Almost Equal Sequels Part XXII: Tremors 2: Aftershocks

Let’s start this right off without the usual well-written, deeply contemplative, and thrillingly erudite introduction that you’ve come to expect from yours truly: I love Tremors!  Yes, it is an evergreen movie for me, the very definition of entertaining popcorn flick.  The eminent rewatchability of Tremors cannot be understated.  In fact, it is one of those rare films that if I accidentally catch it on TV or if I accidentally load up the Blu-ray despite the protests of whoever’s living room I blundered into, I can’t help but watch it.

There’s the great effects, the marvelous desert mountain setting, the tight script, the gallons of goopy slime and orangish guts, and the terrific cast.  I mean, if you told me that we were going to get Remo Williams, Reba!, Egg Chen, Mr. Footloose himself and Alex P. Keaton’s dad in a cast and have it be this entertaining, I would say that you were crazy and please put some pants on, we’re at a funeral for crying out loud.

Of course, Tremors didn’t exactly light up the box office upon release.  It did…okay…but that’s because people were more enraptured with whatever nonsensical drivel was competing with it at the local theater.  Of course, a loving homage to the glories of the 1950s sci-fi monster movie was a hard sell in the winter of 1989/90.  Remember, audiences were absolutely enthralled with seeing such fare as the award-winning Driving Miss Daisy, the award-winning Born on the Fourth of July, and the award-not-winning Tango & Cash instead of Tremors.  Frankly, in my humble opinion, when compared to Tremors, Born on the Fourth of July doesn’t have a leg to stand on.  (And yes, dear reader, the pun was worth it.)

So while the box office was won by watching either an elderly woman bitch about her driver, a veteran bitch about the Vietnam war, or Stallone and Russell bitch about each other, the home video market proved that Tremors was nobody’s bitch whatsoever, quickly gaining not only lucrative secondary market income but also more than cult following status.  So, since the home video market was so good to Tremors, why not have a sequel released for the home video market?  And as Universal Pictures mulled it over while stroking their respective goatees and the white cats on their laps concurrently, a Tremors sequel was greenlit and unleashed upon the world.  However, would it succeed?

The Sequel: Tremors 2: Aftershocks 2 (1996)

Original Movie: Tremors (1990)

Key Cast/Production Staff Returning from 1^st Installment:

Fred Ward	Earl Bassett
Michael Gross	Burt Gummer
S.S. Wilson	Screenwriter
Brent Maddock	Screenwriter

To Start With:

“We’re stuck on a goddamn roof with a bunch of–a bunch of whatzits trying to eat us! I mean, I’ve done this before, and I did not like it!”

Tremors 2: Aftershocks has right at the start, the most important part of a sequel: the colon.  Yes, the best sequels involve the use of the colon in the title.  For instance, Highlander 2: The Quickening looks better than just the plain RoboCop 2.  Police Academy 3: Back In Training looks fabulous compared to a simple Lethal Weapon 3.  The confusingly named Rambo: First Blood Part II looks incredible when matched up against Rambo III or Rocky III or The History of the World Part I.  So, this sequel right off the bat gets colon style points as well as using a colonized word that is a pun on the premise of the first movie.  (Author’s Note: I don’t know if that is the correct usage of the word “colonized”.  In this instance, I mean “the word that immediately follows the colon” instead of any silly headed nonsense about colonies or colonization or whatever ends up dribbling out as a white foam from the mouthsides of perpetually angry social justicing folks.)

I’m sure that the budget for Tremors 2: Aftershocks was a consideration this time, so the glorious vistas of the American desert mountain region locations were absent.  Despite the story taking place in Mexico, the film could have been shot in Minnesota or Arkansas or somewhere even more anonymous, desolate, and depressing like California, for instance.  Budget also dictated that instead of making the sequel even bigger than the first one which might result in a graboid story happening in a larger city with plenty of vibrating stuff to chow down on, the choice was made that for this story, Mexico would have only 5 people in it. And four of them were eaten by graboids before filming.

