We Deserved Better Than Tremors 5-7
In the dawn of the 90s, a late-blooming cult classic was shaking its way into theaters. Tremors was a fusion of dark comedy and horror that spawned an underground fan following, three sequels and a Sci-Fi network TV show in 14 years’ time. For a while, it looked like those four movies would be the finality of the franchise. Seeing the whole picture now, maybe they should have been.
After nothing new under the sun for roughly a decade, a new beast broke ground in 2015 — Tremors 5, featuring Michael Gross back as the beloved Burt Gummer. It had plenty of monsters and firepower, but unfortunately, even that couldn’t save it from being an underwhelming disappointment.
Starting at the top, there was a new director – Don Michael Paul, whose highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes bears a mere 44 percent freshness rating. Let that sink in for a minute. Long gone were the days of the original directing and writing crew, most of whom were present for all four original films and the TV show. This showed, not only in Tremors 5, but its two sequels, too.
As I said, the original Tremors is best described as a horror-comedy -- an isolated desert community of (mostly) everyday people battle giant, underground, almost phallic-looking, man-eating worms. The film’s blue-collar heroes and their stubborn, brotherly banter only emphasize the film’s fun. But Tremors was scary and suspenseful, too! I still have the occasional nightmare of being stuck up on a rock, pinned into certain doom by one of these fictitious land sharks. The three films that followed it up the ante even more, bringing the sense of tension and fear to both land and sky, while still maintaining a fun, relatable cast of characters.
The best qualities of those original Tremors characters were found in how average they were. Yes, even Burt. They were the underdogs of their situation, and it made you want to root for them even more.
Tremors 5, 6 and 7, or as I’ll now refer to them going forward, the Paul movies, were lacking in this department. These movies were packed with awkward and obnoxious comic relief jokers whose words felt forced and unnatural at times. Unfortunately, this included some lines uttered by good ol’ Burt. “Guinness Book of Balls?” “Disco stick?” Please.
This kind of dialogue gave way to some crude and just plain unfunny scenes, as well. For instance, I hated the ever-present piss jokes throughout T5 and T6. A man literally pees his pants, Burt relieves himself in a cage and gets marked by a lion, and another character casts a stream off a tower to lure in a worm.
An even bigger gripe I have with the Paul series is how apparently cheap they were made. Far too much of the action takes place off camera, with the monsters hardly in the picture. Too often, for instance, a character under attack just disappears, with nothing to show.
If we didn’t already know what the monsters looked like, this would be a good way to create suspense, like how T1 played out the deaths of Old Fred and various other victims. But no, I think the Paul movies just took a cheap, lazy route.
When the graboids did appear on screen, they were usually only there for seconds, and in my opinion, were far less intimidating. Personally, I prefer practical effects over CGI when possible. There’s something about those real puppets and props that make a movie scarier. It comes down to the budget, too, I know, but if the 2003 TV series was able to make CGI graboids look as good as they did, I know the Paul movies could have done a much better job.
Worst of all with these newer films, the door was truly closed with Burt’s act of life-saving martyrdom. They shouldn’t have killed him off. Sure, Michael Gross is getting up there in age, and it probably is time to hang up the ball cap, but the series hardly had any strong characters to carry the torch into a new legacy of films, if any are to be made. Jamie Kennedy’s Travis was too off-putting for my taste, and as much as I love Jon Heder, I don’t see his character Jimmy changing careers from biologist to monster hunter.
If anyone’s suited to be the new lead, it would be Valerie McKee, played by Jamie-Lee Money in T6. Money was a perfect casting choice as the daughter of Val and Rhonda, and she played a likable role as a highly intelligent and badass scientist. If they do get her back, just get Don Michael Paul out of the director’s chair first.
In the middle of all this nonsense, there was some hope for Tremors in 2018. The franchise had a chance at a chilling TV show revival, with Kevin Bacon even returning to play the lead in what appeared to be a post-T1 reboot based back in Perfection. The trailer was spooky, the graboid looked…eh, but overall, it appeared to be the Tremors I, and plenty of others, wanted to see. It had the right characters, the right setting, and the right sense of ominous fear. It’s a damn shame we’ll probably never see the pilot.
I’m a sucker for campy monster movies, and because of that, the Paul films do entertain with their creative monster deaths and new settings for the series. I even rewatch them every so often. But they’re a slap in the face to the original Tremors movies.