Tremors (1990)

 Tremors (1990)

Tremors is a fun throwback to the monster pictures of the 50’s and 60’s. Truth be told, the trailer made the film look like to be one of those horrible January movies. Surprisingly, the film has an ample amount of character development. The underground monsters are scary and obviously a major part of the plot, but S.S Wilson’s and Brent Maddock’s script takes time to properly flesh out the main characters. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward took these characters and made them memorable. I was surprised at the amount of comedy. I was expecting at least a semi-serious approach. Instead, I was laughing at quite a few jokes. The special effects/creature designs are legitimately frightening. For some time, I kept expecting one of these underground monsters to come from the ground and eat me. The film is familiar, and it hardly touches any new ground. The monster formula is present, but the filmmakers make the best out of this formula to give us an entertaining, B-film. It won’t make any top ten lists, but it is an effective horror comedy.

Tremors did not deliver impressive numbers at the box office. It was originally set for release in 1989 with an R-rating. Universal decided to make the film more family-friendly for commercial prospects and delayed the release for editing reasons. Apparently, more than 20 cases of the F-word were removed. The promotion after the delay was nonexistent outside of a poor trailer. The production team was really happy with the final result of the actual movie but not how it was handled by the marketing team. Once released upon home video, its popularity soared as people discovered the film is legitimately fun. Over the next two decades, like five or six direct-to-video sequels were created establishing a worthwhile franchise (although one could admit that this might be the only film in the series worth watching).

The idea is intriguing of how this monster flick came to be. When Wilson and Maddock were working for the United States Navy in the early 1980’s, they were in charge of creating educational safety videos. The two men climbed a large desert boulder and thought “What if there something that would not allow us to leave this rock?” They brought the idea to their friend Ron Underwood, who was working as a documentary director at National Geographic. Underwood was able to use his knowledge of zoology to create monsters that could actually exist. Lightweight foam was used to design the full-scale graboids. The creature design is outstanding!

Valentine McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) are living a dead-end life in the small desert town of Perfection, Nevada. When corpses begin to mysteriously appear, the two men decide to investigate. After a run-in with these monsters feasting on a road crew, they go back to town to spread word. They are not the smartest creatures, but they are deadly and learn quick. They enlist the townspeople including a gal named Rhonda (Finn Carter) to help kill these creatures. Perhaps they can escape by taking refuge on the roofs of the building? With the creatures quickly able to adapt, even that may be a bad idea. They might just have to kill each of these 30-foot graboids before they are killed.

Val and Earl are not the brightest humans, but they have heart and strong chemistry with one another. Even though the cast is B-list (that could be pushing it, though), they look like they are having a blast making the movie. At least the audience is brought along for the fun times. Kevin Bacon is a long way from his Footloose dancing days, but I think that suits him well here. Less brains, more action!

Tremors takes a formula that made 50’s and 60’s monsters films enticing and gives it a bit of a 90’s kick. Is it cheesy? Yes, it is! Is it predictable? Darn right? Is it a fun monster flick with well-developed characters that promises a frightening experience? You betcha!

My Grade: B