Tremors 3: de regreso a Perfection

Tremors came out when I was ten. It is one of my all time favorite horror/comedies with it's sharp, script, funny (intentionally) dialogue, and likeable characters that you can identify with. It seems like, whether people are horror fans are not, they enjoyed Tremors.

In 1995, a Kevin Bacon-less sequel went straight to video and found it's audience very easily. The effects were just as good, it had two major characters returning, and the script was a lot of fun and had a few suprises.

When I heard that there was going to be a Tremors 3, I was kind of excited but a little concerned too. Most franchises tend to tank out by part three. Well, not the case here. In Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, you get Michael Gross as Bert Gummer returning to his hometown of Perfection. Anyone who saw the first two remembers Bert as the gun-wielding, overly paranoid, survivalist who always seems to have the right gear for the job. Bert has made a career of hunting these things over the last decade and now he feels that it is time to head home for a while. Little does he know it, things aren't going to be just that easy.

I won't give away much for the plot, but I will say that this is every bit as enjoyable as the first one. If you enjoyed the first and second, then stick this in your DVD player and kick-back with a beer. Also, it's PG rated. A lot of people are scared off by this, but let me tell ya, there's nothing here to worry about. Just a good clean (is sometimes slimy) time. Check this one out and hope for a Part 4.

Third movie in the Tremors series returns back to the town that started it all: Perfection, Nevada. Returning from the previous two movies is Michael Gross as Burt Gummer. Gross got as much mileage as he could out of the role of Burt but it's admittedly wearing a little thin by this point. Also returning is Ariana Richards, who was a little girl in the first Tremors movie. She's all grown up here and it's cool to see her back. She was probably my favorite part of the movie. This is a mostly enjoyable monster flick but not as good as the second movie and not even on the same planet as the highly entertaining first Tremors. This one relies heavily on comedy and likability of its cast, which is probably smart considering the obvious effects limitations. This was made for video, after all. This is also the movie that introduces the poorly-conceived "Ass Blaster" Graboid. I guess they didn't use that in the title for fear it would be confused with a porno.

I really wasn't expecting much from a third in the series even tho Tremors 2 added so much more imagination. So I was pleasantly surprised when this turned out to be so much fun.

It begins with a rather cool opening scene in which Burt Gummer (still in Mexico) takes out zillions of Shriekers with a massive machine-gun tank thing. After returning home to Perfection Burt must deal with new graboids, new shriekers and another metamorphosis...The shriekers turn into Ass-Blasters, flying creatures with rocket propelled farts. As the town (and the returning, surviving cast from the first film) is besieged by all forms of these animals, Burt and his pals must figure out increasing desperate ways to destroy them.

There's loads of energy and self-referential humor and the locations have a more dark/sophisticated look to them than in the previous 2 films. A light-hearted tone is still in check tho. There's even one teriffic scene in which Burt is swallowed by a Graboid and taken halfway across the desert. I paniced, I honestly thot we'd lost him. Turns out he's okay in the end.

Fred Ward is definitely missed tho his abscence is explained (Earl and Grady went to make a Graboid amusement park) but Michael Gross is simply irreplaceable as the eccentric and paranoid Burt Gummer. And Ariana Richards is so much more cuter now that she's grown up.

Tremors 3 is the best presented Tremors movie on DVD. The 1.85:1 anamorphic picture looks great and the Dolby 5.1 is reasonably lively with lots of bass during the tunnelling scenes. A fair amount of extras come along too.

My Take: A decent TV sequel.

This sequel lacks the monster movie flavor of the original, but still kinda enjoyable, mostly by the fans of the series. This film is quite like a reunion for the cast of the original "Tremors". Michael Gross returns for the role of Burt Gummer, and so does some of the original cast including Ariana Richards, Tony Genero, Robert Jayne and Charlotte Stewart as the townies of Perfection, which has become famous all over the world as habitat of the giant graboids. But their re-appearance in the town isn't all attraction, when they begin to change again.

Although not as excellent, "Tremors 3" emerges as a funny, skin-crawling sequel. The comedy is fine, and the action is fast. But the special-effects aren't of much realism. The creatures look just like a couple of cartoons on a real background.

Anyway, it's not one of those bad sequels, "Tremors 3: Back to Perfection" is still fun, even for the young viewers.

TV movie rating: *** out of 5.

Tremors 2 found itself coming up rather short in the character development phase, and setting the action in a deserted rural area of South America (or was it Central America? the film doesn't exactly make you care either way) didn't help. So the production team for Tremors 3 took things back to the small, quirky town of Perfection, Nevada, in the hopes of getting back the interaction that made the original such a classic.

In all honesty, this was a smart move, although it is not a hundred percent successful. The size of the cast appears to be somewhat reduced in this effort, possibly because of the absence of the two men that made the original so hilarious, namely Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. Michael Gross does a very good job of assuming the lead, but in terms of serious acting (yes, this is partly necessary even for a film like this one), he is seriously outclassed by those two. However, it is absolutely wonderful to see the remains of the original cast again after such a lengthy absence. Melvin is a particular delight to see again, and his involvement will leave those of us with memories of deserted hellholes in the middle of nowhere chuckling.

The new genus of the monsters is also quite hilarious, all the more so because it is based on the behaviour of real insects. Unfortunately, the CGI for the Graboids is a lot less convincing than the practical effects that were used in the original film. That's not entirely surprising, but still disappointing. But like I've said in my comments about the previous two films, the human factor is the most important one here, and Tremors 3 gets that element right unlike its most immediate predecessor.

All in all, I'd give Tremors 3 a nine out of ten for concept and execution, but a minus two for the acting. So that works out to be about a seven... whether or not you think that's fair, I couldn't care less, which is the sort of attitude that makes films such as this one great.