Tremors (film)

Tremors is a 1990 American monster comedy film directed by Ron Underwood, produced by Gale Anne Hurd, Brent Maddock, and S. S. Wilson, and written by Maddock, Wilson, and Underwood. Tremors was released by Universal Pictures and stars Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, and Reba McEntire.

The film is the first installment of the Tremors franchise, and was followed by four direct-to-video sequels: Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001), Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) and Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) and a direct-to-video prequel, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004). A television series titled Tremors: The Series, aired from March through August 2003.

Plot
Valentine "Val" McKee and Earl Bassett are handymen working in Perfection, Nevada, an isolated ex-mining settlement in the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They eventually get tired of their jobs and leave for Bixby, the nearest town. As they leave, they discover the dead body of another resident, Edgar Deems, perched atop an electrical tower, still grasping the tower's crossbeams and his .30-30 Winchester rifle. Jim Wallace, the town's doctor, determines that Edgar died of dehydration, apparently afraid for some reason to climb down.

Later on, an unknown creature kills shepherd "Old Fred" and his flock of sheep. After discovering his severed head buried in the sand, Val and Earl become convinced that a serial killer is on the loose; they head back to town to warn the other residents. Two construction workers ignore Val and Earl's warning and are killed by the same creature, causing a rock slide. Val and Earl try to get help, but find the phone lines are dead, and the only road out of town is completely blocked by the rock slide. Out of sight, a snake-like creature wraps itself around their truck's rear axle. The creature is however torn apart when Val stomps on the accelerator and drives away, where they find it later when they return to town.

Val and Earl return to Perfection and borrow horses. They come upon Wallace and his wife's buried station wagon near their trailer, but the couple is missing (they were killed the previous night). As they press on, an enormous burrowing worm-like creature (later named a "graboid" by general store owner Walter Chang), suddenly erupts out of the ground, revealing the snake-like creature to be one of the worm creature's tentacled "tongues": thrown from their horses, the men flee with the monster following them in pursuit. The chase ends when the eyeless creature crashes through the concrete wall of an aqueduct, dying from the impact. Rhonda LeBeck, a graduate student conducting seismology tests in the area, stumbles onto the scene; she deduces from previous soundings that three other graboids are in the area. Rhonda, Val, and Earl become trapped overnight atop a cluster of boulders near one of the creatures, named Stumpy. Rhonda has a brainstorm and grabs one of several left-behind fence poles of a nearby fence; the three of them repeatedly pole vault to residual boulders to get to her truck, finally making their getaway.

After the three return to town, the graboids start attacking, eventually one of them killing Walter and forcing the other citizens to the town's rooftops. Meanwhile, nearby survivalist couple Burt and Heather Gummer manage to kill another one of the creatures after unknowingly luring it to their basement armory. In town, the two remaining graboids attack the building foundations, knocking over a trailer belonging to Nestor before dragging him under and devouring him.

Val and Earl are stuck on a roof with Miguel. Realizing they cannot stay in the town any longer, Earl, Rhonda, and Miguel distract the monsters while Val commandeers a bulldozer and chains a partial truck trailer to the rear; the survivors use it to try to escape to a nearby mountain range. On the way there, both graboids create a sinkhole trap that disables the bulldozer, forcing the survivors to flee to safety on large boulders. Earl has an idea to lure in the Graboids, then trick them into swallowing Burt's homemade bombs. While this works on one graboid, the other one, Stumpy, regurgitates it back towards the survivors, forcing Val, Earl, and Rhonda to vacate the rock quickly to avoid the explosion.

With one last bomb, Val lures Stumpy to chase him to the edge of a cliff and then explodes the bomb behind him, frightening the graboid into charging through the cliff face, where he plummets to his death onto the rocks below. The group returns to town, where they call in the authorities to begin an investigation while Earl pushes Val to pursue Rhonda.

Cast

 * Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee
 * Fred Ward as Earl Bassett
 * Finn Carter as Rhonda LeBeck
 * Michael Gross as Burt Gummer
 * Víctor Wong as Walter Chang
 * Bobby Jacoby as Melvin Plug
 * Ariana Richards as Mindy
 * Reba McEntire as Heather Gummer
 * Charlotte Stewart as Nancy
 * Tony Genaro as Miguel
 * Richard Marcus as Nestor
 * Bibi Besch as Megan–the doctor's wife
 * Conrad Bachmann as Jim–the doctor
 * Sunshine Parker as Edgar
 * Michael Dan Wagner as Old Fred
 * John Goodwin as Howard–roadworker
 * John Pappas as Carmine–roadworker

Production
The concept of Tremors was originally conceived in the early 1980s, when writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock were working for the United States Navy as filmmakers in charge of creating educational safety videos. While getting footage, the two climbed a large desert boulder and asked the question "what if there was something that wouldn't let us off of this rock?" causing the two to later come up with an idea dubbed 'Land Sharks'. They shared their idea to friend Ron Underwood, who was working with National Geographic as a documentary director, and used his knowledge of zoology to better develop the "land sharks" into creatures that could realistically exist.

After their script for Short Circuit became a major box office hit, Wilson and Maddock quickly began shopping around their idea for Tremors. The name 'Land Sharks' was changed due to a then-popular Saturday Night Live sketch featuring a character of the same name. The original screenplay, titled 'Beneath Perfection', was finished in June 1988.

