Tremors (film)

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Tremors

Promotional film poster
Directed by Ron Underwood
Produced by Gale Anne Hurd
Brent Maddock
S.S. Wilson
Written by Brent Maddock &
S.S. Wilson &
Ron Underwood (story)
Brent Maddock &
S.S. Wilson (screenplay)
Starring Kevin Bacon
Fred Ward
Finn Carter
Michael Gross
Reba McEntire
Victor Wong
Music by Ernest Troost
Cinematography Alexander Gruszynski
Editing by O. Nicholas Brown
Distributed by Universal Studios
Release date(s) January 19, 1990 (USA)
Running time 96 min.
Country USA
Language English
Budget $11,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue $16,667,084 (USA)
Followed by Tremors 2: Aftershocks
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Tremors is a 1990 comedic/dark comedy monster film about a group of people from a small Nevada town fighting subterranean worm-creatures dubbed "Graboids". It was directed by Ron Underwood, and stars Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross and Reba McEntire. It was followed by two sequels Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, one prequel Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, and the television show Tremors: The Series.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The handymen team of Valentine McKee and Earl Bassett live in Perfection, Nevada, a decaying ex-mining town with only 14 residents, among them survivalist couple Burt and Heather Gummer and the namesake owner of Walter Chang's General Store. A new arrival is Rhonda LeBeck, a college student conducting seismology tests around the town; Earl unsuccessfully promotes her as a possible girlfriend for Val.

Val and Earl tire of their hand-to-mouth existence and set out for Bixby, the nearest "real" town. Enroute, they discover Edgar Deems, the town drunk, dead at the top of an electrical tower with a loaded rifle clutched in his hands. Puzzled, Earl and Val haul his body to Jim, the town doctor, who confirms that Deems had stayed there until dying of dehydration. On their second try at leaving, they come to the property of sheepherder "Old Fred" and find that he and his flock have all been horribly butchered. Panicked, Val and Earl race back to Perfection, now thinking that a murderer is on the loose. They warn two road-construction workers they meet, but soon after something underground kills the workers and causes a landside which blocks the only road out of town.

A graboid
A graboid

Val and Earl discover the town's phones are dead, and head for the police in Bixby, only to be thwarted by the landside. The sight of a gore-clotted helmet in the rubble sends them back to Walter's store, where they find something wrapped around their truck's back axle: the severed body of an odorous creature the general size and shape of a python. The townsfolk hunker down for the night, unaware that the "snakes" have attacked Jim and his wife, killing both and pulling their car underground.

The next morning, Val and Earl make a fourth attempt to escape, this time on horseback. Passing by the doctor's place, they discover the buried car and hurriedly ride on. Their many questions are partially answered when one of the attackers erupts out of the ground: each "snake" is one of three "tongues" employed by an enormous burrowing worm-creature, eventually dubbed a "Graboid". Thrown from their horses, the two men run for their lives, jumping a concrete aqueduct which blocks their path. Their pursuer rams headlong into the aqueduct's wall, killing itself. The duo's glee is short-lived, as Rhonda joins them and realizes from her readings that there are three more of the creatures in the area. One of them promptly appears, and, proving to possess infinite patience and very keen hearing, traps the trio overnight on one of a cluster of residual boulders. Rhonda finally has the clever idea of pole vaulting from boulder to boulder, staying out of the Graboid's reach. They reach her small truck and once again escape back to town.

They are met with disbelief, but only until a Graboid appears in the middle of town and disables Val and Earl's truck. The humans retreat into their various homes or back in the store, but a Graboid soon bursts up through the store's wooden floor and kills Walter. Everyone else scrambles up onto their roofs.

Meanwhile, the Gummers return to their home after hunting the "snake-things" and contact the others via CB radio, but then the noise of the couple's vibrating tumbler tempts a Graboid into smashing into their basement "rec room." The Gummers kill it with their vast arsenal of firearms, but another of the monsters destroys their truck without exposing itself to their weapons. Realizing that the town is being dug out from under them, Val and Earl come up with the idea of escaping on the enormous town bulldozer. Noisy diversions are improvised and distract the Graboids long enough for Val to reach the vehicle. Everyone is collected, and they set out for the safety of the unburrowable rocks of the mountain range which overlooks the town.

Unfortunately, the Graboids dig a pit-trap in the bulldozer's path, wrecking it. The humans use Burt's home-made explosives to drive the noise-sensitive creatures away long enough to reach the safety of an isolated boulder, where Earl has another idea: tricking the Graboids into swallowing one of Burt's bombs. This works once, spectacularly, but on the second try the last surviving Graboid spits the explosive back onto Burt's pile of remaining bombs, sending the humans scattering. Val is left stranded yards from the boulder, with the Graboid lurking right under his feet. He has one last bomb, and one last idea: he lets the Graboid chase him to the edge of a tall cliff, and "stampedes" it with the bomb, sending it roaring through the cliff-face and plummeting to its death. The group triumphantly returns to town, and Earl pushes Val into approaching the clearly-interested Rhonda romantically. As the credits roll, they kiss.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

The film's exterior scenes were shot near Lone Pine, California, an area which has long been used as a movie location.

[edit] Influences

In deliberate counterpoint to the plot-formula commonly used by such previous monster movies as 1954's Them!, Tremors presents absolutely no explanation of the Graboids' origin, and the "scientist" character in the film is resolutely unable and unwilling to offer one, even in the face of repeated badgering on the point by other characters.

[edit] Reception

As of May 2008, Tremors holds a "fresh" rating of 87% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 critic scores.[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tremors (1989). Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-10-22.

[edit] External links

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