Tremors

Plot synopsis:
Valentine "Val" McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) are two good-for-nothing odd-job workers. They usually mend fences and railings, help farmers in a sleepy town called Perfection, and take care of cows. They have the use of a down-trodden truck, and not much money to their names. The live near a dry dusty town, and are friends with most of the villagers. Perfection occupies a small part of dried-out Perfection Valley, surrounded by small mountains, except for a county road.Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter), is a university student which investigates earthquakes. She tells them that she's getting weird signs from their seismographs, but there were no earthquakes around. Val likes her, but prefers daydreaming about some playmate, so he doesn't ask the seismologist out .The two friends Earl and Val are attacked by a kind of snake which appears from below the dusty soil. Also, they find the town drunkyard on the top of a electricity post, dead. They start wondering whether he was so afraid of something that he preferred dying up there of thirst. They try to warn some of their isolated neighbours, and they find an earthed car with its lights on and music from the radio still blasting.The two friends go to the town drugstore to tell everyone. First, they try to leave by truck. However, the road is blocked because the snakes attacked some road building workers (John Goodwin & John Pappas). Val and Earl come back, after their car gets stuck but they managed to release it. Back in Perfection, they find a huge snake grabbing at the lows of their truck. The shopkeeper, mean Walter Chang (Victor Wong), lends them two horses so they can go and tell the county police, because all phone lines are cut, and there are no mobile phone network coverage on the area. Several people are not worried at all: dumb teenager Melvin Plug (Robert Jayne) mocks them, Burt and Heather Gummer (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire) have built themselves a nuclear refuge, and crammed it with heavy weaponry, so they don't feel they need to have fear of nothing.Val and Earl ride for dear life. But their horses are bitten by some of the snakes. They run away on foot, but the creature runs after them. They would have been caught but for the creature hitting itself agains a huge concrete wall to death. At that moment, the seismologist appears again. They discover that the creature stinks horribly, is several metres long, and that the snakes were a kind of tentacles protuding from its mouth. Rhonda checks her seismographs, learning that there must be at least three more of those snakes.When the three are going back, another of the creatures tries to capture them. They see dust flying, a sign that a critter is moving underground. They run and end up up to some tall rocks where the creatures cannot climb. They stay there, but the creatures are very patient. They manage to climb from one rock to the other, and jumping into their van, being closely followed by the meat-hunger monsters. The creatures feel them because they can make sense of the noise humans make in the form of vibrations.Back to the drugstore, Walter decides to call the monsters graboids. Melvin is still mocking Earl and Val stupidly, but Val has to risk her life to save Mindy Sterngood (Ariana Richards), who had been hopping around with her headphones on, not listening to her mother Nancy (Charlotte Stewart)'s cries. When they think they have outwitted the graboids by taking refuge atop the roofs of buildings, the graboids destroy the buildings' foundations. The buildings are simple and fragile, completely made of planks of wood. A graboid manages to eat Walter, emerging from under the cheap wooden shopfloor. Another graboid eats Nestor, and one of them manages to destroy one of the underground walls of the Gummers, but they fight back with all their weaponry, finally killing the vicious creature.The survivors pick up a bulldozer and they try to run on it. They also go to pick up the Gummers, which have prepared many weapons. The graboids are highly intelligent, and they prepare a trap for the humans, which succeeds. They all have to run to some rocks. They wait there, surrounded by the graboids.They think of another plan. They throw dynamite to the animals, who swallow everything but are afraid of strong noises, which hurt their sensitive sense. The dynamite explodes within one of the critters, killing them. They try the same trick with the other graboid, but the remaing critter spits the dynamite, and they have to run away from their safe hidingplace. Val is on the open earth, so he is going to be detected and eaten by the surviving graboid. He decides to run, but the graboid is very fast. When Val is about to jump from a high cliff, he steps aside, but the graboid can't stop, and falls from it.They are happily alive, and Earl coaxes Val into asking Rhonda out.The final scene shows some loose dirt moving on the dry soil of the valley, proving that there is at least one more ravenous creature alive.

Tags: cult, comedy, psychedelic, humor, prank

Review:
Since then, I have seen the movie about ten more times (at least), and still get a kick out of it.Tremors is basically a landlocked variation on 'Jaws' and those 1950s giant bug movies: the isolated town of Perfection, Nevada (population 16), finds itself under seige by four monstrous, subterranean wormlike creatures, that hunt by sensing vibrations in the ground.
The film-makers are aware of their far-fetched premise (a couple of key questions go unanswered), but they treat it with respect and a certain amount of affection.Tremors didn't have much life in theaters, but has become something of a 'Midnight Movie' on home video, with definite cult possibilities.
The movies real strength is the perfect casting of Kevin Bacon ('Diner') and Fred Ward ('Henry And June') as the small town handymen turned reluctant heroes.
