Tremors (1990)

Number Rolled: 89

Movie Name/Year: Tremors (1990)

Genre: Horror

Length: 96 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Director: Ron Underwood

Writer: S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Ron Underwood

Actors: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire, Robert Jayne (as Bobby Jacoby), Charlotte Stewart, Tony Genaro, Ariana Richards, Richard Marcus, Victor Wong, Sunshine Parker, Michael Dan Wagner, Conrad Bachmann, Bibi Besch, John Goodwin, John Pappas

Val and Earl are two do-it-all handymen from Perfection Valley. After a rather disgusting incident, the two men decide to pack it all in and leave town for a more populated area where they might be able to get more work. Murphy’s law has other plans for them. They stumble upon a cute college student researching seismology and some very frightening deaths. Eventually, the way out of town is cut off and they are forced to stay with the other residents, attempting to survive the onslaught of weird creatures coming up from the dirt.

This is one of those movie I would say I’d never seen, and the person I was talking to would gasp as if I’d just said a “yo mama” joke. (That reference works since this is a 90’s movie. I swear.) It’s a creature feature, so I never really thought anything of it. I figured, if anything, it was probably one of those movies so bad that it made you laugh milk out of your nose. I get it now. This movie was awesome. As a creature feature it’s right up there with the “Jurassic Park” series.

Sometimes I’m a fan of Kevin Bacon and sometimes he annoys the hell out of me. In this, it was the former. Kevin Bacon makes one hell of a hick. Fred Ward was just as believable – so was the story. One of my favorite things was when the college student finally asked why they kept asking her for the answers. Movies tend to offer the assumption that every student far along in the studies of their major can translate their knowledge to everything else. This movie didn’t do too much of that.

I understand why this is a cult horror movie, it simply blew my mind. It was a B-movie that grasped my attention just as much, or more, than most movies I see in the theater’s now-a-days. I’m not taking any points off for graphics, mainly because this was a 90’s movie with a low budget and they managed to get things looking amazing anyway. If anything, I give them MORE credit.

In the end, I feel like this movie stood the test of time, which isn’t always easy.

Overall Opinion – 5/5

P.S. As I was half-way through this movie, just as one of the creatures burrowed out of the ground, an enormous centipede crawled just above my TV and scared the hell out of me. The producers should have paid that bug. I haven’t screamed like that while watching a movie since I was thirteen.