Hey everyone, welcome back to Obscurus Lupa Presents.
Tremors.
Backstory time. Sorry, folks.
Sometimes I review cheesy movies just because of my love of cheesy movies,
and sometimes I review films because they mean something to me.
Tremors would fall into the latter category.
Growing up, the Tremors movies were always airing on the Sci-Fi Channel
and whenever they come on, I'd sit and watch them with my family,
particularly the first two, so I've always kind of associated them with family nights,
eating dinner or ice cream, and always, always laughing at Burt Gummer.
That one scene from the first movie, you know the one.
Got a laugh every time no matter how many times we saw it.
Oh, and seeing is how I usually don't do movies people have actually heard of,
I want to address the new viewers in the audience tonight.
First of all, welcome. Secondly, I don't usually have this much backstory, promise.
Thirdly, sorry I'm not less awkward. That doesn't really get better.
Okay, the review, for really reals.
Tremors was a theatrical movie that came out in 1990 and became a cult success,
which meant three sequels and a TV series, but today we're just focusing on the first one.
This is the tale of two handymen, Val McKee and Earl Bassett, who have but one goal:
get the hell out of Perfection, a town consisting of about 14 people in the middle of the desert with no future prospects.
Getting out of dodge is all well and good but there is one problem:
some underground creature is eating everyone. Isn't that just the way?
It starts with Kevin Bacon peeing into a canyon.
Oh, spoiler warning, Kevin Bacon pees in this.
This is Val, Fred Ward is Earl.
They're both handymen, but they spend most of the time bickering like an old married couple.
They usually come to a consensus via communication and a willingness to make this marriage work...
a.k.a. they do paper-rock-scissors. This will be a running motif.
-Damn it Valentine. You never plan ahead. You never take the long view. I mean, here is Monday,
-and I'm already thinking of Wednesday.
-Today is Monday, right?
Upon discovering there's a new chick in town, a grad student running seismology tests,
Val rushes over to hit on her, but uh-oh she's got sunscreen on her nose. Ewww. No thanks, ogo.
-I'm a victim of circumstance.
-I thought you called it your 'pecker'.
The two of them roll into town and we're introduced to some of the neighbors.
There's Melvin, the annoying little shit you will come to hate,
Nancy and Mindy, a pottery-making mom and the little girl from Jurassic Park,
Walter Chang, the owner of the town store,
and Burt and Heather Gummer, a couple of paramilitary survivalists
played by Michael Gross and Reba McEntire.
Yes. Reba McEntire starred in a cult horror movie from the 90s. I was just as shocked as you!
Somewhere between picking up trash and drinking beer from a toilet bowl,
Val and Earl start to think maybe getting out of town would be a great idea.
I assume getting sprayed with shit pretty much seals the deal.
-Argh!
-Hahaha!
Spoiler alert, there's shit in this.
They're on their way out to Bixby when they notice their neighbor Edgar is sitting on an electrical tower,
assuming he got too drunk to come down. In reality he's suffering a severe case of deader than a doornail.
Doctor McBorrowedtime determines that he died of dehydration,
meaning that he had to have been sitting on the tower for at least three or four days.
You may be wondering about the other folks in town right about now.
Allow me to introduce them to you: dead-meat, not-a-chance, monster-ciao, and Miguel. He... exists.
Uh, dead already? Alright then, byyyyye.
-What the Hell is going on? I mean what the HELL is going on!?
I don't know, what do you think, construction Mario?
"It's-a-me, cannon fodder."
[SMB NES death sting]
That may seem like a pointless, superficial reference joke, and it is, but it's also a plot point.
The attack on the construction workers causes a rockslide which blocks off the only road out of town.
Yeah, apparently there's cliffs and mountains and whatever, they needed some reason why they couldn't get out.
Val and Earl find the bodies and take off back to town, getting stuck briefly on the way back.
It turns out something was attached to their truck, and that something is a sock puppet.
Adorable.
-I give you boys five dollars for this.
-Twenty.
-Okay, ten.
-Fifteen.
-Okay. Fifteen.
-Damn right, fifteen.
Meanwhile, the town's folk are busy with the task of figuring out just what-in-the-hell.
The best conclusion they can come up with is some sort of mutated snake. I think that's the technical term.
-I'm dead.
Yep, pretty much, byyyyye.
The death of the doctor's wife is probably the best one in the movie in that it's genuinely scary.
The audience still doesn't know exactly what it is that's attacking everyone,
and let's be honest, having your car pulled underground with you in it would be a pretty horrible way to die.
That's what makes this a great comedy.
-Why aren't you calling somebody in Bixby, the police...
-Oh no, we can't reach outside the valley because of the mountains. -Oh...
Guess she had to be reminded of that despite living there for years.
With no phone and no way to drive out, they decide to send out the best horseback riders.
And I guess Val is it because he has a cowboy hat or something. I don't know...
-AAAAAARGGH! They got meeee...
-Hahahahaha...
Yep, that joke was definitely worth almost getting your head shot off. Good oneee...
And that's why Melvin is our Scrappy-Doo.
That's tough. Looks like we need some grief counseling courtesy of our good friend Reba.
-Ah! Aaaaaahhhhhahaha...
"Oh, wait, they rub this thing around me made me lay on the ground. Nyeeee..."
Look at that design. It's got three-snake-head tongue things. That's freaking awesome.
Tell me that doesn't look like something that could actually exist, and if it did we'd be totally boned.
Unable to appreciate how awesome it is due to it wanting to eat them,
Val and Earl hightail it and end up jumping into an aqueduct,
which the creature rams into and ends up killing itself.
Boooooo!
-FUCK YOU! Hahahaha...
