What do you get when you combine Kevin Bacon, Reba McEntire, and giant flesh-eating worms? Tremors.
The King of the B Movies, tremors takes us to Perfection, Nevada, a town with a small population that suddenly gets even smaller.
Val and Earl are the local handymen, struggling with the unrelenting monotony of their thankless jobs. Surely there must be something better for them out there. After a tank full of septic sludge sprays them with gallons of unquestionable foulness, they finally decide they’ve had enough. Unfortunately for Val and Earl, the Graboids have come to town and sealed off their only means of escape.
The Graboids are giant, subterranean worms that swim effortlessly through the desert sand at Cheetah-like speeds. What’s worse, they are incredibly strong, intelligent, and patient. Living underground, the Graboids have adapted to detect their prey by sensing the tiny seismic ‘tremors’ of their footsteps.
Now Val and Earl must combine their collective (yet lacking) wits with those of Burt and Heather (the local survivalists), Rhonda (the Geologist), and the rest of the good citizens of Perfection.
This flick pushes the boundary on what is a B Movie. The terrible theatre performance combined with the massive cult following that showed up too late to make any money qualify Tremors for this category.
Without a doubt the best senseless discharge of excessive ammunition I have ever seen came when one of the Graboids broke into the reckroom of Heather (otherwise known as Reba McEntire) and Burt (AKA Mr. Keaton from Family Ties). What followed was nothing short of hilarious. Rifle after shotgun after pistol after flare gun and finally an Elephant Gun are emptied into the mighty worm until it finally relents under the barrage of ammo that was meant for “the war at home.” Not since Jesse the Body Ventura bit it in Predator has so much ammunition been fired in one awesome montage.
Another priceless, yet commonly overlooked, benefit of this film is the ability to link Kevin Bacon to Reba McEntire in one movie.
Final Score: BBBBB
Five out of Five B’s.
~Man Overboard
5 Comments
“Broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn’t ya you bastard!”
This is one of my favorite movies! It seriously doesn’t get old. The Graboids have got to be up there with the aliens from Alien as one of the best monster creatures in a sci fi film. The fact that they can sense your footsteps makes for awesome start and stop tension throughout the whole film.
I can’t see this movie on without watching it, even if I am coming in the middle of the movie. Great pick from the B-Movie Archives.
Melvin,can anyone tell me how, and to whom was he related to in the first movie?
Thanks… Cathy
A fine bit of trivia, Cathy. I’ll admit I had to Google it:
Q
Who was the adult guardian of Melvin in Tremors?
A
This is actually a question to which we gave considerable thought: “Why is there a lone teenage kid in Perfection?” Here’s Melvin’s Tremors 1 back story: he’s the son of rather irresponsible parents who regularly leave him home alone to go gambling in Vegas. The townsfolk long ago got used to the situation, as people in small towns do. There was a line explaining this in the original Tremors 1 script. It was said by Val or Earl and was something like, “I wish his parents would just take him with them to Vegas.” As a result, Melvin turned out sort of selfish and money-hungry in Tremors 3, but we understand him since he had to fend for himself from a young age.
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