Chris Sasaguay is a Horror and LGBTQ Author for Collider.
The Big Picture In 1991, the pilot episode of a new series centered on a housewife who used special life-sized Tupperware containers to induce eternal youth in her and her twin boys. It was one of many absurd mysteries in Eerie, Indiana, an NBC show that ran for one season between 1991-1992 before getting canceled.
The young adult show gave direct nods to The Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks, and classic horror films, having Joe Dante as the series creative consultant and the director of a few episodes. While Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? became influential young adult horror shows, Eerie, Indiana seemed to have taken a one-way trip into the mythic Bermuda Triangle, and it deserves to be rediscovered. Indiana isn’t a stranger to being the home of monsters and conspiracies. Multiple episodes of Supernatural are set in the state, and more recently, it’s the Demogorgon hub in Stranger Things. Coming before either one of these shows, Eerie, Indiana had an episode that confronted a tornado a few years before 1996’s Twister was released on the big screen and helped skyrocket interest in meteorology and storm-chasing. Eerie gave an absurd twist that had a funnel cloud touch down with a motive that wasn’t simply the mindless agenda of Mother Nature. No, this vortex of wind and debris had a mind of its own. Eerie, Indiana Teenager Marshall Teller discovers and encounters strange happenings in his new hometown of Eerie, Indiana. Release Date September 15, 1991 Cast Omri Katz , Mary-Margaret Humes , Julie Condra , Jason Marsden Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 1 It's Another Strange Day in ‘Eerie, Indiana’ Marshall Teller has moved from New Jersey to Eerie with his family. But only Marshall and his neighborhood friend Simon can see through the nostalgia of 1950s Americana hanging over everything in town, and notice the weirdness that abounds. A still alive, older Elvis lives on Marshall’s street, the trash gets eaten by Bigfoot, and in Episode 12, “Tornado Days,” swirling winds descend from the sky to aim themselves at the teen boy. Marshall learns the town holds an annual picnic to celebrate the return of a twister named Old Bob. Typically, people hurry to take shelter, not head to outdoor public events to wait for the weather phenomenon. “Back in New Jersey, we had blizzards and the occasional hurricane,” Marshall narrates in the episode’s opening, “but it was equal opportunity weather. It went after everybody. But here in Eerie, Indiana, I couldn’t help feeling that bad weather was after me, personally.” Understandably freaked out at the town’s picnic, Marshall stays back at home, where he meets Howard , who is out to thwart Old Bob’s damage path. But he proves to be an atypical meteorologist, as Howard is a tornado hunter with a Captain Ahab complex. Before Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, There Was This Obsessed Storm Chaser After intense winds hit, a giant metal object crash lands outside Marshall’s home and when Simon and Marshall hurry outside to investigate, they discover it to be a traveling capsule for Howard. Typical of an episode in Eerie, Indiana, Marshall is the rational character thrown into the orbit of kooky figures, and this episode is no exception. There is no doubt Frewer’s storm chaser would get along quite well with Twister’s Dr. Jo Harding and her merry band of chasers, but he also brings a hands-on, confrontational approach worthy of Jaw’s Captain Quint . Howard has built a Tornado Rider to take flight in Old Bob for what is a more specialized vehicle than any truck seen in either Twister or Twisters. But his mission isn’t over yet, not when Old Bob lurks in the distance. Howard sends out a message to entice the bad weather to get closer. Instead of throwing chum into the water to attract a Great White, Howard mocks Old Bob to make sure the episode doesn’t get too scary for its younger audience, “Your mama was a dust devil, Bob!” Movie audiences in 1996 would be blown away by the CGI effects in Twister when the chasers have to speed away from an F1 or when a nighttime tornado strikes a drive-in theater. Without a Hollywood budget, the TV show had to be creative to put Old Bob on the small screen. The Tornado in ‘Eerie, Indiana’ Is a Monster With a Grudge Archival footage of real tornadoes is used, with Howard and Marshall being put against the real footage rather than a physical effect like in The Wizard of Oz. Different