A couple of years ago there was a thread on Reddit, "What is your favorite Kevin Bacon movie and why is it Tremors?". I'm not a Redditor myself but the thread was was mentioned to me by a friend and it prompted me to finally pick up the film on DVD. After all, I'd been hearing for twenty-some years that it was a good flick. And finally, twenty-some months later, I've actually watched it.
The premise of the movie is simplicity itself: the inhabitants of an isolated town in the American desert find themselves targeted by a previously undiscovered race of massive subterranean worm-monsters, and must battle to survive.
Now you may have heard Tremors described as a "comedy horror" film and be wondering, given yesterday's comments about my October schedule, why I'm reviewing it on a Tuesday. Well, frankly it's because for all this is a monster movie, it's no more a horror film than Starship Troopers is. Horror movies do not feature synchronised pole-vaulting scenes, for example. And no, you don't get any context about why that scene exists: watch the movie if you want to know more.
Honestly, "watch the movie if you want to know more" is pretty much my call on Tremors. If the basic premise of the film appeals to you at all - or if you're simply intrigued by the idea of seeing the dad from Family Ties as a crazy survivalist gun nut - then you should check it out. It's a rollicking good time with a strong cast, solid physical effects, and a script that expertly delivers its chuckles without ever making the monsters themselves a subject of ridicule. It's not hard to see why it is was critically well-received on its release, or why it inspired that reddit thread twenty years later.
Fun stuff.
I think that Tremors is much more of a horror film than Starship Troopers is. Starship Troopers is mostly an action film with a few tense moments thrown in there. Whereas Tremors, while it is more comedy than horror, does have a lot of horror elements to it. A high body count, monsters, a bit of gore, & the whole first act where they are just trying to figure out what the hell is going on is rather intense when watching it for the first time, especially the scene with the doctors wife in the car.
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