Product: Tremors (1990)
Rating: 5.0
An unalloyed joy
This movie was a deliberate throwback to the sf/monster movies of the 1950's -right down to its setting in the desertThe omens were not propitious as the writing team of Steven S Wilson and Brent Maddock had given us such relative dreck as Short Circuit and batteries not included .This time they got it right -and how - delivering a dry land Jaws with pace wit and elan to spare .Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward play Val and Earl ;2 down at heel cowboys who live a hand to mouth existence as odd job men around the small towm of Perfection ,population 15 .The town is besieged by mysterious underground creatures -giant worms boring through the earth at enormous speeds .Their first victims are a power repair man and a road repair crew .Earl and Val ,aided by the obligatory brainy but beautiful scientist Rhonda ( Finn Carter) join up with a survivalist family(more sympathetically depicted than usual in such movies)and do battle against the giant worm like thingsThe effects are excellent ,belying the low budget and one shot early on in the movie where a road workers' drill gets entangled with the head of one of the creatures is especially satisfyingGreat script and solid performances help make this a small scale ,intelligent monster movie that satisfies on every level making its commercial failure at the time all the more sad