Product: Tremors (1990)
Rating: 4.0
Consider it stepped on!
There are worse things than living in Perfection, Nevada. For instance, thirty-foot-long burrowing man-eating worms with snake tongues.And sadly our heroes have both problems in "Tremors," a dark-comedy/cult-horror flick that has no pretenses of being anything other than what it is -- a wonderfully twisted movie about big gross monsters that explode out of the ground if you step on it. Ron Underwood keeps the worm attacks going all the way to the end, along with splatters of monster gore, exploding floorboards, and lots of rock-paper-scissors.Hired-hands Earl (Fred Ward) and Val (Kevin Bacon) are intent on getting out of the sun-baked, dead-end town of Perfection, especially since they're the guys everyone hires for the grossest jobs.But then they encounter a pair of men who died under bizarre circumstances -- and when they rush back to warn the other citizens, a grotesque snake-creature is found on their truck. With the phone lines dead and the road blocked, Val and Earl try to ride horses to the nearest town -- only to discover that the snake-worm-thing is actually one of the tongues of a vast subterranean worm that sucks people down and eats them. Ew.With the help of grad student Rhonda (Finn Carter), the guys manage to elude the marauding worms and discover a foolproof way of staying out of their reach. Unfortunately staying indoors isn't enough to stop the worms: they're capable of detecting the slightest vibration, strong enough to rip the town apart, and smart enough to figure out a way. But how can Val and Earl get the Perfectionites out of the town without being eaten by worms? For this, they'll need a PLAN!"Tremors" is not a brilliant movie, nor is it a deep or groundbreaking one. It's just a thoroughly entertaining little movie about monstrous man-eating worms and how to avoid being eaten by them... which sounds like a rather dull concept for a movie.Fortunately Underwood has a fantastic sense of tension and suspense. At first, he drops in some wonderfully gruesome demises without actually showing the monster (jackhammer and orange blood! Buried station wagon!) and fakes out the audience with a "snake" on the axle. But when the graboids appear for real, all hell (pardon my French) breaks loose -- splatters of gore, some nasty deaths, vast ravenous worms, and a fun climax involving homemade bombs and (for once) a viable plan.What really sets it apart is the excellent writing ("Something to keep 'em busy, like a... like a decoy!" "Hey Melvin... wanna make a buck?"). Well, that and its extremely quirky sense of humor (money-savvy Chang setting up a "be photographed with the big gross worm" kiosk") -- you have to love how Earl and Val handle every problem, be it breakfast or suicide runs, by playing rock-paper-scissors. The only quirkiness that falls flat is the pole-vaulting scene.Bacon and Ward do an excellent job as a pair of very, very rural hired-hands who aspire to a better life (IE, not draining sewage tanks), and frankly their characters would be cartoonish or obnoxious in lesser hands. Carter makes a good down-to-earth love interest ("Why do you keep asking me?"), and Reba McIntyre and Michael Gross are absolutely brilliant as the kooky survivalists who are prepared for anything. Except graboids, of course."Tremors" is a gloriously unpretentious little cult film, with many a confrontation between man and giant carnivorous burrowing worm. Definitely worth checking out... did you notice anything weird a minute ago?