• Home
  • Buy our Kindle Movie Quizzes
  • Meet Team BMAF
  • Contact BMAF
    • Website Privacy Notice
    • Cookie Policy

Barking Mad About Films

One man and his dog; both barking mad about films

Should You Grab(oid) At The Chance Of Seeing Another Tremors Movie?

April 17, 2016 by Bill Leave a Comment

n/a
shares
Be First to Share ->
Share on Twitter
Share on Google+
Share on LinkedIn
+
What's This?

We at Barking Mad About Films do love a creature feature, and one of the best, in our opinion was the 1990 film, Tremors.

Directed by Ron Underwood, who would go on to direct the also excellent City Slickers. Also on his CV is Mighty Joe Young.

Ron may be best known, however, for directing the huge Eddie Murphy box office flop: The Adventures of Pluto Nash. 

Ron now appears to mainly direct for TV with lots of our favourite shows on his lists of credits from Reaper to Castle!

To give you an idea of the success of the original Tremors, the film has spawned 4 direct to DVD sequels and a TV series!

The original film centres around 2 handymen Val (Kevin Bacon) & Earl (Fred Ward) who want to leave the sleepy town of Perfection, Nevada to better themselves.

They soon discover that the small town is now infested with gigantic worm-like creatures, named Graboids via shopkeeper Walter (Victor Wong) 

With the help of Rhonda (Finn Carter) a seismology student and ‘survivalists’ Burt & Heather Gummer (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire) they manage to defeat the creatures and put the town of Perfection on the map.

The sequels are all enjoyable, if a fan of the low budget, B-Movie and are a great attempt to keep the series evolving, rather than carbon copy the original.

What is interesting is the directing of the sequels, with the exception of the latest instalment, would fall to the original Tremors writers: S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock which we feels helped keep this franchise going.

Parts 2 & 4 being directed by Wilson and 3 directed by Maddock. As writers, they know the creature they invented and develop it.

Here we look at the Tremors franchise briefly:

A prime example of benefit of having the same writers, is in the first sequel, Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) where they give the Graboid varying stages during its life cycle. As there is only so much you can with a worm like creature, I’m sure you would agree?

We meet a walking version of the Graboid, called a shrieker. Another version we meet has wings and a tail that shoots flames (the AssBlaster) are introduced into the sequel, as there is only so much you can with a worm like

Tremors 2 would also bring back Fred Ward’s Earl character and Michael Gross character, Burt. The setting is however relocated to Mexico.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) sees Burt return home to help the town from land developers, looking to push all out of their homes. They plan to build on Perfection, now it has become a tourist attraction, with many visitors coming in the hope of hunting or just seeing a Graboid.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)  is a western prequel, set in the town of Rejection, Nevada. The town is extremely poor because of Graboids, known in this era as dirt dragons, who are over running the mines. Miners clearly find this unsafe so profit is not being made. Michal Gross again returns playing the great grandfather of his Burt character.

The town is extremely poor because of Graboids, known in this era as dirt dragons, who are over running the mines. Miners clearly find this unsafe so profit is not being made.

Michal Gross again returns playing the great grandfather of his Burt character. They, of course, beat the Graboids as we learn Rejection becomes a place of wealth,hence it being renamed to the town of Perfect we know so well from the other instalments.

These have all been popular with fans, although I am unable to comment on the series, set after the third film, having never seen it! Its premise, over just 13 episodes, does make it worth seeking out, as it appears to be more a character piece of how the residents learn to live side by side the Graboid.

In 2015 a fifth instalment, 25 years after the original, Tremors 5 was released. The big stand out is that Wilson and Maddock walked away from the project, after losing creative control.

Michael Gross returns with a new cast addition: Jamie Kennedy from the Scream franchise as Travis. Travis talks Burt into hunting a new type of Graboid in South Africa, with the promise that he can help grow Burt’s dwindling brand and help him with marketing etc to be a huge success.

The tremors have a new strain in this feature and some sequences are clearly a nod to the Jurassic Park raptors. The film suffers that the creatures appear to be something new, and it doesn’t seem to have the same feel as the previous 4.

If a fan of the franchise, there is, however, plenty to enjoy, but if you have not liked any of the other sequels, we feel this will do little to change your opinion.

Gross is great fun as his comedy Graboid hunting character and Kennedy is good value too. CGI is good for a film of this type and clever ideas of hunting Graboids are good too.

Rumours since August 2015, after this film was announced, was that a TV reboot or a Sixth film could happen, this was fuelled by Kevin Bacon saying he would be open to a return (would surely be better than doing EE adverts!)

If you like low budget SyFy films you could do worse than give the Tremors franchise a chance, and if you love films of this genre, the first really is a must see.

Chihuahua and Tremors franchise DVD's
Pepper and our Tremors collection

What’s your favourite B-Movie franchise? Are you a fan of Tremors? Would you love to see Kevin Bacon return, we would love to hear from you, here at Barking Mad About Films

 

Never miss a BMAF blog. Receive email notifications when new posts are published by entering your email address in the subscription box on the top right-hand side of this page.

 

You can also like us on Facebook for more contentwww.facebook.com/barkingmadaboutfilms/

Share on Twitter
Share on Google+
Share on LinkedIn
+

Comments

comments

Filed Under: Action, Action film, Adventure movies, Alien film, Animatronic, B Movie, Bad Films, Blockbuster movies, Box Office, CGI, Characters, Chat, Cheap films, classics, comedy, Creature Feature, Cult Classic, Debate, Different, Discussion, DVD, fantasy, Fantasy Adventure, Fantasy Film, Favourite, Film, Film Chat, Film Franchise, Film review, Film reviews, Film to TV, Films, Franchise, fun, FX, Home Viewing, Horror comedy, Horror/Comedy, low budget, Low Budget films, Memories, Monster movie, Monsters, Movie Discussion, Movie Franchises, Movie Review, nostalgia, PG13 Horror, Reboot, rewatch, sci fi, Sci Fi/Horror, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Comedy, Sequel, Sequels, Straight to DVD, suspense film, SyFy, SyFy Comedy Tagged With: AssBlaster, Brent Maddock, Castle, City Slicker, Eddie Murphy, Finn Carter, Fred Ward, Graboid, Jamie Kennedy, Jurassic Park, Kevin Bacon, Michael Gross, Mighty Joe Young, Pluto Nash, Reaper, Reba McEntire, Ron Underwood, S.S Wilson, Scream, Scream Franchise, Shrieker, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Tremors, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, Tremors 5, Tremors Franchise, Tremors TV Series, Tremors: The Legend Begins, Victor Wong

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

What Have We Been Barking Mad About Recently?

  • Our Visible Review of the Invisible Man
  • Is Bad Boys For Life A Return to Form For The Franchise?
  • Is The Rise of Skywalker A Fitting End To The Star Wars Saga?
  • The Barking Mad About Films Top 10 Films of 2019
  • 10 Films We Can’t Wait To See In 2020

Jump to a Category

Jump To a Tag

3 star review 3 Stars 3D 4 Star review 4 stars 5 Star Review 5 Stars Blockbuster Book Book Adaptation Book to Film CGI Comedy Deadpool Disney drama Film Film Blog Film Review Five star review five stars Four Star review Four Stars Franchise Ghostbusters Harry Potter Horror James Bond Jaws Jennifer Lawrence John Wick Marvel Marvel Comics Movie Blog Movie review Reboot Remake review sequel Star Wars Star Wars: The Force Awakens Three Star Review Three Stars Thriller Tim Burton

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in