Tremors (1990 film)

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Tremors
Tremors official theatrical poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ron Underwood
Screenplay by
Brent Maddock
S. S. Wilson
Story by
Brent Maddock
S. S. Wilson
Ron Underwood
Produced by
Brent Maddock
S. S. Wilson
Starring
Kevin Bacon
Fred Ward
Finn Carter
Michael Gross
Reba McEntire
Cinematography Alexander Gruszynski
Edited by O. Nicholas Brown
Music by Ernest Troost
Production
companies
No Frills Productions[1]
Pacific Western Productions[1]
Distributed by Universal Pictures[1]
Release date
January 19, 1990
Running time 96 minutes[2]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $10 million[3]
Box office $16.7 million (US)[4]
Tremors is a 1990 American western-themed monster horror comedy film directed by
Ron Underwood, produced by Brent Maddock, and S. S. Wilson, and written by Maddock,
Wilson, and Underwood. Tremors was released by Universal Pictures and stars Kevin
Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, and Reba McEntire.

In the film, tired of their dull lives in the small desert town of Perfection,
Nevada, repairmen Val McKee (Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Ward) try to skip town.
However, they happen upon a series of mysterious deaths and a concerned
seismologist Rhonda (Carter) studying unnatural readings below the ground. With the
help of eccentric survivalist couple Burt and Heather Gummer (Gross and McEntire),
the group fights for survival against giant, wormlike monsters hungry for human
flesh.

The film is the first installment of the Tremors franchise[5] and was followed by
five direct-to-video sequels and one prequel: Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996),
Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001), Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004), Tremors
5: Bloodlines (2015), Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018), and Tremors: Shrieker
Island (2020). A television series titled Tremors: The Series aired from March
through August 2003.[6] A second television series was set to air in 2018 after a
pilot had been shot with Bacon reprising his role for the first time since the
original film, but multiple networks including Syfy passed on the series.

Contents
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
3.1 Filming
3.2 Props
3.3 Post-production
4 Release and reception
4.1 Box office
4.2 Critical reception
4.3 Home releases
5 Soundtrack
6 Sequels and spin-offs
7 In popular culture
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
Plot
Valentine "Val" McKee and Earl Bassett are handymen working in Perfection, Nevada,
an isolated settlement in the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They
eventually get tired of their jobs and leave for Bixby, the nearest town. As they
leave, they discover the dead body of Edgar Deems, a fellow resident, perched atop
an electrical tower, still grasping the tower's crossbeams and his rifle. Jim
Wallace, the town's doctor, determines that Edgar died of dehydration, apparently
having been too afraid to climb down.

Later on, an unseen creature kills shepherd Fred and his flock of sheep. Val and
Earl discover his severed head and believe that a serial killer is on the loose.
Two construction workers ignore Val and Earl's warning and are killed by the same
creature, causing a rock slide. Val and Earl try to find help after warning the
residents, but find the phone lines are dead and that the rock slide has blocked
the only road out of town. Out of sight, a snakelike creature wraps itself around
their truck's rear axle; it is torn apart when Val stomps on the accelerator and
drives away, and is discovered when they return to town.

Val and Earl borrow horses to ride to Bixby for help. They come upon Wallace and
his wife's buried station wagon near their trailer, but the couple is missing
(having been killed the previous night). As they press on, an enormous burrowing
wormlike monster suddenly erupts out of the ground, revealing the snakelike
creature to be one of the worm's many tentacled "tongues". Thrown from their
horses, the men flee with the monster in pursuit. The chase ends when the creature
crashes through the concrete wall of an aqueduct, dying from the impact. Rhonda
LeBeck, a graduate student conducting seismology tests in the area, stumbles onto
the scene; she deduces from previous readings that there are three other worms in
the area. Rhonda, Val, and Earl become trapped overnight atop a cluster of boulders
near one of the worms, and surmise that the creatures hunt their prey by detecting
seismic vibrations. The trio then find some discarded poles and use them to pole
vault across some nearby boulders to reach Rhonda's truck, narrowly escaping the
creature.

