Tremors (1990).

Review #2286: Tremors (1990).

Cast: 

Kevin Bacon (Val McKee), Fred Ward (Earl Bassett), Finn Carter (Rhonda LeBeck), Michael Gross (Burt Gummer), Reba McEntire (Heather Gummer), Bobby Jacoby (Melvin Plug), Charlotte Stewart (Nancy Sterngood), Ariana Richards (Mindy Sterngood), Tony Genaro (Miguel), Richard Marcus (Nestor Cunningham), Víctor Wong (Walter Chang), and Bibi Besch (Megan Wallace) Directed by Ron Underwood (#808 - City Slickers and #1930 - The Adventures of Pluto Nash)

Review: 

I'm surprised that I hadn't encountered Tremors before, but then again you never know how many monster comedies will come your way in the horror season. The original idea for the film came from S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, a writing duo that had first met when studying at the University of Southern California. After years of doing shorts, the two had their big break in writing and selling what became Short Circuit (1986), complete with a subsequent sequel in 1988. They wanted to break into producing alongside writing, and one idea that their agent Nancy Roberts liked involved inspiration from days spent hiking on a Navy base and wondering what would happen if there was something under a rock that meant they couldn't get off. They worked with Ron Underwood on outlining it in considerable detail before going through the trudge of trying to sell their script, which slowly but surely ended up with distribution by Universal Pictures. This was the debut feature film for Underwood (also a USC attendee), who had worked for several years in a variety of positions for films and TV, such as an adaptation of "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". The screenplay (as originally known as "Beneath Perfection") was originally finished in 1988 and the movie was shot over the course of nearly two months in 1989. The end result was a mild success (being released in January 1990 after all) with audiences that ended up spawning a certain kind of audience curiosity in six further Tremors films (1996, 2001, 2004, 2015, 2018, 2020), with Wilson and Maddock being involved in the first three sequels (complete with each directing a film); Michael Gross appeared in each one of the films, which had varying levels of success on home video. There also was a television series that briefly ran in 2003 that had involvement from Wilson and Maddock.

Well, you do get your monster worm with tentacles, with a mix of those effects being through puppets and wire (Tom Woodruff Jr and Alec Gillis were behind the creature design). People that had fun with say, Piranha (1978), will have a ball with this film for 96 minutes (well, they both involve shark-like monsters). This is mostly because it manages to generate plenty of warmth in its harkening back to some of the familiar beats of the old creature feature without having the aura of being beneath it. One doesn't have a weak link among the actors when it comes to commitment of timing to go with a quality creature look (referred to as "Graboids") to fulfill the basic needs one would like from a horror movie that likes to have a chuckle with its viewer. Bacon and Ward make for quite a fun pair to lead the way that one would almost assume they were playing brothers (interestingly enough, it took a while for Bacon to warm to the film beyond calling it one done for the money) with how they pair off each other in shades of the everyman. It probably works best that Carter just rolls along with only some of the cliches that come with science babble or in monster-peddling, mostly because the film elects to just let the monster origin just go by the wayside (the studio actually wanted an explanation for the monsters and even compelled the filmmakers to do a scene; the scene, involving earthquakes and a dead coyote, did not fare well in testing and was deleted). Gross and McEntire (a debut performance for the noted singer) makes for quite the pairing in offbeat enjoyment to round out the general curiosity. You don't get too many desert-bound horror movies, but this one makes the best of it in maintaining curiosity for its apparent threat and why we grow to care about what happens around this small town, regardless of how the body count goes. Cheesy with pride and clearly committed, Tremors is a delight for all who enter its range of curiosity.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: North.

Review #363: North.

Cast
Elijah Wood (North), Jon Lovitz (Arthur Belt), Matthew McCurley (Winchell), Alan Arkin (Judge Buckle), Jason Alexander, Julie-Louis Dreyfus, Dan Aykroyd, Reba McEntire, John Ritter, Abe Vigoda, and Bruce Willis. Directed by Rob Reiner (#108 - This Is Spinal Tap, #180 - Stand by Me, #232 - The Princess Bride)

Review
It's sad, a cast that looks recognizable, and a director with a good record on the reviews all got together to make this. The only reason I know about this film is due to Roger Ebert and his review of the film, absolutely destroying this film. But does the film have ANY respectable thing going for it? Does it have anything that makes it any better than something like, say The Room? Well........No. Kind of expected, actually. But hey, it-No wait, it really can't be that worse. The film starts and ends...with Bruce Willis. Seriously, he pops up seven times, and not one of them makes any sense. Is he his guardian or does he really just pop up for no reason? It's sad that that this is my first review of Elijah Wood (Okay second counting 9, but first live action film.), and he actually does a decent job, not annoying. That goes to Matthew McCurley, who oddly enough reminds me of Macaulay Culkin, but he's actually worse, not having one degree of subtleness or even a smudge of actual character.  What's sadder for me is that Rob Reiner directed this, a director who's last three films reviewed here got scores of 8, 9, and 10 respectively, and he churns out a painfully unfunny film. I wondered who they made this for, who would possibly like this. Kids? Maybe, but then they would grow older and hate this film and tell others to stay away. I figured this would be easy to watch, given it's scant 88 minute run time. I was wrong. While the film does boast showing locations from Alaska to...South Dakota, it practically has a checklist of what things to make "fun" of, none of them working. What's even stranger is that this was based off a novel named "North: The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents" by Alan Zweibel, and this film was even co-produced and screenwriten by the author. Clearly, this isn't a case of "Bad novel adaptation", this is a rare case of "Bad movie coming from possible bad novel", which is extremely rare. Clearly this film was made for the sole purpose of having exotic film locations to film in more for vacationing than actual good movie making. But to close this review, I will let a definite judgement of the film come from someone else more experienced for over 45 years sum it up: "I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. I hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." Roger Ebert, everyone.

Overall, I give it 2 out of 10 stars.