“They’re under ground and they dig like a son of a bitch!”
Comedy-horror is a difficult genre. Any mash-up of genres will typically skew more towards one than the other. This is why Scream 3 is such a goddamn mess, and also why The Cabin in the Woods was such a revelation. Tremors is undeniably a comedy-horror film, and it can’t quite thread the same needle that Cabin does. It comes down heavier on the side of comedy, which is a bit of a shame, because this film has the bones of a solid creature feature. But it’s not a disaster, because the comedy is pretty good, and the horror isn’t so bad either.
Tremors has kind of the perfect apocalypse setting: the desert town of Perfection, Nevada, population 14. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing, there’s an almost palpable sense of isolation, which the film goes out of its way to make worse. We follow Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward), two local no-accounts who make their living doing odd jobs like stringing razor wire. After getting sprayed with a faulty septic pump, they decide to pack up and leave for the town of Bixby, on the worst possible day to do so.
Bacon and Ward have great chemistry, and are honestly a hoot to watch. Ward plays Earl like Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China, and Bacon resists going the dumb-redneck route. They nag at each other, but they live together, work together, and always have each other’s back. For instance, Earl trips and curses: “Goddamn prairie dog burrow.” Val immediately takes his side: “Those sons of bitches.”
Director Ron Underwood is able to introduce the giant worms beneath the ground of Perfection in a way that is both expedient and ominous. Val and Earl’s drive out of town comes to feel Stygian as they encounter one horror after another. First there is the dead man in the electrical tower, who died of dehydration: something was waiting him out below. Then there is the ranch of slaughtered cattle, and the rancher buried neck deep in the dirt. Finally, something tries to hinder their escape, and it’s only when they make it back to Perfection that they realize what it is: an enormous worm, easily six feet long. (The name they choose for the worms is “Graboid,” so that’s what I’ll call them from now on.)
At this point, Tremors becomes something of a siege film, like 30 Days of Night, Friday the 13th, or Prince of Darkness. I point that out not only because it’s weirdly a running theme this year, but because it’s a smart way to make a monster movie on a small budget (Tremors was shot for $11 million, a mere $21 million today). By keeping the characters more or less in a central location – in this case, a general store – Underwood is able to play with the implication of the Graboids, which he does using clever practical effects to make the ground ripple and shake.
The design of the Graboids is equally clever. It’s revealed that the worms themselves are far longer than suggested by the one caught on Earl’s truck. They’re enormous, in fact, easily forty feet long, with a tongue made of smaller worms that act as both scouts and tentacles. Being subterranean creatures, they’re blind, which leads to some nicely tense scenes where a character has to remain completely still in the presence of a Graboid, so as not to cause any vibrations with which the monster could track them. The Graboids are clearly puppets or animatronics, designed by Anthony Barlow, which actually helps. Old horror movies that rely on computer-generated graphics often end up looking dated, and Tremors is able to avoid that pitfall.
As in most siege films, Tremors is somewhat episodic, and goes from one set piece to another. The most successful of these is an extended comic sequence, reminiscent of the great fistfight in They Live, wherein Burt and Heather (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire), two doomsday preppers, use almost everything in their considerable arsenal – pistols, rifles, shotguns, SMGs – to kill a Graboid that burst into their bunker. Later, the townspeople attempt an escape in a hilariously slow-moving bulldozer, accompanied by triumphant music.
Not everything clicks. Characterization is paper-thin, save for Val and Earl, and some characters don’t need to be here at all. Melvin, for instance, is a young kid who only exists so characters can refuse to give him a gun; he doesn’t get a hero moment or sacrifice himself. Miguel (Tony Genaro) is a little more unfortunate. He comes the closest to being a stereotype, and speaks in a patois that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Cheech & Chong movie.
This film’s strongest suit is that it knows just what it is: a loving tribute to ’50s drive-in movies. Tremors hangs a lantern on this when Val and Earl discuss the Graboids’ provenance; Val suggests they’re irradiated, mutated, or part of a government experiment, while Earl insists that they’re aliens. Despite that, Tremors is far from being a collection of winks and nudges.
Tremors has attained cult-classic status by being a goofy-ass monster movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but takes itself seriously enough to not insult the intelligence of its audience. There is actual craftsmanship on display here, and a lot of time and effort went into making this (it is, weirdly enough, a six-film franchise now). Consider this the top half of a schlocky double feature, and I think you will understood Underwood’s intention.
10/1: Dawn of the Dead
10/2: Drag Me to Hell
10/3: Pet Sematary
10/4: The Descent
10/5: Repo! The Genetic Opera
10/6: Desierto
10/7: The Blair Witch Project
10/8: Blair Witch
10/9: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
10/10: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
10/11: Prince of Darkness
10/12: 30 Days of Night
10/13: Friday the 13th (2009)
10/14: Slither
10/15: Tremors
10/16: Pandorum
10/17: It Follows
10/18: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
10/19: Poltergeist
10/20: Paranormal Activity
10/21: Creepshow
10/22: VHS
10/23: Nosferatu the Vampyre
10/24: An American Werewolf in London
10/25: The Witch
10/26: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
10/27: Cronos
10/28: The Hills Have Eyes
10/29: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
10/30: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
10/31: Halloween (2007)
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