After the trio return to town, all three remaining worms attack the settlement. Val
saves Mindy, who is unaware of the creatures’ presence in town, after the sound of
her pogo stick lures one of them to her. Meanwhile, Rhonda gets tangled in barbed
wire from a broken fence and another one of the creatures moves to kill her. Val
manages to stun the creature with a pickaxe then helps Rhonda to escape. Inside the
general store, the worms attack again and kill owner Walter Chang, forcing everyone
to hide on the town's various rooftops. Meanwhile, survivalist couple Burt and
Heather Gummer manage to kill one of the creatures after unwittingly luring it to
their basement armory. In town, the two remaining worms start attacking the
building foundations; they knock over a trailer Nestor is standing on, allowing
them to drag him under and devour him. Realizing they must leave town, Earl,
Rhonda, and Miguel distract the monsters while Val commandeers a track loader and
chains a semi-trailer to the rear. The survivors use it to try and escape to a
nearby mountain range. En route, both worms create a sinkhole trap that disables
the track loader, and the survivors flee to some nearby boulders for safety.

The group begins to lose hope of escape until Earl gets an idea to trick the worms
into swallowing Burt's homemade pipe bombs. The strategy kills one worm, but the
last one spits a bomb back towards the survivors, forcing them to disperse as the
explosion sets off and destroys all but one of the remaining bombs. Val lures the
final worm into chasing him to the edge of a cliff and then explodes the remaining
bomb behind it, frightening the worm into charging through the cliff face, where it
plummets to its death onto the rocks below. The group returns to town and call in
the authorities to begin an investigation, while Earl encourages Val to pursue a
romantic relationship with Rhonda.

Cast
Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee
Fred Ward as Earl Bass
Finn Carter as Rhonda LeBeck
Michael Gross as Burt Gummer
Reba McEntire as Heather Gummer
Bobby Jacoby as Melvin Plug
Ariana Richards as Mindy Sterngood
Charlotte Stewart as Nancy Sterngood
Tony Genaro as Miguel
Richard Marcus as Nestor Cunningham
Víctor Wong as Walter Chang
Bibi Besch as Megan Wallace
Conrad Bachmann as Dr. Jim Wallace
Sunshine Parker as Edgar Deems
Michael Dan Wagner as Old Fred
John Goodwin as Howard
John Pappas as Carmine
Production
The concept of Tremors was originally conceived in the early 1980s, when writers S.
S. Wilson and Brent Maddock were working for the United States Navy as filmmakers
in charge of creating educational safety videos. While getting footage, the two
climbed a large desert boulder and asked the question "What if there was something
that wouldn't let us off of this rock?" This inspired the two to start
brainstorming ideas for a monster movie, which was eventually dubbed "Land Sharks".
[7] They shared their idea to their friend Ron Underwood, who was working with
National Geographic as a documentary director, and used his knowledge of zoology to
better develop the "land sharks" into creatures that could realistically exist.
[citation needed]

After their script for Short Circuit spawned a major box office hit, Wilson and
Maddock quickly began shopping around their idea for Tremors. The name "Land
Sharks" was changed owing to a then-popular Saturday Night Live sketch featuring a
character of the same name. The original screenplay, titled 'Beneath Perfection',
was finished in June 1988.[8]

Filming
Filming began in early 1989 and lasted over 50 days. Principal photography took
place around Lone Pine, California, and the isolated community of Darwin,
California, which the crew liked because of its uncanny similitaries to the
fictional town of Perfection, Nevada. The town, which was entirely a set, was built
near Olancha, California, at 36°12′34.1″N 117°56′09.9″W.[9] The mountains in the
distance are the Sierra Nevada, and Owens Lake is visible in the background during
the film's climax.[10]

