Summary Capsule
A small dustbowl town becomes target for vicious underground worms that smell real bad.
Summary Capsule
| reviews |
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Tremors follows Valentine (Bacon) and Earl (Ward) around on their adventures to see if they can attract every land worm in the tri-state area. The worms are attracted to noise, see, and Valentine and Earl talk a lot, see, so... While the worms themselves are not very scary, the idea of them is kinda cool, and it keeps the characters hopping. The worms supposedly smell very bad, and the characters comment on that quite a bit, so I suppose this movie would go well with a bowl of rancid, rotting meat next to your couch for the full effect. Tremors is a terrific romp (you go romping, don't you?), particularly when we meet Burt (Michael Gross), the NRA paranoid freak and his wife (Reba McIntire), who utterly take out one of the worms. It made me want to order for chinese, when I saw it... Well, if you haven't seen this movie, then you haven't dissected earthworms as a kid and idly wondered if they would come back for revenge. Viva la worm!
Anyway, the premise is that Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) live in this little hole-in-the-wall town in Oklahoma called Perfection, Pop. 14. They're the resident handymen; they get stuck doing all these crappy jobs for the people of Perfection and one day they decide to leave for Bixby. But between the town and the end of the valley they discover a dead body, part of a dead body, lots of parts of dead sheep and a buried station wagon. While trying to get to Bixby on horseback to get some help, they're attacked and figure out that what's been killing everything. There are these gigantic worms under the ground that have tentacles that shoot right out of their mouths and grab you and pull you in. It makes for a really fun movie in the tradition of classic 1950s B movies, like Them! or Ants! or The Twinkie that Swallowed L.A.! The reason this movie works so well is that it takes itself seriously enough to have a funny script and likeable characters and decent special effects, yet it doesn't take itself so seriously that it loses its campy, tongue-in-cheek feel. Plus, Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward have some of the best onscreen chemistry of anybody I've seen. They're witty exchanges are the best part of the entire movie. They're so wry and sarcastic and they slam on each other left and right. I also love the way they solve everything: Rock, Paper, Scissors. It really is hilarious. The supporting cast is okay; Rhonda the love interest is nice because she's not some blonde-haired, big-boobed girl who runs around and screams so much she has you hoping the monsters will grab her with their tentacles and chow down. Instead, she's a cute brunette graduate student and makes a nice foil to Kevin Bacon's cowboy/handyman character. Michael Gross and Reba McIntyre play Burt and Heather Gummer, these survivalist types who are always packing heat and have a plan for everything: World War III, the next Nazi Invasion, invading Canada, whatever. They're hysterical. And my other favorite cast member is Miguel, just because he has a Mexican accent and that makes his lines really funny. There are some other people, like this really obnoxious teenage boy and a moron hick guy and the girl from Jurassic Park. You know who I'm talking about. The "Is he gonna eat the goat?" girl. They're okay. Overall, the casting is good. The script is even better, they have a lot of funny lines and they deliver them right on target. So anyway, Tremors is well-worth checking out, I think it should be a favorite Popcorn Movie of everyone's because it's just so funny. You'll fall in love with it right away, I guarantee it. |
| extras |
 1990 Rated PG-13 Horror Comedy Director
Starring
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Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
No.
The Movie Store!
Intermission!
The entire town of Perfection in this movie was built on location from scratch - no buildings existed before the start of film production.
Official and Not-So-Official Websites
or he's REALLY in love with that pole. |
Earl: I ask you, is this a job for intelligent men?
Val: Show me one, I'll ask him.
Val: Burt, the way you worry you're gonna have a heart attack before you get the chance to survive World War III.
Val: We plan ahead, that way we don't do anything right now. Earl explained it to me.
Nester: Now listen Val. You gotta get to Bixby, you gotta get the police up here and you gotta step on it!
Val: Consider it stepped on.
Val: Walter, they [horses] better be fast. We don't wanna be stuck on a couple of canters.
Earl: Those snake things couldn't travel that fast.
Val: Hell, for all you know they could fly.
Earl: Judas' priest! Does it smell that like that cause it's dead?
Val: Oh man. The live ones smell worse than the dead ones.
Earl: Hey Rhonda, you ever heard of anything like this before?
Val: Oh sure Earl, everybody knows about 'em. We just didn't tell you.
Val: I got it, I got it. They're mutations caused by radiation. Or no, no, no. Government built them. Big surprise for the Russians.
Rhonda: There's nothing like them in the fossil record, I'm sure. So....they....predate the fossil record. And we've just never seen one 'til now. Right.
Earl: I vote for outer space. No way these're local boys.
[Earl, Val and Rhonda are stuck up on a rock to escape the monsters]
Earl: Well, haven't seen a sign for hours. Must be long gone.
Val: Yeah, must be.......Hey, why don't you take a little stroll and find out.
Burt: You'd think after eating all those sheep they'd have to take a dump someplace.
[shoots at the ground with the elephant gun]
Heather: Burt, cut it out!
Burt: I think I scared him!
Val: Ground's gettin' closer Earl. I say we go with Miguel's plan.
Rhonda: Burt, do you have any more of those bombs?
Burt: I gotcha covered Rhonda.
Rhonda: Well, what if we throw one that way, the way we wanna go. Then when it explodes, if it drives them away, we run like *%^damn bastards! Pardon my french.
Earl: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt: Cannon fuse.
Earl: What the hell you use it for?
Burt: My cannon.
Val: Now the second we hit Bixby, we start makin' some phone calls. I mean, we could make some real money on this thing. We could get in People magazine.
Earl: People? Hell, National Geographic.
Valentine: Roger that Burt, and congratulations. Be advised, however, that there are two more, repeat, two more motherhumpers.
[Earl and Valentine have just been chased by a 30 foot long monster]
Rhonda LeBeck: Did you notice anything weird a minute ago?
Earl: Damn it, listen to me. I'm older and wiser.
Valentine: Yeah, well you're half right.
DVD Review
Tremors comes in a nicely-packaged "Collector's Edition" DVD, which is slightly unusual for a monster horror movie like this, but welcome nonetheless. There are a few trailers, two for Tremors and one for Tremors 2: Aftershocks. There's mucho information on the cast and crew members, including "cast profiles" which are taken directly from the featurettes. The "Making of Tremors" and "Making of Tremors Creatures" featurette is the newer
documentary on this disc, and spans an interesting 53 minutes. There's about 5 minutes of additional scenes and outtakes, including the original opening (with "Justine the Mule"), and a pretty funny scene with Earl and Val getting their truck stuck. The Featurette is all right, short, with parts of it lifted for the Profiles. Finally, there's a few production photos, which is something I could never quite understand including in a DVD, but they're there.
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Feedback
Justin's Rating: I don't know, but here's the plan...
Andie's Rating: So I go to Oklahoma and fear getting eaten by gigantic worm monsters just to spend time with out in the middle of nowhere with Kevin Bacon? Hmmmmm....... "OHHHHHHklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain......"