Since the movie is PG-13, there are still a couple of moments of semi-graphic violence, but nothing objectionable to someone 10 years or older.The special effects are fun, with the worms as the film's showpiece.
We have unique and rather intimidating monsters,as well as a very unique cast of characters to battle them.While Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward may be listed as the leads,I think that Michael Gross practically steals the entire show.While it isn't flawless,it certainly is entertaining enough.I would recommend it to any fan of 1950's B horror films.It is well worth the rental and would be a good addition to anyone's library..
They went back to the basics and came out with one of my all-time favorite flicks.There are two ways to make a good monster movie: slow-paced and suspenseful, or fast-paced and surprising.
One of the aspects I enjoy most about showing this film to first-time viewers - aside from the the pride I take in indoctrinating new members to the Cult of the Graboid - is how the movie fools them about things like who gets eaten and who doesn't, and how the worms actually operated.My one bullsh*t call is the Cat loader.
Nevada desert ,around village named Perfection are happening mysterious deeds.There live a small misfit group(Michael Gross,McEntire,Tony Genaro,Charlotte Stewart,Victor Wong,among others).A pair handyman(Kevin Bacon ,Fred Ward)find a university graduate(Finn Carter) and appear spontaneously a fearsome wormlike burrow surrounding of them.The Perfection inhabitants are besieged by the giant killers predators with several tongues.Then they battle against the West's more creepy beasts that savagely stalking its prey ,the human bunch and developing a bloodthirsty hunger for men eating.The trio protagonist comes out through desolate plateu where are roaming while must to save them.This is an enjoyable and amusing juvenile romp,campy fun,quite entertaining and slickly shot.Bemusing old-fashioned, fantasy-adventure from updating adaptation of 50s and 60s monster movies.The film relies heavily about sympathetic relationship both protagonists: Bacon and Ward.An ambitious production,interesting as movie and hokey FX .Graboids deliver the goods with hair-rising suspense and grisly chills when the weird creatures emerge from underground.It's remarkable for special effects -made by Animatronics,no computer generator like the sequels- recreating the carnivorous and ferocious monsters .It's followed by inferior movies aimed to video rental market: ¨Aftershock¨(S.S.Wilson)again with Fred Ward; ¨III Back to Perfection¨with Charlotte Stewart and Ariana Richards and TV series with Gladys Jimenez,Victor Browne,Marcia Strassman and as always Michael Gross.The essential particularities from the sequels are : A remote and desert location named Perfection ,a solitary small village with a small group pitting horrible Graboids and of course the usual presence of Michael Gross as Burt Gummer,besides all are produced by Brent Maddock,Ron Underwood and S.S Wilson.The motion picture is recommended for horror-action enthusiastic that will find pretty spectacular scenes and some humor and their appetite for gruesome shots will be satisfied.Rating : Better than average and entertaining..
Since then, I have seen the movie about ten more times (at least), and still get a kick out of it.Tremors is basically a landlocked variation on 'Jaws' and those 1950s giant bug movies: the isolated town of Perfection, Nevada (population 16), finds itself under siege by four monstrous, subterranean worm like creatures, that hunt by sensing vibrations in the ground.
The plot revolves around the townspeople trying to outwit and escape the creatures (dubbed 'Graboids'), which are tearing the town out from under them.What really makes the movie work is the characters: all of them come across as real people trapped in an insane situation, and all have a lot of charisma, even though the film doesn't have tons of character development.
The plot revolves around the townspeople trying to outwit and escape the creatures (dubbed 'Graboids'), which are tearing the town out from under them.What really makes the movie work is the characters: all of them come across as real people trapped in an insane situation, and all have a lot of charisma, even though the film doesn't have tons of character development.
The creatures too are also fairly smart, and are not just mindless eating machines with no brains.Given its premise, Tremors is not a gory or violent film (although it has a couple of minor gross bits), and has a very good sense of humor.
The creatures too are also fairly smart, and are not just mindless eating machines with no brains.Given its premise, Tremors is not a gory or violent film (although it has a couple of minor gross bits), and has a very good sense of humor.
Much of the delight in watching Tremors derives from the rib poking guy fun that Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward have when working their scenes.
If you're a late comer to Tremors, break out a couple of cold ones and watch it for more of the acting which isn't acting that makes this film so damned good and so much more than monster eats man.
The cast of the movie are great: Kevin Bacon(aka "Mr. Kyra Sedgwick" movies like "Footloose", "Murder in The First", "Friday the 13th" and several others to name a few) Fred Ward, Michaal Gross of "Family Ties" fame, Reba McIntyre(Country sensation and actress) and many others as well.
Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon's characters have a lot of fun as a pair of working buddies who josh and joke around but who prove a winning team, still retaining their ways, in the fold.