Props
The creature for Tremors was designed by Amalgamated Dynamics. The full-scale
graboid seen after being dug up by Val was cast in lightweight foam. It was placed
in a trench and buried and dug up again to achieve the desired "used" effect.[11]

Burt's elephant gun, an 8-gauge Darne shotgun, was rented from a private collector
for use in the film. It "fired" dummy cartridges custom made from solid brass rod
stock.[12][13]

Post-production
Composer Ernest Troost's musical score for the film went mostly unused. The studio
thought it was "too goofy" and cut most of it, later hiring composer Robert Folk to
write a new score that was more "serious and action-y".[14] Despite his
contributions, Folk ultimately went uncredited.

Tremors was set for a November 1989 release. However, the MPAA gave the film an R
rating owing to language, and the creators decided at the last minute to make the
film more commercially available. Over 20 or so uses of the word "fuck" were either
cut or redubbed with softer words; examples include "Can you fly, you sucker?" and
"We killed that motherhumper", among several others.[15] The film was pushed back
to allow more time for editing, and the film was eventually released in January
1990 with a PG-13 rating. Wilson and Maddock later stated they were very happy with
the decision to make Tremors appeal to a more family-friendly audience rather than
an adult-oriented audience.[15]

Release and reception

Box office
Tremors opened on January 19, 1990, in 1,457 theaters against no new releases and
debuted at the #5 spot, behind Born on the Fourth of July, Tango & Cash, The War Of
The Roses, and Internal Affairs, grossing $3,731,520 in its opening weekend.[16] It
dropped to #6 on its second week but would stay in the top 10 for four weeks before
finally dropping to #11 in week 5.[17] Tremors had a budget of $10 million and
ended up grossing $16,667,084 at the domestic box office, which made it financially
successful, though far below projected numbers. In 2019, Kevin Bacon hinted that
Tremors only made "a fifth of what the charts at Universal said it would."[18] Its
creators blamed the subpar theatrical performance on its marketing campaign; S. S.
Wilson felt that the film was not well promoted once its release date was delayed,
while Brent Maddock stated the theatrical trailer was "cringeworthy" and likely
deterred audiences.[19][20]

Critical reception
Tremors was hailed by critics for its diverse cast and humor. As of September 2020
the film holds a "certified fresh" rating of 86% at the review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, based on 44 reviews and an average score of 7.17 out of 10, with
the consensus: "An affectionate throwback to 1950s creature features, Tremors
reinvigorates its genre tropes with a finely balanced combination of horror and
humor.[21]

James Berardinelli praised Tremors with a 3/4 star rating, feeling that
"horror/comedies often tread too far to one side or the other of that fine line;
Tremors walks it like a tightrope".[22] Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 rating
and wrote: "Most shlocky creature features seem oblivious to character
development... but Tremors is smart enough to realize that the characters are the
driving force of a great story, not the monsters or the violence." Ty Burr of
Entertainment Weekly gave Tremors a B+, saying: "Tremors is the Slacker of monster
movies: bemused, improvisatory, willfully low-key... most of its errors can be
overlooked and forgiven, which is rare for its genre."[23] Richard Harrington of
the Washington Post called the film "a delightful throwback to such '50s and '60s
films", and Jeffery Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner gave the film a glowing
4.5/5 star review, calling Tremors "effectively terrifying when it needs to be,
effectively exciting when it needs to be, and effectively hilarious when it needs
to be... Tremors may very well be the best horror film, the best action flick, and
the best comedy of the year".[24]

[Tremors] is very well cast, with [Fred] Ward and [Kevin] Bacon proving affable and
enjoyable comedy leads [...] The special effects are first-rate [...] It may not
top anyone's 10-best list, but Tremors is nevertheless solid entertainment.

