Taking its cues from the great ‘creature features’ of the 1950s Tremors is a nostalgic take of these classic movies, such as Tarantula and Them. Set in the small isolated Nevada town of Perfection, the local inhabitants are unaware of their underground neighbours until corpses start turning up around the valley.
Our hero’s, as they are, are Val & Earl, local handy-man doing odd jobs for the local residents of Perfection, from fixing fences to clearing rubbish. Val & Earl unhappy with their lot in Perfection finally decided to leave for the bright lights of Bixbe, however leaving Perfection isn’t as easy as it seems.
After coming across a number of locals which have met their various ends due to the underground menace, Val & Earl head back to Perfection, but not alone, something tried to stop them, but what?
As the pace of the story increase and with the help of a good selection of characters, from the young university scientist, who seems to know nothing about anything, to the survivalist couple stocked to the nine’s with any military hardware going, he even has a canon. The tension rises as the people of Perfection realise that they are on the menu for these giant worms, or Grabiods as named by the town’s store keeper, played by Victor Wong (The Golden Child & Big Trouble in Little China).
The films plays well with all the required ingredients for a good ‘creature feature’ with some nice cheesy dialogue that fits in well and some over the top acting, which is always needed. The comedy in the film is nicely balanced and doesn’t try to tack over the film and keeps the horror moments tense enough to remind you that there are scary monsters out there.
Though the film only had minimal success at the box-office Tremors went onto spawn 3 more films, plus a 4th in development and a short run television series, so people must have liked it and I’m one of them.
Cast
Kevin Bacon …Valentine McKee
Fred Ward … Earl Bassett
Finn Carter … Rhonda LeBeck
Michael Gross … Burt Gummer
Directed By … Ron Underwood
Fact
According to promotional material from the Sci-Fi Channel, the official scientific name of the Graboid is “Caederus mexicana”.
Trailer
Get The Film