Kevin Bacon decided that being stuck in a space capsule next to a peeing Tom Hanks was preferable to coming back for a Tremors sequel, but thankfully the always great Fred Ward made a return appearance as Earl Bassett.  Helen Shaver was cast as a geologist/paleontologist/scientist lady and Christopher Gartin was brought on as Grady Hoover, a sudden sidekick for Fred Ward to yell at. 

But above all else, Michael Gross descended from on high to return as the glorious Burt Gummer, who is armed to the teeth and is a delight without equal.  Thank you for saying yes, Mr. Gross, sir.  Thank you.

Of course, the great gimmick with this one, is that instead of committing to the easy way, which would have been just having a second herd of underground monsters slurping people up through the dirt, the filmmakers decided to transmogrify the graboids.  Once again, I’m sure that budget dictated that having huge earth moving creatures again was too high a price to pay.  So what happens now?  Having a life cycle where a graboid metamorphoses into something else was a stroke of genius, keeping the characters as well as the audience on their toes.

This was something different, something cheaper, something with less polish.  Would it work?  Well, yes it mostly did, but there were some issues as well, so let’s dive in, shall I? 

Anything Done Better than the Original?

“I feel I was denied critical need-to-know information.”

Remember how I mentioned Michael Gross as Burt Gummer earlier?  Of course, you do and I’m going to mention him again here and elsewhere probably because Burt is the heart of this and every following Tremors entry.  In the original Tremors, they could have so easily played him off as an idiot gun nut with nothing on his mind but blasting commies to hell and “you’ll get my gun when you pry out from my cold dead hands as you digest me underground”-type of loon.  But they didn’t.  Burt is smart, Burt is good at what he does, Burt can play along well with others, Burt can make mistakes.  Ultimately Burt’s the guy you want when it seems as if you’ve got a bottomless supply of fans being plugged in for the shit to hit.  Burt comes along to cut the power and starts using fan parts to fight back and save the day.  God bless Burt Gummer.

Having the graboids change from being underground terrors that use your vibrations to hunt you down from below to now having them transform into the new shrieker manifestations that are above ground, bipedal, deaf, heat-sensing, and can reproduce asexually at a rapid rate was an unexpected and creative choice.  (And for a movie that is now 30 years old, my unexpected and creative choice was to spoil this plot point for you.  Hah!)  Yes, the CGI rendering is a bit dodgy by today’s irritating standards, but the filmmakers know this and don’t become too reliant on it.  There are plenty of physical puppets and puppet pieces that blend in fairly well and frankly, I’m enjoying myself too much by the end to care.

Anything as Good as the Original?

“Believe it or not I was actually a Playmate once. Almost gave my dad a heart attack.”

Fred Ward is back as an older and somewhat wiser Earl Bassett.  Ward along with Gross both carry this film on their backs, and they don’t let us down.  I think there is a loss of the warmth you felt between Ward and Bacon in the first movie, but that’s not Ward’s fault here at all.  He looks good in the action sequences and it’s just great having Earl back despite these rather dire circumstances. 

Helen Shaver is older than the love interest was for the Baconator in the first movie.  That’s fine since Ward is an older character, Shaver is a more age-appropriate choice to partner up with, and she is never a liability.  Truthfully, Shaver is attractive, has great chemistry with Ward, and while this is a rather slimy gloppy way to stick in a relationship story, I totally buy into them getting together.  She’s a definite asset and I don’t just mean that because of the lovingly filmed shots of her derriere.  But also realize that I am not above any pun that is there to be made.

There is a bit more tongue in cheek here than in the first one, but again, I think that’s a necessity that sprang from the budget.  Just when you think our heroes have succeeded, the rules change and for every two steps forward, there’s three steps back at times.  But I can roll with that.  Unlike something like Die Hard 2 or Lethal Weapon 2, both of which I love, Tremors 2: Aftershocks has a bigger plot twist than either of those films.  The rules change and aside from the fact that there are once again whatzits trying to eat the cast, Tremors 2: Aftershocks changes gears just when you start to get comfy.  When first watching this movie, you think this is just going to be a cheap retread, using old special effects and repurposed story points from the first movie.  However, when it shifts away from that, the film really perks up.  The great concept of the first movie is adjusted well for the second and I’m glad that the original screenwriters were here to keep us on our toes.