Maybe closer to "Galaxy Quest" actually.) Whatever, they sure make it exactly right.It's simply supposed to be 90 mins of "sit back and enjoy fun", and it sure manages that real good.As the foundation, you've got a really great script with lots of witty and "mean" dialouge, and simply great moments, as findig that original up in a power-line mast, having starved to death rather than go down or finding a car buried in the sand (with the lights still on).
Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon, along with all the rest of the actors, seems to have a really great time doing it and it shows on the screen.This is a movie that's..
Tremors does what a movie about "giant underground worms that feed on the inhabitants of a small mid-western town" seems like it could never do:  it lets its creativity charm you, making you smile, laugh, jump out of your seat, and root for perhaps the most satisfying ending in an action movie (a rarity in an industry that can never come up with something more creative than blowing up a monster).
Tremors was the kind of monster movie that seemed to find its way into my childhood video library - was it meant for kids, I have no idea (it's not not meant for them, if that makes sense) - and it was something that got repeat viewing.
There's enough character in the set-ups with these people first though, with Bacon and Ward as laborers, and with the townspeople (Michael Gross and Victor Wong get some ample screen-time), and it helps that the filmmakers spend just enough time in the first ten-fifteen minutes so that we can care enough about them while also making them fairly comic characters.This is a fun movie.
Sure there are some chills, but there is enough action and comedy to combat the horror elements of the film.Ron Underwood's film is about these two men named Val and Earl who are out working in a isolated town called Perfection located in Nevada.
Despite being in moments of horror, I like how they try to be funny and most of the time it works.Overall, Tremors is a solid, B-movie that delivers on its promise of a good time.
Its 90 minutes are neatly divided into a half-hour for establishing the characters and setting (director Ron Underwood nicely sets up the desolate boredom of his scrubby desert terrain), a half-hour for presenting the menace of the monsters, and a half-hour for the thrill-packed resolution, which involves elephant guns, homemade bombs, and a bulldozer.Throughout, the film keeps you laughing, with Earl and Val's one-liners ("Who died and made you Einstein?"), the Gummers' exaggerated bunker mentality, how various wormy "graboids" are dispatched, and a sly sense of what is expected from a film like this.
With the likes of Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Finn Carter, Ariana Richards and more, Tremors is one of the best movies ive seen and IS the best horror/comedy/sci-fi movie to ever grace the screen.
I'll keep it short: Tremors is one of the best films I have ever seen, and I consider myself something of a movie obsessive.The plot: Reminiscent of 1950's Horror movies, two handymen decide to leave their dead-end life in the town of Perfection, Nevada (Population: 14) and head off into the wilderness in search of a better life.
Tremors is a very good horror-movie with great actors and some really exciting scenes.
This is a scary movie with good suspense-horror and excellent special-effects as huge worm-like creatures go after humans in the desert.
Once you get hooked, you can't put this film down.Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross and Reba McIntyre fight off the gruesome underground invaders.One thing for sure: you will not be bored..
It's genius attention to detail like this that make Tremors such an enjoyable experience.I'll never understand why this film doesn't get more love, even among 80's/90's nostalgia fanboys and monster movie lovers.
Leading the charge against the beasts are amiable handymen Val and Earl (Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, who share a marvelous chemistry), two guys who had been planning to leave for the big city - or the nearest town of any size.The movie is by turns suspenseful, action packed, and humorous, with an enjoyably quirky bunch of characters for whom we can easily root.
The movie is cast to Perfection: country & western darling Reba McEntire (making an unlikely but endearing movie debut) and 'Family Ties' dad Michael Gross make for a highly amusing survivalist couple, Victor Wong ("Big Trouble in Little China", "Prince of Darkness") lends his appealing, eccentric presence to the role of the local shop keeper, cute & likable Finn Carter, who could easily have had a bigger career in film after this, is shapely seismology student Rhonda, and Charlotte Stewart ("Eraserhead") and Ariana Richards ("Jurassic Park") are a local mom & daughter.The music (by Ernest Troost) is fun, the photography has an appropriately sun baked look to it, and the creatures themselves are convincingly created by the talented effects team of Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. They're big, ugly, smelly, slimy things with mouths that open up like flowers, and can move through the dirt like nobody's business.
It's Mr. Underwood fortune to have been able to get an intelligent script that scares our wits, and at the same time, it gives the viewer ninety minutes of wonderful escape.One can't think of another pair playing the leading roles in "Tremors", but Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward.
Watched Tremors Featuring Kevin Bacon(Footloose) as Valentine McKee, Fred Ward(Miami Blues) as Earl Bassett , Finn Carter(Monsters) as Rhonda LeBeck,Michael Gross(A Connecticut Yankee In Kings Arthurs Court) as Burt Gummer ,Reba McEntire(Hee Haw) as Heather Gummer, Charlotte Stewart(Twin Peaks) as Nancy Sterngood .
