Tremors (1990) – Review

In what was basically a throwback to the creature-features of old director Ron Underwood and writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock came up with an idea they first dubbed “Land Sharks” – which was basically Jaws on land – but where they would stray from that classic monster formula was in the protagonists who wouldn’t be G-Men or lab coat wearing scientist, instead, they would be a couple of hapless handymen who’d rather be doing anything else than fighting monsters.

Located in a sun-baked region of Nevada is the small town of Perfection, a community that may be weak in population but strong in grit and determination, and that determination is put to the test when terror strikes in the form of burrowing monsters that relentlessly hunt their prey. It is true that Ron Underwood’s Tremors owes its genesis to film like Them! – a 50’s film where giant radioactive ants terrorized a desert community – but in this film, you don’t get the likes of James Arness and James Whitmore to fend off the monsters, not at all, in this movie we get reluctant heroes Valentine McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Basset (Fred Ward), a pair of blue-collar handy-men who upon finally deciding to abandon Perfection for a better life, one with fewer septic tanks to empty, find themselves facing an unknown threat, something that is killing their fellow residents.

“We decided to leave town just one damn day too late!”

Another staple of this genre is the earnest scientist, whose key job in a monster movie is to lay out all the exposition about the creature and how to defeat it, usually while wearing a lab coat and pointing at a chart, and though Tremors does have a scientist in its ranks, in the form of seismologist Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter), she hasn’t a clue as to what the people of Perfection are facing and is a little put out when people keeping asking her for answers. In those classic science fiction films, the term “scientist” meant you were an expert in every field, from atomic energy to zoology, but Rhonda is a seismologist and thus creatures that are unprecedented in the fossil record aren’t exactly in her purview. Now, this doesn’t mean she has nothing to offer as her knowledge of the Earth is instrumental in our group of heroes figuring out how to defeat the monsters – wonderfully named Graboids by general store owner Walter Chang (Victor Wong) – and this knowledge is greatly needed because these creatures aren’t just mindless killing machines, they learn and adapt tactics to get their meals.

“Feed me, Seymour Feed me all night long.”

What makes Tremors so great is that it is a masterful blending of the genres.  First, you have the mystery side of things, as to what is killing the residents of Perfection, with Earl and Val initially assuming a serial killer has set up shop nearby, and then you have the monster movie aspect with the reveal of giant worms bursting out of the ground and dragging its victims into its horrible maw with nasty tentacles, but most importantly to this film is the perfect blend of humour which is wonderfully embodied by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward’s reluctant heroes. When they first uncover a Graboid, after it dies running headlong into a concrete culvert, Earl asks “Hey, Rhonda you ever seen anything like this before?”

“Oh, sure Earl. Everyone knows about them we just didn’t tell you.”

Its the relationship between Earl and Val that really makes this movie sing and the chemistry between Bacon and Ward is impossible to deny and though the film does have a romantic subplot, between Val and the cute as a button Rhonda, it’s clear that the bromance between Earl and Val is the primary force here, but as good as the camaraderie between those lovable goofballs is the talents of the rest of the cast should not be ignored.  The aforementioned Victor Wong, whose money-making schemes for the Graboids was very believable and incredibly funny but most notable would be the paranoid survivalists Burt (Michael Gross) and Heather Gummer (Reba McEntire) whose underground bunker didn’t take into account an enemy that could burrow from underground. Then we have the creatures themselves, which were designed brilliantly by Amalgamated Dynamics, who not only the challenging job of creating the film’s title creature but also in making sure it didn’t look like something that escaped from David Lynch’s Dune. The result was a monster that worked as a threat whether it be bursting out of the ground or travelling under the surface like a giant angry groundhog.

“I’m alright. Nobody worry ’bout me.”

I particularly liked that Underwood and company felt no need to explain where the Graboids came from, no nuclear testing caused these beasties, yet that almost wasn’t the case as the execs over at Universal initially wanted an origin for the monsters and they almost forced the filmmakers to give them an extraterrestrial explanation, luckily wiser heads prevailed and a backstory for the Graboids was pushed off and left as mere speculation by the film’s characters.

“I vote for outer space. No way these are local boys.”

Stray Observation:

• The city of Perfection has a population of 14 people which is a bit grandiose when you consider the fact that most states require a minimum between 1,500 and 5,000 residents to be considered a city.
• Earl and Val find the severed head of Old Fred peeking out of the earth, but why did the Graboids leave that part of the meal behind?
• Little Ariana Richards has a magical Pogo stick, Kevin Bacon tackles her off the toy and yet it remains standing long enough to be pulled underground by a Graboid.
• Having to pole vault from rock to rock, so as to keep out of reach of the Graboids, is basically the monster version of “The Floor is Lava” game that we all played as children.
• Casting Family Ties star Michael Gross as a right-wing survivalist is easily one of the best cases of casting against type.

“Broke into the wrong goddam rec room, didn’t ya you bastard!”

What is surprising is the fact that back in 1990 Tremors was a box office disappointment, despite fairly good reviews across the board – the studio’s inability to market the film being the biggest suspect for its financial failings – and if not for the VHS rental boom this title may have slipped beneath the sands into obscurity, instead, it slowly built some serious cult status over the years and eventually developed enough buzz to not only launch a film franchise but a short-lived television series as well, and that’s not something that film’s from the 50s can boast. No matter the troubling history this film had, or what the future holds for the franchise, whenever I set back to watch the original Tremors it’s not so much to watch a cool monster movie, which it most certainly is, as it is to kick back and revisit a group of oddball friends.