Anything Not-So-Good as the Original?

“Just doing what I can with what I got.”

No one would argue that trying to sell a new lifeform in a sci-fi movie is hard.  You have to accept that a 7-foot-tall creature with an array of hi-tech space weapons is hunting down Marines in the middle of the jungle in Predator.  You must buy into there being a shape shifting possessive organism that is picking off the members of an Antarctic research group one by one in The Thing.  You are compelled to believe that a huge muscular Austrian can transform into a marvelous teacher in Kindergarten Cop. 

In Tremors you had to believe that these huge underground slugs could use their tentacled tongues to drag you into their pincer jaws to be devoured.  The movie never explained what they were or where they came from, they just were.  Egg Chen gave them a stupid name that stuck. That’s it, end of the first movie.

They change that up in the sequel, which I can admire, but since the budget was smaller the effects take a bit of a hit, which I can’t admire.  I know that I passed over this a bit earlier, but I had to find something to dump on a smidge and that comes whenever there’s supposed to be multiple shriekers onscreen and in motion.  There’s a needed layer for rendering that is missing, but again the film doesn’t shy away from this, and they do what they can with what they’ve got.

Also, the body count is much smaller here as well.  Again, I’m sure budget played a role here, but what I wouldn’t have given to see 3 or four of these things rip through several ancillary cast members.  I know that creates a tone/ratings/effects budget problem, but a few more gory casualties would definitely go further in upping the ante with how lethal these things are despite their goofiness.        

Anything Far Worse than the Original?

“You know, you might come in useful. While they are eating you it will give me a chance to get away.”

Okay, okay, okay.  Let me start off by saying that I’m sure that Christopher Gartin is a wonderful person in real life, a terrific family man, and a beacon of truth, justice, and the American Way in and among the community at large.  Here, however, I don’t dig him as Grady.  If he’s supposed to be an audience surrogate as we see these events unfolding through his eyes, that never really coagulates into an idea that I like.  If he’s there for someone for Earl to bounce dialogue off of, why not skip him altogether and just have Earl either talk to himself or have him pair up with Helen Shaver earlier in the movie, giving their relationship more time to build under the umbrella of this sci-fi meet cute?

And by the time Burt shows up, there’s even less for Grady to do beyond being irritating.  Hey, if you love him, I bear you no ill will whatsoever.  He just isn’t my cup of tea.  That being said, what if right after Halloween: The Curse of the Michael Myers, they brought Paul Rudd on the Tremors train instead?  What about Ashton Kutcher?  Matthew Lillard?  Yeah, see what I mean?  Instant improvement.  Think I’m off on this?  Well, recall that when the third movie came along, they didn’t bring Grady back.  In fact, they never brought him back for the rest of the series.  And even if those other sequels might have been considerably lower in regard, they would never stoop so low as to bring Grady back.

Follow-up installments?

Kate Reilly: “Who named them graboids anyway?”

Earl Bassett: “A friend of ours, Walter Chang, he named them, then they ate him.”

Tremors 2: Aftershocks is the little seed that proved that an inexpensive sequel to Tremors could grow a lucrative franchise for the home video market.  Who could have guessed that back when graboids chased a riding lawnmower in Tremors that it would have led to over 30 years of sequels?  Who knew that Michael Gross could be a star attraction for a franchise that has nothing to do with Family Ties whatsoever?  Who knew that direct-to-video entries could be somewhat entertaining?  (For that matter, who knew that a riding lawnmower would be a necessary item…in the desert…where there are no lawns to speak of…ahem…  Yeah, I know he calls it a little tractor, but it just isn’t.  And before you say anything else, no, it isn’t.)

