O Ataque dos Vermes Malditos

18. TREMORS (SCI-fiction, 1990) Welcome to Perfection, Nevada. Population: a couple. Opportunities: none. That's why handymen Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) have always planned to leave town. And this time they mean it. Suddenly a series of bizarre killings prevent them from leaving. With the help of a seismology student, they discover giant-worm like creatures living under the desert sand. Now their goal is to leave town in one piece.

Critique: Lighthearted horror, sci-fi, comedy 'mish-mash' has an interesting premise, oddball characters, and wonderfully ferocious action. As our embattled heroes struggle to survive against the relentless creatures, the battle of wits that ensues becomes inventive and exciting.

The film shares strange similarities with Spielberg's legendary 'Jaws'. As the suspense and body count mount, the threatening desert sand (water) becomes an infinite playground for the bloodthirsty worms (sharks), as they use scare tactics against their unbeknown victims (swimmers). Not knowing where they will strike next, people tiptoe their way across town trying not to alert the creatures. It all makes for 'TREMEndous' fun.

This movie caught me by surprise: I worked in a video store, and one day we got a preview tape of this movie, prior to its video release. I hadn't heard much about it, so I watched it, and was quite surprised at how enjoyable it was. Since then, I have seen the movie about ten more times (at least), and still get a kick out of it.

Tremors is basically a landlocked variation on 'Jaws' and those 1950s giant bug movies: the isolated town of Perfection, Nevada (population 16), finds itself under seige by four monstrous, subterranean wormlike creatures, that hunt by sensing vibrations in the ground. The plot revolves around the townspeople trying to outwit and escape the creatures (dubbed 'Graboids'), which are tearing the town out from under them.

What really makes the movie work is the characters: all of them come across as real people trapped in an insane situation, and all have a lot of charisma, even though the film doesn't have tons of character development. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are a hoot as a pair of low-rent handymen who become reluctant heroes. The byplay between the two is a lot of fun.

Usually movies like this revolve around stupid people doing stupid things, just to raise the body count. Tremors is different: the characters react believably, and do smart things to try and escape and/or kill the Graboids. The creatures too are also fairly smart, and are not just mindless eating machines with no brains.

Given its premise, Tremors is not a gory or violent film (although it has a couple of minor gross bits), and has a very good sense of humor. The film-makers are aware of their far-fetched premise (a couple of key questions go unanswered), but they treat it with respect and a certain amount of affection.

Tremors didn't have much life in theaters, but has become something of a 'Midnight Movie' on home video, with definite cult possibilities. Check it out, and don't be surprised if you end up buying it.

Nevada desert ,around village named Perfection are happening mysterious deeds.There live a small misfit group(Michael Gross,McEntire,Tony Genaro,Charlotte Stewart,Victor Wong,among others).A pair handyman(Kevin Bacon ,Fred Ward)find a university graduate(Finn Carter) and appear spontaneously a fearsome wormlike burrow surrounding of them.The Perfection inhabitants are besieged by the giant killers predators with several tongues.Then they battle against the West's more creepy beasts that savagely stalking its prey ,the human bunch and developing a bloodthirsty hunger for men eating.The trio protagonist comes out through desolate plateu where are roaming while must to save them.

This is an enjoyable and amusing juvenile romp,campy fun,quite entertaining and slickly shot.Bemusing old-fashioned, fantasy-adventure from updating adaptation of 50s and 60s monster movies.The film relies heavily about sympathetic relationship both protagonists: Bacon and Ward.An ambitious production,interesting as movie and hokey FX .Graboids deliver the goods with hair-rising suspense and grisly chills when the weird creatures emerge from underground.It's remarkable for special effects -made by Animatronics,no computer generator like the sequels- recreating the carnivorous and ferocious monsters .It's followed by inferior movies aimed to video rental market: ¨Aftershock¨(S.S.Wilson)again with Fred Ward; ¨III Back to Perfection¨with Charlotte Stewart and Ariana Richards and TV series with Gladys Jimenez,Victor Browne,Marcia Strassman and as always Michael Gross.The essential particularities from the sequels are : A remote and desert location named Perfection ,a solitary small village with a small group pitting horrible Graboids and of course the usual presence of Michael Gross as Burt Gummer,besides all are produced by Brent Maddock,Ron Underwood and S.S Wilson.The motion picture is recommended for horror-action enthusiastic that will find pretty spectacular scenes and some humor and their appetite for gruesome shots will be satisfied.Rating : Better than average and entertaining.

Under my current rating system, this ranks as a piece of brilliant stupidity. While the plot and the idea seem really stupid and moribund, the performances and collection of principle actors proved to be an excellent mix, creating a grab bag of humor and suspense. I especially loved Michael Gross and Reba McEntire's performances as the gun toting couple. Kevin Bacon may have a game named after him, but this is one of those little films which proved to be a stirring presentation of the persona he can project. This film was all about good fun, and it delivered.

On paper I would have expected 'Tremors' to suck - a low budget sci fi action comedy written by the 'Short Circuit' guys, and directed by a hack who went on to make 'City Slickers'. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? But if you put your prejudices aside you'll find that this is a surprisingly enjoyable good old fashioned monster movie. There is humour here, sure, but thankfully the movie doesn't go for a camp, tongue in cheek parody style, something for me that almost never works. The movies real strength is the perfect casting of Kevin Bacon ('Diner') and Fred Ward ('Henry And June') as the small town handymen turned reluctant heroes. They are supported by the left field but inspired casting of 'Family Ties' Michael Gross and country singer Reba McEntire as a couple of gung ho survivalists. 'Tremors' succeeds in what it sets out to be, an exciting and wonderfully entertaining b-grade horror thriller. A lot of fun and highly recommended.