Tremors Retrospective Part 1: Great beginnings...and then the SyFy Channel.

     One of my favorite monster movies to this day is, and will always likely be, Tremors. The series as a whole is a great, fun series to watch. Over the years the franchise has been adding and adding to it, for better and for worse. With the 6th installment coming out later on this year I feel it time to do a retrospective on the series. This won't be a full string of reviews, though I am open to do those later on. Instead, this will be a mini-review talking about very basic details, how I feel about each film and how each film impacted the series as a whole. I won't be looking into the Tremors TV series as that is a mess in and of itself. So here is how the Tremors film series evolved into what it is today.

Tremors - Groundbreaking, and I am Not Just Talking About the Graboids

     The 80's and the 90's were great for monster movies. Remakes and new ideas were everywhere. Companies had to keep up with each other with either new monster movies or remasters/remakes of old ones. After the huge successes of Alien and Jaws in the 70's the "unseen" monster became a staple that many tried to replicate. The 80's brought us more gore and simpler stories, best encompassed by the 80's remake of The Blob in my opinion. In 1990 these tropes culminated in the monster movie, Tremors. The unique decision of making the monsters giant underground worms allowed the filmmakers to utilize the suspense of hiding the monster while the cozy setting of Perfection, Nevada kept things simple. While this film was not as gory as other movie in the years before, it still managed to get the bloody point across with bits of blood, dead bodies and pretty gruesome implication regarding how the worms eat and kill victims.
     One thing I have never told anybody is I honestly thought this movie was related to Godzilla movies when I first saw it. I had just watched Godzilla vs. Biollante again (still one of if not my favorite) when I went to Blockbuster. I saw the box art for Tremors and my young naïve mind honestly thought the thing on the cover was one of Biollante's vines. It is extremely stupid, I know, but I was 8. I watched the movie for the first time and fell in love. I quickly became a Tremors fan and took any excuse to watch that movie on TV.
     What makes this movie so great? quite frankly a lot of things. The simple story and setting allows the characters to be the main thing to drive the story along. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward play some good ol' boys just trying to get by as handymen, Michael Gross (franchise veteran) plays the gun-toting conspiracy theorist Burt Gummer and a other colorful townsfolk make this town of just around a dozen people feel really cozy. After just a short time seeing the townsfolk hang out in Wong's shop, you immediately identify with everybody and begin to see them as an extended family to each other. This familiarity between the characters makes it all the more heartbreaking whenever any character dies.
     Another great thing is that these characters are not stupid and predictable. It sounds like a weird thing to praise but any movie fan will remind you of all the stupid clichés with stupid main characters. The characters in Tremors are active in trying to live, trying to figure out the creatures and trying to figure out how to stop them. We learn about the Graboids at a the same believable pace as the characters in the movie. By the time the movie is over and we get to the next movie, the viewers know everything they need to know about the creatures as if it was common knowledge. This is also a nod to the simple, straightforward writing of the movie, but I still believe the characters are what sell this journey.
     The biggest thing I must praise about this movie is the effects. Whenever I wanna show people how good practical effects can look, I often point to this movie. The design of the Graboids is simple, yet threatening. The fact that the color of the worms is only slightly darker than the ground not only makes sense, but is also a really clever film-making trick. Puppets and animatronics were always buried, at least part of the way, during intense scenes the dirt kicks up and helps to hide any imperfections in the costume as well as adding wear to make it look that much more real. There are two scenes where we do see open parts of the puppet (when the Graboid attacks the horse and when the water tower pipe is broken) but aside from that, things are hidden very well.
     This movie was one of the very few monster movies with a monster that resides in the underground and many, myself included, agree that this is the best subterranean monster movie. A unique design and simple story helped escalate this movie to cult status. Almost every monster fan knows of this movie and has some appreciation for what it is. So much notoriety did not go unnoticed. Filmmakers were in an era of making as many movies as possible and monster movies in general were having another little boom in the late 90's. Thus a sequel was made only 8 years later

