading itself on somebody's (or everyone's) phone. Indeed, it is the next logical step...
- There's actually a mobile game available out now.
- While most of the "death" scenes are played for laughs and seem fine because the players just respawn, we learn from Fridge after being trampled by a pack of rhinos that he felt everything that happened to him before he "died" and respawned. Let's review what they had to go through:
- Spencer: pushed off of a cliff and mauled by a jaguar
- Fridge: exploded after eating cake and the aforementioned rhino stampede
- Martha: bled out after being shot in the chest and bitten by a venomous snake
- Bethany: eaten by a hippo (she lucked out and wasn't killed after that, she transferred her second life to a dying Alex, which only left her lightheaded)
- Bethany's death is also possibly the most shocking and graphic out of any of the protagonists'. If absolutely anyone harbored illusions that hippos weren't dangerous, they won't after watching that scene.
- Alex: his hot air balloon fell out of the sky into a canyon and his plane was shot down — if neither crash killed him, the aforementioned rhino stampede would get him — and nearly died after being bitten by a mosquito, but Bethany saved him.
- It's never explicitly stated exactly what Alex's first two deaths were caused by, only that the transportation shed level at least cost him the second. However, given his incredible familiarity with the traps leading away from the bazaar there are no shortage of potential candidates.
- Don't forget, he remarks at the crocodile pit that falling in would be "a horrible way to die". Personal experience talking, perhaps?
- Alex's camp is really Alan Parrish's old one. This is the world Alan was trapped in for 26 years.
- The very idea that Jumanji is sentient and wants to lure in people to play it and be trapped inside there. Also, it can and will change into any form to achieve that goal!
- Word of God is that Jumanji has transformed into a mobile app - possibly taking a cue from Bethany. Now it's available all over the world, who knows how many people it could suck in next? And will ALL of them be able to complete the game or become doomed?
- Imagine if Jumanji was becoming an MMORPG...
- If its goal is simply that it wants to be played, then theoretically, being able to lure in huge numbers of players at once would mean it wouldn't have to be as aggressive at holding players, as it would always have a fresh supply.
- At least until the flood of negative "this app almost killed me!" reviews lead people to start avoiding it.
- During the climax, there's the way that Martha (whose character's weakness is venom) has to traverse a viper pit to reach the Jaguar's eye. As she nears it, the snakes uncannily rise all at once, courtesy of Van Pelt.
- Also a chilling homage to how Jumanji's perils always set themselves off like a booby trap.