Filming
Filming began in early 1989 over the course of 50 days. Principal photography took place around Lone Pine, California and the isolated community of Darwin, California, which the crew liked due to its uncanny similitaries to the fictional town of Perfection, Nevada. The town, which was entirely a set, was built near Olancha, California. The mountains in the distance are the Sierra Nevada, and Owens Lake can be seen in the background during the film's climax.

Props
The creature for Tremors was designed by Amalgamated Dynamics. The full-scale graboid seen after being dug up by Val was cast in lightweight foam. It was placed in a trench, then buried, and dug up again to achieve the desired "used" effect.

Burt's elephant gun, an 8-gauge Darne shotgun, was rented from a private collector for use in the film. It "fired" dummy cartridges custom made from solid brass rod stock.

Post Production
Composer Ernest Troost's musical score for the film went mostly unused. The studio thought it was "too goofy" and cut most of it, later hiring composer Robert Folk to write a new score that was more "serious and action-y". Despite his contributions, Folk ultimately went uncredited.

Tremors was set for a November 1989 release. However, the MPAA gave the film an R-rating due to language, and the creators decided at the last minute to make the film more commercially viable. Over 20 or so uses of the word "stupid" were either cut or redubbed with softer words; examples include "can you fly, you sucker?" and "we killed that motherhumper", among several others. The film was pushed back to allow more time for editing, and the film was eventually released in January 1990 with a PG-13 rating. Wilson and Maddock later stated they were happy with the decision to make Tremors appeal to a family audience.

Box office
Tremors opened on January 19, 1990 in 1,457 theaters against no new releases and debuted at the #5 spot, behind Born on the Fourth of July, Tango & Cash,  The War Of The Roses, and Internal Affairs, grossing $3,731,520 in its opening weekend. It dropped to #6 on its second week but would stay in the top 10 for four weeks before finally dropping to #11 in week 5. Tremors ended up grossing $16,667,084 at the domestic box office, which while being a financial success over its $11 million budget, was still below projected numbers. Its creators blamed the subpar theatrical performance on its marketing campaign; S.S. Wilson felt that the film was not well promoted once its release date was delayed, while Brent Maddock stated the theatrical trailer was "cringeworthy" and likely deterred audiences.

Critical reception
Tremors was hailed by critics for its diverse cast and humor. The film holds a "fresh" rating of 85% at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 33 reviews and an average score of 7 out of 10, with the consensus: "An affectionate throwback to 1950s creature features, Tremors reinvigorates its genre tropes with a finely balanced combination of horror and humor. Roger Ebert awarded the film with a 3.5/4 rating for its character writing and emphasis on story development over its effects, and James Berardinelli praised Tremors with a 3/4 star rating, feeling that "horror/comedies often tread too far to one side or the other of that fine line; Tremors walks it like a tightrope". Richard Harrington of the Washington Post called the film "a delightful throwback to such '50s and '60s films", and Jeffery Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner gave the film a glowing 4.5/5 star review, calling Tremors "effectively terrifying when it needs to be, effectively exciting when it needs to be, and effectively hilarious when it needs to be, Tremors may very well be the best horror film, the best action flick, and the best comedy of the year".

"[Tremors] is very well cast, with [Fred] Ward and [Kevin] Bacon proving affable and enjoyable comedy leads [...] The special effects are first-rate [...] It may not top anyone's 10-best list, but Tremors is nevertheless solid entertainment."

In some less enthusiastic reviews, Vincent Canby for the New York Times remarked that the film "was clearly more fun to make than it is for us to watch", and Variety gave the film a C- on the basis that it "...has a few clever twists and characters but ultimately can't decide what it wants to be: flat-out funny, which it's usually not, or a scarefest, which it's usually not either."

Home releases
While only a modest hit at the box office, Tremors went on to become a massive hit on home video purchases, rentals, and on television, becoming one of the most rented films of 1990. Because of this, it has gained a very large cult following over the years.

Tremors debuted on VHS on April 1, 1990, on laserdisc on April 16, 1996, and on DVD on April 28, 1998. The film was released on Blu-Ray on November 9, 2010 and again on September 17, 2013, as part of the Tremors: Attack Pack for region 1 (U.S. and Canada). In the United Kingdom, the Attack Pack was not released on Blu-ray; instead, the second, third, and fourth films were released on Blu-ray separately on August 5, 2013.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Tremors was composed by Ernest Troost and released in 2000. The album contained nine tracks from the film, as well as four additional tracks, also composed by Troost, from Bloodrush. For promotional purposes, the album was released as a limited edition CD.

In popular culture

 * On March 21, 2012, the NBC Nightly News story "Shaken and awakened in Wisconsin" jokingly blamed the filming of a "Tremors remake" as the cause for unidentified loud booming noises.
 * "Bad Apple!", a 2013 episode of the superhero comedy series The Aquabats! Super Show!, features a scene of a giant underground worm attacking a desert farm which series co-creator Christian Jacobs noted was an homage to Tremors, with some shots mirroring those in the original film.
 * "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm", an episode of the second season of the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, features a large worm known as the "Alaskan bull worm"; the worm is defeated when it tumbles off a cliff, similar to the death of the final graboid in Tremors.