Review: Tremors (1990)

Stars: Kevin Bacon, Micheal Gross, Fred Ward

Budget: $11 Million

Directed By: Ron Underwood

Can I just say I loved Kevin Bacon in movies, I miss him being the main star in movies too.
To me the guy just oozed charisma and confidence in any role he was in especially in the 80's-90's.

Those were certainly his best years, in those years a certain film came out on the ends of the 80's comedy horror streak. That film was Tremors and it spawned a whole series of films and even a TV series, none as successful as the first film though.
The difference was Tremors horror was at times genuinely scary, again as is becoming a thing here on THN this film did scare me as a kid. Unlike other films of that kind though I managed to sit through and watch all of this thanks to the comedic elements.
The sequel's never truly felt as scary I felt they went in a more comedic way than horror that the first film did so well, more on those should I get to reviewing them.
This film also had amazing practical effects for its time, the grabboids looking as realistic and moving just as well as you could expect a real life creature like this to.

So let's get into the meat of the movie, a town called perfection in Nevada is home to two handymen Earl and Val (Bacon&Ward) it's an ex mining town and is close to being desolate. Earl and Val decide to pack up and leave for a neighboring community when they spot a guy dead up in an electrical tower.
Being a small town they know the guy as Edgar Deems, who has apparently died of dehydration afraid in the tower still holding his Winchester rifle.

So we then see an unknown thing killing a bunch of sheep and their owner, which low and behold Val and Earl stumble across again. Thinking some murderer is to blame for it all they rush to warn the others in town. unknown to them they have pulled some part of the creature away with them attached to their trucks axle.

They grab some horses from perfection to go and try to warn the people who live on the outskirts of town. They unfortunately find two people's truck buried near their camper trailer but them nowhere to be seen.
Then the two are suddenly attacked by the subterranean terrors and after an intense chase they end up in a thick concrete water duct thing. As the creatures are blind and only sense vibration it crashed into the duct killing itself leaving it's mangled head exposed on the other side.

Rhonda a seismologist in the area explains she's picked up vibrations from similar sized creatures, at least another 2 or 3 out there. They become trapped on some boulders they use as protection but the creatures don't let up all night and exhausted in the morning they don't know what to do.
That is until Rhonda uses a pole to start vualting from one rock to another until they reach her truck.

Not long after reaching town the remaining grabboids attack forcing everyone up onto the rooves of their buildings. This doesn't keep them safe long as the grabboids start learning to take out the foundations of the buildings making them collapse to the ground.
Meanwhile Burt Gummer played by Micheal Gross and his wife manage to kill another of the creatures. While in their survival/weapons shelter one slams into their reinforced walls.

Back in town however people keep dying until Val comes up with the idea to chain a large trailer thing to the back of a JCB to ferry people away. They try to make their way to a mountain range where the solid rock will help them, unfortunately the creatures get clever and make a sinkhole which disables the JCB.
Burt kills another one with some home made pipe bombs and they make it to the safety of some boulders again. The last grabboid however doesn't fall for SW the bomb and spits it back at them. This forces them down from the safety of the rocks and they have to run again until Val makes it chase him with the last pipe bomb.

I won't spoil the ending as usual as this is a start to a great series atleast the sequel, well maybe we'll, see when I get around to review them lol!
So THN awards Tremors with a 4 out 5 stars