Tremors (film)

Tremors
Promotional film poster
Directed by	Ron Underwood
Produced by	Gale Anne Hurd Brent Maddock S.S. Wilson
Written by	Brent Maddock S.S. Wilson
Starring	Kevin Bacon Fred Ward Finn Carter Michael Gross Reba McEntire Victor Wong
Music by	Ernest Troost Robert Folk (uncredited)[1]
Cinematography	Alexander Gruszynski
Editing by	O. Nicholas Brown
Distributed by	Universal Studios Columbia Pictures (UK)
Release date(s)	January 19, 1990 (1990-01-19)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million[2]
Box office	$48,572,000

Tremors is a 1990 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Ron Underwood, based on a screenplay by Brent Maddock and S. S. Wilson, and starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross and Reba McEntire. It was distributed by Universal Studios.^[3]

The film was received well by critics and holds an 88% favorable rating at the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.

The film emerged as a cult classic, followed by Tremors 2: Aftershocks, and continued in a direct-to-video sequel: Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, and one direct-to-video prequel: Tremors 4: The Legend Begins. Thirteen episodes of Tremors: The Series (a television series) aired March through July 2003. ^[4]

Plot

Valentine "Val" McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Basset (Fred Ward) work as handymen in Perfection, Nevada, an isolated ex-mining settlement that contains only fourteen residents, among them survivalist couple Burt (Michael Gross) and Heather (Reba McEntire) Gummer, and Walter Chang (Victor Wong), owner of the general store. A new arrival is Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter), a graduate student conducting seismology tests.

Val and Earl tire of their hand-to-mouth existence and leave for Bixby, the nearest town. They discover a man dead at the top of an electrical tower, though still holding on to the beams. Jim Wallace, the town doctor, announces that he died of dehydration. Somewhere else, a shepherd Old Fred and his flock get attacked by an unseen force. Val and Earl arrive only to find the sheep cut to pieces and Fred's severed head lying in the sand. Val and Earl return to Perfection, thinking that a murderer is on the loose. They warn two road-construction workers they encounter, but to no avail. After Val and Earl leave, one of the construction worker's drills stabs something from under the ground and it spews blood. With a hose around his ankle, it pulls that worker away, while the other rushes to help only to be crushed by a rock slide stirred up by it.

Val and Earl discover the town's phones dead and head for the police in Bixby, but are thwarted by the rock slide. They return to Walter's store, where they find something wrapped around their truck's back axle: the severed body of a large snakelike creature. As the townsfolk hunker down for the night, the "snakes" attack the doctor and his wife, killing them both and pulling their car underground.

The next morning, Val and Earl leave to get help, this time on horseback. They discover the doctor's buried car. Suddenly one of the attackers erupts out of the ground. Each "snake" is one of three "tongues" employed by an enormous burrowing worm-creature that Walter later names "Graboids". Thrown from their horses, the two men run for their lives. When they jump a concrete aqueduct their pursuer rams into its wall, killing itself. Rhonda determines from her readings that there are three more creatures in the area. They realize the creatures have extremely acute hearing, and find them due to their vibrations, but cannot tunnel through rock. One of the creatures traps the trio overnight at a cluster of boulders. Rhonda has the idea of pole vaulting from boulder to boulder. They reach her truck and return to town.

They are met with disbelief from the towns-people until a Graboid appears, disabling Val and Earl's truck. Everyone retreats into their homes or the store, but a Graboid bursts through the store's floor and drags away Walter.

The Gummers return to their home after unsuccessfully hunting the "snake-things" and contact the others via CB radio, but the noise of the couple's tumbler leads a Graboid to smash into their basement. The Gummers kill it with firearms, but another of the monsters disables their vehicle. In town, the Graboids attack the foundations of the buildings, knocking over Nestor's trailer and dragging him down underground. Realizing the town is being dug out from under them, Val and Earl plan to escape on a Semi end dump trailer pulled by a bulldozer, which is too heavy for the Graboids to move. Val reaches the vehicle while the others distract the Graboids. Everyone is collected, including the Gummers, and they set out for the safety of a nearby mountain range.

The Graboids dig a pit-trap in the bulldozer's path, wrecking it. The townsfolk use Burt's home-made explosives to drive the creatures away long enough to reach the safety of a boulder, where Earl has another idea: tricking the Graboids into swallowing Burt's bombs. This works once, but on the second try the last Graboid spits the explosive onto Burt's pile of bombs, sending everyone scattering. Val, Earl and Rhonda are stranded yards from the boulder, with the Graboid blocking their path to safety. Val has one more bomb and one last idea: he lets the Graboid chase him to the edge of a cliff and "stampedes" it with the bomb, then jumps out of its way, sending it through the cliff-face to its death. The group returns to town, and Earl pushes Val into approaching the clearly interested Rhonda romantically.

Cast

• Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee
• Fred Ward as Earl Basset
• Finn Carter as Rhonda LeBeck
• Michael Gross as Burt Gummer
• Reba McEntire as Heather Gummer
• Victor Wong as Walter Chang
• Robert Jayne as Melvin Plug
• Ariana Richards as Mindy Sterngood
• Charlotte Stewart as Nancy Sterngood
• Tony Genaro as Miguel
• Richard Marcus as Nestor Cunningham
• Sunshine Parker as Edgar Deems
• Conrad Bachmann as Jim Wallace
• Bibi Besch as Megan Wallace

Reception

The film was hailed by critics for its diverse cast and humor. James Berardinelli of Reelviews.net gave it 3 out of 4 stars. As of September 2011, Tremors holds a "fresh" rating of 88% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 critic scores.^[5]

Box office

The film grossed $16,667,084 domestic and $48,572,000 worldwide at the box office.

Awards

Kevin Bacon received his first Golden Globe Nomination, Best Supporting actor.

Home Media

Although a financial disappointment during its theatrical run (in which it barely broke even), the film became a runaway hit in the home video market, and ultimately tripled its original box office gross with VHS sales and rentals.

References

1. ^ Tremors (1990) – Full cast and crew
2. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/business
3. ^ Vincent Canby. "Underground Creatures and Dread Events". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C0CE2DE1631F93AA25752C0A966958260. 
4. ^ Tremors: The Series DVD Art Rumbles Your Home Video Collection
5. ^ "Tremors (1989)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/tremors/. Retrieved 2007-10-22. 

External links

• Stampede Entertainment – Official website
• Tremors at the Internet Movie Database
• Tremors (film) at Rotten Tomatoes