Just the Ticket #104: Tremors

Hey, Ticketholders; what's shakin', Bacon?

It's finally time to tackle Tremors, the series about ever-evolving, giant, monster worms that attempt to consume some of the least enjoyable movie stereotypes ever written.

Case in point, Tremors stars Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward as two incompetent handymen/farmers who settle their disagreements with rock-paper-scissors and exchange such poorly scripted witticisms as "I wish I could stampede up your ass." And no, this is not a Cinemax prequel to Brokeback Mountain. Elsewhere, Michael Gross and Reba McEntire play a survivalist couple, complete with bomb shelter, homemade explosives, and a crap-ton of guns. And of course, because this is a monster movie, there is the requisite prankster who nearly gets shot several times and whom we wish would just hurry up and get himself eaten. The setting is the ironically named "town" of Perfection, Nevada, a sparse collection of roughly seven buildings, half of which are either trailers or franken-structures composed of random pieces of other buildings. New in town is the only initially likable character, a seismology student (a.k.a.: a plot convenience and love interest all rolled into one) named Rhonda, played by Finn Carter. This all seems despicably bad on the surface, but then the worms show up (termed "graboids" by the film's requisite Asian character, played by Big Trouble In Little China's Victor Wong), and things improve remarkably. For one thing, the first Tremors is produced by Gale Anne Hurd, a name you might recognize from The Walking Dead production credits, ensuring that the overall quality (for a 1990 monster movie full of unlikable rednecks) is as good as it can be. The practical monster effects are impressive for their time (and outperform some modern CGI efforts, in my opinion), and the balance of action and comedy is, for the most part, struck very well. I got the impression at times that Michael Crichton and Stephen Spielberg took inspiration from Tremors when working on their respective Jurassic Parks. The rippling puddles, the lawyer being eaten in an outhouse, the "they can't see you if you don't move" premise with the T-Rex, the lamb bone flying up out of the jungle, Alan Grant distracting the T-Rex with road flares, the velociraptors crashing into the oven; all of these iconic elements or scenes from the original Jurassic Park have similar, if not identical, occurrences in Tremors, which was released ten months before the book and six years before its movie adaptation. I didn't initially expect to like Tremors, and there are still aspects of it that I don't (such as the setting and most of the characters), but I was entertained by it and enjoyed the production value.
B-

Incompetent handyman Earl Basset (Fred Ward) returns in Tremors 2: Aftershocks, and is now an incompetent businessman-turned-incompetent ostrich farmer who gets hired by a Mexican oil tycoon to rid his drilling fields of a new breed of graboids. Kevin Bacon declined to return, as he was shooting Apollo 13 at the time, so it's written that his character married Rhonda and moved away from Perfection between films. Gone also is Reba McEntire, whose character apparently divorced Michael Gross' fellow survivalist Burt Gummer between films. Giving Earl his own Rhonda this installment is Helen Shaver's geologist, Kate Reilly. Gale Anne Hurd is no longer the producer, and it shows. The practical effects are as good as they were the first time (handled by the Amalgamated Dynamics effects company in both films), but this sequel is poorly paced, spending too much time on exposition, an overly comedic tone, and what feels like a forty minute montage of Earl, Burt, and their goofy sidekick blowing up graboids and getting into antic-heavy chase scenes of the kind you might expect to find in an old Laurel & Hardy short. The suspense is minimal, the comedy is so prevalent as to have had the punch punched out of it, and the movie is more than halfway over before we see anything resembling the level or spirit of action from the first installment. In an effort to make up for this dip in entertainment value, the graboids have now been given the ability to birth self-replicating, bipedal versions of themselves that look like short-tailed dinosaurs with oversized graboid heads, the CGI for which surpasses anything featured in any SciFi/SyFy/SYFY Channel Original Movie from the last twenty years. I appreciate the further nods to Jurassic Park (the novel having been on shelves for six years by this time), with the aforementioned, dinosaur-like "Shrieker" designs, the concept of rampaging, asexually reproducing monsters, and the goofy sidekick expressing a dream of starting a monster theme park. I also appreciate the filmmakers' attempt at creative threat escalation, but the delivery of said attempt was delayed for far too long.
D+

In Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, Steve Keaton from Growing Pains (Michael Gross) has been elevated to Series Main Protagonist by the same logic that determines how many attempts make a charm and how many sequential murders make a serial killer. His character, Burt Gummer, returns home to Perfection, Nevada (as the title suggests) in what feels like an anniversary homage to the first film. In the eleven years since then, Perfection has grown from a redneck Hooverville of a sarcastically quoted "town" into a graboid-centric tourist trap. Burt Ward's Earl has since found love with Kate and moved elsewhere, and Victor Wong, whose character named the graboids in the first movie, died the day after 9/11 (a month before Tremors 3 released). Susan Chuang plays his daughter in this installment, and despite not being that good of an actress, is one of the film's biggest redeeming qualities. Reprising their roles from the first film are Charlotte Stuart and Ariana Richards (the Sterngoods), Tony Genaro (Miguel), and Robert Jayne (the annoying prankster who somehow managed not to get eaten the first time, now an annoying real estate developer attempting to gentrify Perfection and add an element of social awareness to this otherwise mindless production). Speaking of mindless productions, the latest evolution of the graboids is a bipedal, frilled lizard kind of thing that flies by farting jet fuel. The original graboids were massive, smart, and stealthy. The Shriekers were less intelligent, but posed a greater threat because of their ability to multiply just by eating. These new "Ass Blasters" (because the Tremors movies are ridiculous), while creative by design, are poorly executed feats of CGI that pose little elevation in threat level beyond "they can fly now." I guess it's one of those things you think is ludicrously over-represented until it's actually happening to you, but this is a movie, so draw from that what you will. Adding to the socio-political "subplot" are a group of government agents who have dubbed graboids an endangered species (even though they are a global threat capable of eating whole human beings, submerging construction equipment, and giving birth to self- replicating monsters that turn into living missiles), and a rare, sterile, albino graboid that can be tricked into eating the more invasive, dangerous bulk of its species. As is typical of the series, our heroes get the monsters to explode and cover the landscape in something that resembles a mix of pink-orange Nickelodeon slime and pumpkin pulp, the most Southern guy rides off into the sunset with the girl he's been weakly hitting on the entire movie, and it stays self-contained while ending on some kind of irresolute resolution with hopes of leading into another sequel. A short-lived TV series was produced that follows canonically from Back to Perfection, but I have yet to find the series anywhere, nor do I feel any desire to get involved in Tremors on such a completionist level. I appreciate Tremors 3 as an anniversary/homecoming installment in the series, but the only reason I am continuing to watch the "Anthology" at this point is because I bought it and I made you a promise that I would review all of the movies.
C-

Next came the kind of entry in just about any franchise that no one likes and no one asked for: the direct-to-video prequel with almost none of the original cast or characters. Granted, all of the Tremors sequels have been direct-to-video so far, but there are quite a few beloved films (typically comedies, horror films, and Disney movies) with a direct-to-video prequel that either disappoints or outright pisses off everyone. Dumb & Dumber had When Harry Met Lloyd. Van Wilder had Freshman Year. And now, Tremors has Tremors 4: The Legend Begins. Why they didn't just leave out the four and identify it as a prequel is be--*re-reads section about direct-to-video prequels universally sucking*--oh, that's why. But here's the thing: Tremors 4 may be the best entry since the first film, if not the best Tremors film period. Shot as a sepia-toned Western take on the traditional Tremors formula, Tremors 4 is set in 1889, in the thriving--until a bunch of Asian and Mexican laborers get eaten by giant worms, that is--mining settlement of Rejection, Nevada. I like the over-arcing irony that the graboids were responsible for Rejection becoming the slapped-together dirt hole that Perfection was in the first movie, but also became the source of the town's renewed prosperity in Back to Perfection (and presumably, the TV show). When Rejection's mines are shut down, everyone but the main cast leaves town. That main cast consists of a weak female lead and potential romantic interest, an offensive "dumb Mexican" stereotype, an offensive spiritual Native American stereotype, and a family of three offensive Oriental stereotypes played by actors who can't speak English and are poorly dubbed over by English speaking actors who probably learned how to do terrible voice work by watching old episodes of Little House On the Prairie and M*A*S*H*. Their characters are the first generation owners of Chang's Market (run by Victor Wong and Susan Chuang's characters in the first and third films respectively). This little callback--or call-forward?--to previous, "future" installments made me chuckle. Enter Burt's great-grandfather, Hiram Gummer (also played by Michael Gross), a rich, self-entitled asshole who has never held a gun before. Are we sure these two are related? As much as I hated Hiram as a character, his stark contrast to Burt in the other Tremors films gives him a decent development arc that proves to be one of this movie's best aspects. Speaking of positives, Tremors 4 succeeds at re-capturing the spirit of the original film while catering to the tastes of modern audiences. The action starts up right away, the plot moves forward smoothly, and the character development scenes feature enough punchy dialogue to keep them from feeling drawn out, even though they're about a handful of mostly unlikable, offensive stereotypes sitting around and talking.