Now for the sake of brevity and my own ever-dwindling attention span, here are the sequels with some barely noticeable descriptive notes.  By the way, yes, I do own some of these and no, I haven’t watched them all yet.  Granted, I should put my Fellini retrospective on hold so I can catch up with the sixth Tremors movie, but I guess I’m not that big of a fan after all.  Yep, you’re right.  Happy now?  Great.  Moving on.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)

• Burt’s back in Perfection, the movie’s back in Perfection, NV, but the movie isn’t perfection.  The worms turned again.  There are other survivors from the first movie that return.  The fact that the term Assblaster is legitimate to this franchise warms my 8-year-old heart.

Tremors: The 13-episode TV show (2003)

• Springing off the third movie, we get an even odder show that I’ve never seen.  I know Michael Gross is back as Burt, but since it is a cable show and the odds of Perfection, NV turning into Silk Stalkings were long to be sure, I skipped out on seeing this.  Still, if you had brought on Mitzi Kapture and had Stephen J. Cannell as showrunner, I would have watched!

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)

• The retroactive prequel, where Michael Gross plays his own ancestor in the Wild West.  The joke is that he hates firearms in this one.  Well, at least at the start of the movie, he hates them.  Billy Drago is here, wondering why Eastwood isn’t here to shoot him.  Creators S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock leave the series after this point, which is a detriment to say the least.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)

• After more than a decade and the siren call of the Redbox being too strong to resist, they did another Tremors, this time with Jamie Kennedy playing Burt Gummer’s out of wedlock, presumably pre-Reba involvement son.  Graboids end up all the way in South Africa in 2015 and manage to assist in ending Apartheid, which ended in 1994.

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)

• Jamie Kennedy returns along with Michael Gross and now the graboids are somehow moving through permafrost and tundra and ice in the Arctic.  Here the graboids are also providing a secret flavor for Burt’s brand-new line up of Italian ices.  (Actually, not true but I wanted to see if you were reading this far.  If you are, thanks!  If you aren’t, well never mind since you’re not reading anyway.) 

Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)

• Good golly, a 7^th Tremors movie?!  Not even Jamie Kennedy returned phone calls for this one.  Michael Gross returns and this time Jon Heder, who has been looking for a steady paycheck since 2004, is joining the fun.  These films are getting to be like the Sharknado series except they have Burt Gummer and aren’t Sharknado.

Tremors Kevin Bacon cancelled pilot (2018)

• Yes, Kevin Bacon was finally lured back, but the pilot was scrubbed and now we’re almost a decade past this cancellation.  If there’s no Michael Gross involvement, my interest level wanes to a level that is dramatically comparable to ending of Sunset Boulevard.  Yes, that dramatic, Mr. DeMille.

And Finally:

“I am COMPLETELY out of ammo. That’s never happened to me before.”

Who knew that a simple sequel to a 1990 sci-fi monster movie that laid an egg at the theatrical box office would result in 5 further sequels, a TV show, and a pilot for yet another TV series?  And now that the rights are back in the hands of the original production team, can a rebooted remake of pre-se-requel be far behind?  Incredible that after 30 years since the original film, here we are still talking about Tremors. 

Now for me, while I own the other films, there are just the first two Tremors movies.  Yes, I love Burt Gummer.  He is a hero not just for that time, but for all time.  We understand that.  But there’s something to be said about when the films are grounded with someone of Fred Ward’s caliber of gravitas.  Thankfully, here he agreed to come back to the Tremors franchise, flush with the cash from Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

And while the other films are fun and goofy respectively on a sliding scale down and another one going up respectively, and while Burt is the heart of those movies, Earl is the soul of those movies.  That’s why those first two are just a bit more special for me.  If Kevin Bacon wants to come back at this point, that’s fine, great.  I might even give it a look see.  But it won’t be the same as when my eyes alighted on a new Tremors movie back in 1996 at the video store and my immediate impulse was to rent it because I knew the chance for magic was there.  And I wouldn’t be disappointed with a Tremors sequel.

Well, not until the third one at least.

“Burt always has a plan when he does something. Well… usually.”