-Hey guys, what's going on?
Eww, not Rhonda McCooties.
Well, anyway, she uses her book knowledge to determine that
because the creature doesn't have eyes, it must live completely underground...
except when it decides to randomly pop up like it did just a little bit ago so the audience can see it.
-This is probably the biggest biological discovery of the century.
-Hey! Hey, check this out!
-I found the ass end.
You know me well, Tremors.
Rhonda uses the seismograph readings to determine that
there are at least three more giant underground worm thingies,
so celebration is probably not in order.
Another one attacks and they run to a nearby rock formation, stranding them from Rhonda's truck.
From this we learn a few facts. One, these things can't go through rock.
Two, they hunt by sound. Three, rock formations are for character development.
Also, I'm pretty sure you can't feed the worms after midnight.
-l gotta take care of some business.
-Me, too. -Same here.
-You guys know how to pole vault?
Human ingenuity? No, thanks. I'll stick with the poop and pee jokes.
The three of them pulled out the rocks until they get to the truck, driving back to town.
-These animals are huge!
-I'm sorry. I'm having a real difficult time with this.
Can't you tell by the terror on my face?
Chang comes up with the name Graboids, I'll let you figure that one out on your own,
and Val figures that according to the pattern of deaths the worms are coming straight for them.
-Ahhhhhh!
-Hahaha... l scared you, didn't l?
Shut the fuck up, Melvin.
-Ahhhhh...
Yes, eat him, eat him!
Oh...
I'm not gonna say Melvin nearly gets everyone killed,
but I have to blame someone and seriously, screw that kid.
[Music: The Muppet Show]
The Graboid goes after Mindy and we learned that it actually has a vendetta against pogo sticks,
presumably because a pogo stick killed its mother.
Thaaaat's Melvin! Dada-daa!
Seriously, I mean seriously, screw that kid.
Okay, yes. The scene is pretty tense, but I have a question: just how good is the aim of these things?
I mean, they keep popping up right next to the screaming people, then just happen to know they're main characters?
Ah, see, Chang didn't have main-main character status. So perfect aim there.
Meanwhile, Melvin is right for the picking yelling and everything, and the Graboids don't even try to go after him.
How is there justice in this world?
But hold on to your pants because here comes absolutely the best scene from the movie bar none.
Heather and Burt have returned from scouting, unaware of what's been going on.
They head into their underground bunker-
yes, they have an underground bunker-
and it looks like they're going to become Graboid meat.
However, as you will come to learn in the Tremor series, the Gummers are nothing if not prepared.
*gunshots*
Folks, if you take away anything from this movie, it's this:
there is no problem that can't be solved by an endless barrage of bullets.
If you're ever feeling bad, watch this scene and I can guarantee you that your day will be 100% more awesome.
-Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't you, you bastard?
And a celebration with terrible line deliveries.
-Burt got one! He killed one!
-Way to go dude!
-Alright!
Alright.
-Aaaaaaaahhhh...
Alright.
So another thing you need to know about Graboids is that they keep getting smarter.
As such they're trying to dig underneath the building to break it down.
Now running out of time and vehicles, the town comes up with a plan
to ride a bulldozer up the jeep trail and over the mountains,
theorizing that it's too heavy for the Graboids to push over.
This calls for some heroic music.
[Heroic(?) music]
The Graboids start trying to dig out the ground from underneath the bulldozer, so time is of the essence here.
-What do you think? Max firepower or this?
-l go for penetration. The 458, shooting solids. Less ammo to carry.
Yeah, let's just stop and think about this for a bit.
Somewhere between middle-of-nowhere and you're-totally-fucked,
the Graboids actually do dig out a trap for them.
After scaring the worms off with some homemade bombs Burt and Heather have brought-
you know, just in case-
they run to some nearby rocks, and as we all know by now, rock formations are for character development.
-If it comes to starvation, I know what I'm doing.
-Take one of these, walk right out there with the fuse lit and let them take me down.
-Good lord, honey.
I'm really concerned for you.
However since they don't want to let good bombs go to waste
they figure they might be able to use them to fight the worms.
Chances are bombs are helpful in this situation.
So they create some noise, get one of the Graboids to come up and calmly discuss the pros and cons of eating people,
which may be a sign the worm is acting out because of an unfulfilled childhood.
*explosion*
-Yeaaaah!
All right, they've got one worm left and it's not falling for the same trick.
They've got to take this sucker out and either way, it's going to be messy.
-Too far! You threw it behind him!
*Graboid shrieks*
-Yeah!
-Can you fly, you sucker!? CAN YOU FLYYY!?
Somehow this makes me proud to be an American.
Obligatory wrap up, Val and Earl are moving on, folks get to be rich and famous, and the end-of-the-movie kiss.
Mmm, this needs a little something.
*explosion*
There we go.
Well, they'll probably never see any of those things again.
There are too many great moments in this movie to list them all,
so instead, I'll go over why I think this has become such a classic.
Part of the reason the movie is so endearing is because it works on the opposite of horror movie logic.
It isn't about seeing people die. It's about seeing them survive.
You want them to beat the shit out of these things and half of the fun is seeing how they take out the monsters.
It's also unusual in that it's a horror movie that takes place largely during the day.
They manage to come up with a creature that could feasibly exist,
and having the Graboids underground was a clever way to make them scarier and harder to track.
Add to that creative creature designs, original characters
and endless quotable moments, and you've got yourself a classic movie.
And it doesn't end there, because next week we're gonna see the Graboids again. See you then.
Starring Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Christopher Gartin, and Helen Shaver.
-Damn worms. Never cut you any slack.
-Hey Melvin, you want to make a buck?