Considering that the original Tremors was a very good but rather underground cult hit from 1990, and the sequel took six years to make and lost Kevin Bacon, there's been a heck of a lot of movement in the Tremorsverse in the past couple of years. Not only was I made aware of this second sequel by the ever so enthusiastic John Wright, but it seems that a spin-off TV series is being made, and a 4th film is due after it's first series completion. Blimey. So what is it that makes this franchise so delightfully ever-present? Why, despite all but the first film going straight to video, have we been inundated by movies featuring giant underground worms who mutate into other crazy things? Who are S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddox and why do they insist on continuing with these movies to the seeming detriment of their own lives?
For some reason to like the Tremors universe is to live it. The first film took the Jaws-lite approach and gave us an excellent monster movie with a consistently amusing cast who occasionally met ill-fated and rather unpleasant deaths. It had a wise cracking old hand, a young buck who looked and sounded like white trash, and survival nut Burt Gummer. Tremors 2 continued this trend handsomely, though the people who were to be eaten could be seen coming a mile away. The third installment, in what will probably end up a bigger and longer-running franchise than James Bond, does away with Fred Ward's elderly Earl Bassett and replaces him solidly with Michael Gross's amazing gun-nut Gummer. Young buck duties are taken up by Shawn Christian, replacing Kevin Bacon and Christopher Gartin from the originals.
Returning to it's roots, the series goes back to the metropolis of Perfection, Nevada, with a population of even less than 11 years ago. It introduces us to the cast members who survived the first graboid attack, Mindy (the now super-beautiful Ariana Richards), her mum Nancy, rancher Miguel, Jodi whose father was the ill-fated shopkeeper Victor Chang, and briefly Melvin, who is still an arsehole. Burt has just returned from another succesful Shrieker hunt in Argentina and he finds that not only has the town been 'invaded' by a crafty outsider, Desert Jack Sawyer, but that real-estators are trying to buy up all the property in the neighbourhood in order to build ranchettes. On top of all this of course the Graboids return, and despite Burt being very ready for them this time, things once again don't go to plan.
I hate to say it, because it's one heck of a cliche, but if you liked Tremors you will love this. It's pretty similar to the last two and features the same very dry sense of humour that made the original such a welcome relief from the rest of the B-Movie monster crowd. Michael Gross IS Burt Gummer, down to a tee, and his madcap, right-wing, gun-toting ways are still an absolute blast to watch. The rest of the cast are great, simply because the writers remembered exactly how to write them in to give the audience a lot of flashbacks to the first film. Chuang as Jodi, and Christian as Desert Jack are very similar to the characters used to complete the triumvirates in both 1 and 2 but that doesn't lessen the effect they give on screen. For big fans of the series you'll see a lot of scenes and situations which you will remember well, and the idea of going back to Perfection after such a long time is very enjoyable. The only problem with it is the law of diminishing returns, which suggests that all sequels will be poorer imitations of their original, but that in no way means Tremors 3 is a bad film. Heck, Gross is worth the money all by himself. |