— TV Guide, [25]

In some less enthusiastic reviews, Vincent Canby for the New York Times remarked
that the film "was clearly more fun to make than it is for us to watch", and
Variety gave the film a C- on the basis that Tremors "...has a few clever twists
and characters but ultimately can't decide on what it wants to be: flat-out funny,
which it's usually not, or a scarefest, which it's usually not either."[26] Gene
Siskel initially gave the film a negative review, stating: "[M]ost of the secondary
characters aren't compelling and its horror conventions are lame... Tremors could
make a cute short subject but it doesn't sustain itself as an entire film"; but he
later gave the film a positive review in his book Cinema: Year by Year 1894-2001,
saying: "If you want to see a good B-movie, watch Tremors; it was one of the few
monster movies to get the formula right."[27]

Home releases
While only a modest hit at the box office, Tremors went on to become a massive hit
on home video purchases, rentals, and television, becoming one of the most rented
films of 1990.[28] Because of this, it has gained a very large cult following over
the years.[29]

Tremors debuted on VHS on April 1, 1990, on Laserdisc on April 16, 1996, and on DVD
on April 28, 1998.[citation needed] It was released on VHS by Universal Pictures
Home Entertainment on June 2, 2000. The film was released on Blu-ray on November 9,
2010,[30] and again on September 17, 2013, as part of the Tremors: Attack Pack for
region 1 (U.S. and Canada).[31] In the United Kingdom, the Attack Pack was not
released on Blu-ray; instead, the second, third, and fourth films were released on
Blu-ray separately on August 5, 2013.[32] It was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray by
Arrow Video on December 15, 2020.[33]

Soundtrack
Tremors / Bloodrush
Film score by Ernest Troost
Released 2000
Genre Electronic, Stage & Screen
Length 49:51
Label Intrada – ETCD 1000
The soundtrack for Tremors was composed by Ernest Troost and released in 2000. The
album contained nine tracks from the film as well as four additional tracks, also
composed by Troost, from Bloodrush.[19] For promotional purposes, the album was
released as a limited edition CD.[19][20]

Sequels and spin-offs

Main article: Tremors (franchise)
A sequel, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, was released in 1996. A second sequel, Tremors 3:
Back to Perfection, was released in 2001, followed by a prequel, Tremors 4: The
Legend Begins in 2004. These three sequels were all made with direct involvement
from S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, and Ron Underwood at Stampede Entertainment.
Following an 11-year gap, Tremors 5: Bloodlines was released in 2015, with the
franchise's sixth inclusion, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, in 2018. These two films
were made by Universal 1440 Entertainment without any involvement from Stampede
Entertainment. All Tremors sequels thus far have been released direct-to-video
without a theatrical release, though Tremors 2: Aftershocks did receive a brief
limited theatrical run. Another direct-to-video sequel, Tremors: Shrieker Island,
was released in October 2020.

In 2003, the franchise spawned a television show titled Tremors: The Series. The
show aired in 2003 on the Syfy Channel but was canceled after one season. A 60-
minute pilot for a second television series also titled Tremors was filmed in 2017,
[34] but no further episodes of this show were ever filmed.

In popular culture
On March 21, 2012, the NBC Nightly News story "Shaken and awakened in Wisconsin"
jokingly blamed the filming of a "Tremors remake" as the cause for unidentified
loud booming noises.[35]
"Bad Apple!", a 2013 episode of the superhero comedy series The Aquabats! Super
Show!, features a scene of a giant underground worm attacking a desert farm which
series co-creator Christian Jacobs noted was an homage to Tremors, with some shots
mirroring those in the original film.[36]
"Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm", an episode of the second season of the animated
television series SpongeBob SquarePants, features a large worm known as the
"Alaskan bull worm"; the worm is defeated when it tumbles off a cliff, similar to
the death of the final graboid in Tremors.[37][38]
Tremors is one of several monster films referenced in James Gunn's 2006 horror-
comedy Slither, as the high school depicted in the movie is named the "Earl Bassett
Community School", a nod to Fred Ward's character from the first two Tremors
entries.[39]