Tremors 2: Aftershocks - No Longer Underground, but Underrated Nonetheless

     A sequel to Tremors is as easy or hard as you make it. The easy idea is to just have the worms return to perfection or another town with a new cast, though that more or less guarantees you are making it way to similar to it's predecessor and gives a high risk of failure. The filmmakers, thankfully, chose to do something a tad more ambitious. All things considered the characters in the first film took care of the Graboid problem pretty quick in there lifespan. The sequel asked, what if the Graboids were left to thrive  for an extended time. Apparently, they evolve. The Graboids eventually spawn these much smaller, two legged versions of them called Shriekers.
     Once again the human factor is there in this movie. The characters learn everything about the new Shriekers at a steady believable pace once again. Some of the human characters this time are a tad on the annoying side. The first movie had Melvin, who was draining in how much of an ass he could be at time, but the characters keep him enough in check where he is never that big of a problem. This movie has Grady Hoover. Grady is far from the most annoying thing to come out of this franchise, and honestly isn't even as annoying as Melvin. He contributes quite a lot more than Melvin. The problem is while he contributes, he messes things up and turns many scenes into a groan fest. He really is the weakest character the movie.
    Fortunately the other characters are in top form. Fred Wart and Michael Gross return and this time they feel like an elite strike force instead of an extended family in crisis. They are as prepared as they can be, which again makes the deaths of characters and the unexpected turns that much more devastating. The plot feels like a natural continuation from the first. Graboids are popping up in Mexico and who better than the only people known to have dealt with them to solve the problem. Fred Ward's character, Earl Bassett, goes to get another chance at everything after getting himself stuck in Perfection after a little coercing from Grady. Michael Gross's character, Burt Gummer, goes to break the mundane of his current lifestyle and get back in action. The only other main character is Kate Reilly, played by Helen Shaver, a geologist station at the oil fields subject to Graboid attacks.
     The story is not as simple as it was in it's predecessor, and that is much to the films detriment. There are so many twists and turns with the Graboids and Shriekers. While things are settled and easy to understand by the end, there are many times where it is hard to keep up with where the story is going. It is never drastically bad, but the film is very clearly more all over the place than the original. This is emphasized by the strange tone shifts at time. Since they are prepared, the main characters are able to kill many Graboids this time. A segment of the movie feels a lot like an afternoon hunting trip. Suddenly close to a dozen Graboids appear on their radar and they panic...but aren't chased. The film can't decide when it wants to be light-hearted and when it wants to be like the action scenes in the first one. This is unfortunate because the action scenes in this one can get pretty tense.
     Practical effects are used in full force again, with a bit of CGI support. The creatures look fantastic and unique while still clearly related to the Graboids. It is very easy to see this creature and know it is related to the Graboid in some way, but still distinguish it as it's own thing. While the animatronic puppets look great CGI is used primarily to show the creatures moving. I wish it was Practical effects but The CGI is nowhere near overplayed and still looks decent. While the legs didn't move much on the physical creature puppets, the faces where extremely expressive and detailed. To put it bluntly, They looked very real and very believable.
     The sequel brought Tremors into a much larger spotlight and unknowingly started a trend in the movies of adding a new evolution to the Graboid line. While the film had it's story flaws and some annoying character moments, it is still a good follow-up to the first movie. Tremors had become a monster franchise and after some years of success The franchise moved "forward". The early 2000's were upon us and this franchise ended up where most monster movies of the time went, The Sci-fi Channel.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection - Yet Far From a Good Film

     Unfortunately this is where we reach the lowest point of this otherwise great monster franchise. After the Syfy Channel got a hold of some rights, a third movie was in the works. On paper the premise of this movie is not bad. Burt Gummer has been a contracted Graboid hunter helping to keep the species in check around the world. As such, he is away from home and things back in Perfection, Nevada are much different than what they used to be. When Graboids pop up once again in the area, it is up to Burt to round up the greenhorns and whip them into shape. With a simple story like that, the movie should have been easy. Let an interesting cast of characters keep the plot moving while the story stay simple. I emphasize the "Should have".
     So many things in this movie feel exploitative. The creators  were exploiting the franchise by dumbing it down, the characters are exploiting tragedy by trying to make Graboids a household name and the common sense of the original returning cast is being made fun of and exploited for stupid jokes. All of this happens well before the movie cranks the stupid cash-in dial to 11 with the very first mention of Ass-blasters. When I reel back a bit and try to give them movie any credit it is that the returning characters are still a pleasure to watch, despite being overshadowed by the natural exploitative nature of the film at times.
     The creatures in this movie are just about completely CG with very few puppets. The puppets still look decent all things considered but are absolutely never on screen long enough to appreciate. The CG is horrible. Many effects are not rendered, and the ones that are rendered look worse than any CG that has appeared in these movies. Despite how bad the effects look, the actual designs of the Ass-blasters are pretty unique. This is about what I think when I hear "flying graboid" or "flying shreiker"
     This movie is not good by any margin. Some of the ideas and premises are worthwhile, but are squandered by either poor execution or pure exploitation. Lines and ideas are ripped directly from the previous two movies to try and relive the experience but, I know I seem like a broken record, are just exploitative. The franchise needed a new direction. This movie almost ruined the Tremors franchise. Three years later an unprecedented 4th installment was released. Expectations were low especially after three years of nothing out of the Tremors franchise.