funnel shapes are shown to depict Bob’s growing anger because this isn’t your average funnel cloud. If Twister got too campy for some viewers, with Jo believing that an F5 personally targeted her family and killed her father, the surreal tone of Eerie, Indiana means it can play this idea out without seeming too over-the-top. “You've never seen it miss this house, and miss that house and then come after you!” Jo yells out. In the town of Eerie, however, Old Bob will decide the path of destruction he wants to take. From first-hand accounts in the 2024 natural disaster docuseries In the Eye of the Storm, the formidable sound that comes from a twister is commonly described to be like the roar of a freight train. In Twister, the sound design helped to separate each tornado from another, like the shrill whistling noise of the waterspouts. In Eerie, Indiana, Howard’s arrival has the meteorologist showing Marshall the audio translator that can pick up the winds rotating within Old Bob and translate what it says. The raspy voice that is heard calls out to Marshall, feeling disrespected that the boy didn’t attend the picnic. Related Glen Powell Reacts To All Those Viral ‘Twisters’ Kissing Tik Toks "Daisy and I send each other the TikToks". The Cosmic Horror in the "Tornado Days" Episode Close “Big storms have big egos,” Howard warns, and the show makes this clear by treating Old Bob like an Eldritch deity, an inhuman force that extends from the skies. The cosmic horror influence is not as bleak as in movies and shows for older audiences, but there is even a similarity between the cults that worship Lovecraftian entities to how the town of Eerie holds the annual picnic to appease Old Bob and avoid suffering damage to their homes. Marshall’s older sister is even picked by the locals in charge of the festivities to be dressed with a tornado-themed headpiece and act as a pageant queen-like figure at the picnic. Characters or situations may get silly, but “Tornado Days” and other Eerie, Indiana episodes weren't afraid to bring a dark edge to its stories. As the town fears the celebration isn’t enough to calm Old Bob down, they have a passing thought about using Marshall’s sister as a human sacrifice. What makes the monstrous threat from Old Bob all the more fascinating are the connections Eerie has to the surreal-horror-soap opera that changed the TV landscape in 1990 from the creative minds of David Lynch and Mark Frost. There are countless references to Twin Peaks, with two big nods in “Tornado Days.” ‘Eerie, Indiana’ Is an Underrated ‘90s Horror Series The twister’s name “Old Bob” wasn’t by accident. It’s taken from Frank Silva’s long-haired, supernatural monster named Bob, that brings misery and death. Alumni actor, Harry Goaz, even has an appearance. In Twin Peaks, he was the sweet but dim-witted Deputy Andy, and he plays Sgt. Knight in Eerie, with a more serious face but remaining a source of comic relief due to Knight’s ineptitude. The absurd storylines in every one of the episodes of Eerie, Indiana ripped into the real-life darkness that existed, despite the wholesome facade presented in Eerie or the Pacific Northwest town of Twin Peaks. Seeing these various references in a young adult show helped it stand apart from Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps. The mysteries-of-the-week formula in Eerie, Indiana even predated The X-Files when that iconic sci-fi series aired its first episode in 1993. Like the investigations FBI agents Mulder and Scully looked into, many of the mysteries that Marshall got involved in were left with open endings, giving viewers an ominous lack of closure. While Old Bob isn’t defeated, Howard doesn’t stop on his mission to do so. Of the many onscreen depictions of twisters, what Eerie, Indiana did might be the most unique version of a twister that has yet to be beaten, even by the bonkers Sharknado movies. Every part of “Tornado Days” that aired in March 1992, from the oddball meteorologist to a tornado with a temper, to the archival footage used, and the horror influences, made it a funny and strange precursor to the mainstream popularity that would erupt from the 1996 blockbuster. It wouldn’t have seemed possible before knowing about this episode, but Eerie, Indiana can make Twister look tame and nuanced when Jo’s vendetta against the F5 and the love triangle inspired by His Girl Friday is put alongside Old Bob’s grudge with Marshall and Howard’s attempt to defeat the enraged twister.
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