I say "mostly unlikable" for one reason, and one reason only: Billy Drago (seen right). If you aren't familiar with his work, Billy Drago played the main villain in season one of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., he had a multi-season run as a particularly formidable demon on Charmed, and has had prominent villain roles in several horror movies, such as The Hills Have Eyes 2006, Children Of the Corn: Genesis, and Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem. Though his turn in the Tremors prequel as gunfighter Black Hand Kelly borders on self-parody, Drago is as much of a treat on screen as he ever was, and is high on my list of favorite character actors, along with David Thewlis (Fargo season three), Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who and Heroes), Bill Nighy (Underworld and Love, Actually), Michael Emerson (Lost and Person Of Interest), Christopher Heyerdahl (Supernatural and Van Helsing), and Bruce Campbell (the Evil Dead trilogy). I guess I have a thing about character actors who play really twisted, charismatic villains (and yes, I consider Bruce Campbell part of that list because, had the third Spider-Man film not tanked, there were plans to reveal that Campbell's cameo character in the trilogy was actually the Quentin Beck incarnation of Mysterio). I've gotten off on a tangent, but the point I was trying to make is that Billy Drago is awesome at what he does. Getting back to how Tremors 4 re-captured the spirit of the original, there are no unnecessary social commentary subplots, no attempts at forced threat escalation, no terrible CGI, and no Shriekers or--thank God--Ass Blasters to contend with. It's just good, literally old-fashioned human ingenuity going against plain, traditional graboids (termed "dirt dragons" in this film, which is a cooler sounding, and generally superior name to anything concocted in the previous three entries), the practical puppeteering effects for which are as good as they ever were, despite being handled by a completely different effects company. The Legend Begins is a direct-to-video prequel done right, and even accounting for the absence of Kevin Bacon and the abundance of offensive cultural stereotypes, I'm committing myself to saying that Tremors 4 is better than the original. Just...not by much.
B

Who knew the end of the line would also be at the bottom of the barrel? With how these movies have been going so far (except for the fourth one, the first one--sort of--and the third one--maybe), I should not have been surprised. In Tremors 5: Bloodlines, it seems like the idea was, "let's remake Tremors 2, but set it in South Africa, remove all of the practical effects, and give Jamie Kennedy top billing so that it really sucks!" Tremors 5 takes the uncomfortably written suggestive quips of the first film (in this one, Jamie Kennedy's character says he'd like to get Burt on camera "really giving it to those Ass Blasters"), the overly comedic tone and uneven pacing of the second film, the bad CGI and unnecessary subplots of the third film, and the racial stereotype mysticism of the fourth film, and relegates Michael Gross to an "and" credit so that Jamie Kennedy can drop leftover pickup lines from Malibu's Most Wanted on an unavailable woman, tell the real main hero that he's old and irrelevant at every possible opportunity, and have his stunt double ride dirt bikes for him. The basic plot really is just Tremors 2 in a different country, what with the rich foreigner and the unlikable "main" character roping the real main character into ridding said country of a graboid infestation, and with the aforementioned flaws piled on from every previous film and then some, it manages to be the worst entry in the franchise, but I've already said that three times, three different ways, so let's talk about the three things in the movie that didn't suck horribly. First of all, even given the cheap video game CGI, I like what they did with the "lightning bird" design and the new take on the graboid tongues. Lightning birds (the South African natives' name for their species of Ass Blaster) look less like frilled lizards than like something H.P. Lovecraft would have come up with if he were asked to design a gargoyle, and they are the scariest things in the entire Tremors series. Secondly, the helicopter pilot (played by South African actor Ian Roberts) reminds me of Nick Nolte, if Nick Nolte were a badass instead of one of the sphincters of early 2000's Hollywood humor, and his exchanges with Burt are some of the highlights of the film. Third and finally, the love interest (a doctor--seriously, what is it about pairing up these unlikable, idiotic men with sexy doctors and scientists?--played by South African actress Pearl Thusi) is a badass for once. Maybe this is a negative, since most of the main cast are either genuine badasses or getting themselves killed by trying too hard to seem like badasses, but the majority of leading women in the Tremors series are characters with some kind of plot-convenient knowledge who are otherwise there to be objectified. With the exception of Reba McEntire in the first Tremors and--sort of--Susan Chuang in Back to Perfection, Pearl Thusi's character is the only woman in the series who really gets to actively participate in killing a creature, and she gets to do it multiple times, with a bow and arrow, and explosions. So, Tremors 5 is a step forward for women's rights! But it's also a deep tumble into the flaming pile of Ass Blaster feces for the series. I'd make a joke about explosive farts and fractured buttholes here, but the South Park RPG beat me to it.
F+

So, unfortunately, there is talk of a sixth Tremors movie, with Jamie Kennedy and Michael Gross returning. Aside from it releasing on January 28, 2018, nothing else is known about it, but I'd speculate that it involves their characters discovering amphibious graboids in Florida and having to rescue Kennedy's character's mother (and Burt's pre-Reba love interest) from the monsters. I expect more bad CGI, more Jamie Kennedy (duh), more awful pacing, unnecessarily over-the-top humor, and at least five characters that you want to see either get shot, eaten, or punched in the face, but never do. And possibly the return of Reba McEntire and some kind of resolution on what the HK91 is. Hopefully, it doesn't suck, but it probably will.

Also, Kevin Bacon is in the midst of shooting a second Tremors TV series for SyFy, reprising his role as Val McKee from the first film. I might actually watch this because it's Kevin Bacon, Tremors was the second best film in the Anthology so far, and SyFy is mostly on point with their TV series (their movies, not so much). Again, hope it doesn't suck.

I feel like I've been passed through the bowels of a graboid and extracted slowly and painfully with a rusty chainsaw. Let's not do this again for at least two months, okay?

Graboid Chainsaw Ticketmassacre,
out.