Review: Tremors (1990)
Few movies get more play on basic cable than Tremors. In fact, I’ve seen about 20 minutes of the film probably a dozen times in my life, just from flipping between channels on lazy nights in my teen years. There’s something to be said about a movie that can distract you for 20 minutes when you stumble across it late at night, but it took me finally watching Tremors front to back to comprehend just why the film is such a rewatchable mainstay: it’s damn fun.
In many ways Tremors plays like an old 1950s B-movie such as Them! (1954) or It Came From Outer Space (1953). It follows a bunch of oddball citizens, namely repairmen Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward), survivalists Burt and Heather (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire), and seismologist Rhonda (Finn Carter), each with their own entertaining peculiarities, and forces them to work together for their own survival. It takes place in a stark desert environment where the characters are isolated from authority and rescue, in this case, the ironically-named hamlet of Perfection, Nevada. And it has outlandish, disgusting monsters—giant, carnivorous worms that live underground and recall the sandworms from Frank Herbert’s Dune—that dispatch the characters in gruesome, funny ways.
As I said above, the setting and conflict of Tremors is right out of a 1950s B-movie, with a bunch of colourfully-drawn characters dealing with gross monsters in a classic movie setting. But the movie is also drawing on the lessons of the popular films of the 1980s, specifically the films of Steven Spielberg, in how he crafts his action scenes. Similar to the action in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films, the action in Tremors is constantly escalating and taking advantage of the environment around the town of Perfection. The characters come up with one solution to fight the worms, only for the worms to change tactics and reset the terms of engagement. For instance, they climb onto their roofs to avoid the worms on the ground, only for the worms to start attacking the foundations of buildings, causing them to collapse. This is screenwriting 101, with rising action and conflict, but it’s greatly satisfying when it’s paired with inventive set pieces and done with good humour.
Director Ron Underwood creates a clear portrait of the town in the early goings so that we have a strong sense of the geography, and then peppers the town with odd details, such as a malfunctioning generator in the general store, or a girl who always hops around on a pogo-stick, that will come into play later in the film. Thus, whenever the action occurs, Underwood has the characters interact with the environment that has already been established in earlier scenes, drawing on one element after another like the town is a bottomless bag of tricks.
The result is that nothing is ever stagnant in Tremors, but nothing comes out of the blue either; it plays according to clear rules. The film keeps barreling towards its conclusion with single-minded focus, but there’s also enough breathing room between each action scene that things don’t grow monotonous. No wonder the movie works so well in 20-minute segments on cable television. It’s basically just an escalating series of set-pieces, with each playing like a distinct episode in the quest to defeat these monstrous worms. Add in the goofiness of the characters, from the easygoing banter between Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward to Michael Gross and Reba McEntire playing gun-crazed survivalists who’d look at home in red MAGA hats, and you’ve got a recipe for solid entertainment.
There’s a reason Tremors spawned such a long-running B-movie franchise on television and direct-to-video: it’s unpretentious, well-crafted entertainment. As with the B-movies of the 1950s, Tremors embodies a kind of simple fun that never goes out of style.
7 out of 10
Tremors (1990, USA)
Directed by Ron Underwood; written by Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson, based on a story by Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, and Ron Underwood; starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire, Victor Wong.