"It just suddenly hit me. You know....stampede."
In the town of Perfection, Nevada, the locals are going about their business, when their town is suddenly plagued by mysterious deaths and disappearances. Soon, they discover that their peaceful valley has been invaded by giant underground man-eating worms. Two down-on-their luck handymen, Valentine McGee(Kevin Bacon), and Earl Bassett(Fred Ward) team up with a student seismologist(Finn Carter) and survivalists Burt and Heather Gummer(Michael Gross and Reba McEntire), to fight the creatures.
Ok, so, the story isn't original. Doesn't need to be in this case. This is a monster movie, plain and simple. Released in 1990, it helped launch Kevin Bacon into the spotlight and was Reba McEntire's first foray into the film world. While this film had it's fair share of scares, it was also really funny at the same time thanks to Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. Those two bounced off each other almost like Abbott and Costello. They were very funny, likable, and pretty down-to-earth. It also helps that the rest of the cast were also up to the challenge, everyone from Victor Wong(Walter Chang) to Bobby Jacoby(Melvin) really put forth incredible effort, to bring the audience into the movie. Michael Gross's character of Burt Gummer, is particularly funny, because his character takes himself a little too seriously, and the rest of the characters react to that in some pretty funny ways.
Now, this being a monster movie, you've got to have interesting monsters. And we do. Giant. Worms. These are not your typical earthworms. No, these are desert-dwelling gigantic man-eating worms that move with incredible speed, and can't see, but they can feel vibrations from potential victims. When you first see the monster, it looks like a mutated snake as it's dangling from Val and Earl's truck. Then you see later, that it's more of a tongue that will grab you and pull you in. Truthfully, having monsters that attack you from underground is actually a pretty freaky idea, but it is one that works in this case. There are points in the movie where the camera is from the creature's point of view, sneaking up on a victim, and you go, "is it gonna get 'em? Is it gonna get 'em?" It gets pretty intense at times. There are some gruesome moments in the film, like when Val and Earl find one of the townspeople on an electrical tower, and the head of another in a field. It's not really one for the kids, despite the PG-13 rating. And speaking of special effects, no CGI trickery is used here, just simple camera tricks, miniatures and puppetry. And it works, beautifully.
The film works, because not only do you have great monsters and scares, it's incredibly funny at the same time, and few movies have been able to pull that off. Tremors is one that has stood the test of time, and will for years to come. I think it would've fared even better if it was the ONLY Tremors film, but it's not. It's spawned two sequels, one prequel and a short-lived television series, all of which I own copies of. Tremors 2: Aftershocks, kept Michael Gross and Fred Ward, and still worked to a certain degree, even though it was...gorier. It was still funny at times. Tremors 3: Back To Perfection, starred Michael Gross in the lead along with Arianna Richards and Tony Genaro from the original film. Tremors 4: The Legend Begins takes place in the Old West when Perfection, Nevada was known as Rejection. Tremors 4 featured Michael Gross as the great-grandfather of Burt Gummer. He and Billy Drago were the only real saving graces of the fourth film. But I'll review each film separately. The television series ran for 13 episodes and featured Michael Gross in the lead as Burt Gummer, obviously. A couple of episodes managed to feature Christopher Lloyd. But the show only lasted 13 episodes on the Sci-Fi channel before being canned. There's a reason. The show really wasn't that great. It's not horrible, but there's nothing terribly remarkable about it either. And there are rumors of a fifth film that is supposed to take place in Australia. But I haven't heard anything new about that in years.
Honestly, I enjoyed the sequels, and the TV show, but to be truthful with you, the one film in the series that has really prevailed as one of the best monster movies in the past 25 years is still the original film with Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. Their performances and fantastic writing really help keep the first Tremors film from being forgotten. I highly recommend this film to any fan of monster movies and/or Kevin Bacon. It gets a perfect 10/10.