Review: 'Tremors' Directed by Ron Underwood, 'Tremors' starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward and Finn Carter is a fun, sci-fi, horror/comedy film set in a rural, isolated town in America where residents have to defend themselves against strange, underground creatures.
The characters are really crazy fools but Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon do a really good job of playing into the circumstances and being just funny as can be.I think one of the elements that makes this movie work so well is that all the different characters come across as very real people all living their regular lives that just happen to be stuck in this two-bit town.
I love the humor, action, and sci-fi elements mixed in, and of course the star of the movie is the Graboids, the huge worms that terrorize the humans in the film.
Set in the fictional town of Perfection, Nevada, the film follows a day in the life of two handy men (Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon) riding out an existence in the bad lands of America, until they decide they have had enough and head for the nearest city, only to find that something horrible is eating its way through every one they've known, and is eyeing up the residence of Perfection valley for afters, their only hope is to make a stand with the help of Burt Gummer, a gun crazed militaristic fanatic and the owner of the local shop, played by John Carpenter staple Victor Wong.The perfectly cast Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward lead the cast as the handy-men Val and Earl, who become entangled in the feeding antics of the giant 'graboids', the film goes on from there.
What we got here is a action-adventure-monster-comedy-horror piece that actually manages to get EVERYTHING right!Actors: 10/10 (the chemistry between Bacon and Ward kills it!) Script: 10/10 (great dialog, great pacing, splendid finale) Camera: 10/10 (very fitting, can't describe, go and watch it) SFX: 10/10 (unmatched at the time, still a solid 8/10 today)I love this movie.
The story is just so outlandishly stupid, you will almost die yourself of laughter as you see citizens of the town of Perfection, Nevada slowly get churned up by giant underground worms.The cast of characters is what really makes Tremors a winner.
At the same time, Val and Earl have just decided they really are moving out of Perfection, but unfortunately, they just can't get away as bodies start piling up.The movie segues nicely to the battle between the monsters and the town, but not before Michael Gross and Reba McIntyre get introduced as the survivalists who are preparing for World War 3 with every weapon imaginable in their basement.
The movie stars Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross and Reba McEntire.
Kevin is great in a lot of movies, and it did make a change to see him as a good guy his acting was hilarious in this.I have never seen any of the Tremors sequels and in a way I don't want to ruin the fun of this film.
I get the feeling that the sequels will not be anywhere near as good as this but I will try them one day.I think this is a perfect film if you don't want to think about anything and just enjoy an action packed, fun film.I will give this film 7 out of 10."We plan ahead, that way, we don't do anything right now."For more reviews, please like my Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Person-Movie- Reviews/456572047728204?ref=hl.
Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward play two handymen in a remote desert town, who yearn to get out and into the big city, but it turns out they waited too long, as a mysterious underground monster appears, killing many townspeople and livestock, until our two reluctant heroes team up with Militarist couple Bert Gummer(Amusingly played by Michael Gross) and his wife, played by Reba McEntire.
Giant underground worms with snake tongues that "shoot out of its mouth, hook ya, and pull ya right in." As dumb and corny as this sounds, it somehow comes together and works perfectly, with most of the credit going to Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward as the handyman duo, assisted by a strong supporting cast including Michael Gross and Reba McEntire.
"Val" (Kevin Bacon) & "Earl" ( the very underrated Fred Ward) make for the buddy part of the film, & have great chemistry playing off one another, with funny lines, bickering, & superior acting, you'd think these two had been friends for years.
Especially good are Michael Gross & Rebecca McEntire, as a married couple that are survivalists, armed to the ears waiting to wage war, but not the kind they think.All in all, "Tremors" is a classic up date of giant mutated monster movies of the 50's.
Geographic isolation".Central characters Val an Earl also enjoy an effortless back and forth banter throughout the film, almost every aside, quip and remark provides amusement.1 point.Cast – Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) are note perfect as the good natured local dogsbodies, their characters never get too clever or perform superhuman feats and they react as you probably would when faced with killing machines from beneath your feet.The minor bit parts aren't called upon to do much but look like they're frightened and/or dinner, but unlike many B movies no-one is obviously the guy replacing the real actor who called in sick.1 point.Creatures – Another massive + 1.
After watching it again after all these years, I love it as much now as I did then.If you're looking for a good 'monster movie', Tremors is a good one.
Like the way Kevin bacon and Fred Ward joke about the Tremors as if they were a sort of pet and the methods they use to destroy them!!!good funny, horror movie.8/10..
It is an SF-comedy-action-horror film, and it is one of the most entertaining and fun movies ever made.
Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward make a great duo to follow along on what is glorious, pure B-movie cheese: Oversized, underground, carnivorous worms preying on a small town with a population of about a dozen people.