Directed by S.S. Wilson
Starring Fred Ward, Christopher Gartin, Helen Shaver and Michael Gross
Time for Round 2 of the All-Out Tremors Attack-a-Thon, and this direct-to-video sequel to end all direct-to-video sequels is a doozy.
Now, if you'll recall in my review of the original Tremors, I was 12 years old and blown away when I saw that movie. And it's still one of my ten favorite movies ever. Imagine my surprise when, a mere few months after catching the original flick, I hear word about an honest-to-goodness sequel hitting the shelves, with almost all of the same production team and two of the same main stars. Count me in, then and now, because this movie is still a damn fun time. It brings back characters from the original at the same time it brings back the main villains (more or less - more on that later), maintains the same ambiance throughout and even has a similar aesthetic. Much kudos to the production team behind this, led by S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock and Nancy Roberts - the same trio responsible for every movie in the series. They did a fantastic job on this labor of love, and it shows.
This movie picks up a few years after the first, as the worms have been discovered near a Mexican oil refinery. While the first movie focused more on Kevin Bacon's Valentine character, your star this time around is Earl. Still played by Fred Ward, still just as gruff and badass as ever. Of course, being someone who has survived a previously undiscovered GIANT WORM ATTACK led to some opportunities for old Earl that he summarily squandered on an ostrich farm. But all isn't lost, as the owners of a Mexican oil field along with his #1 fan Grady (Christopher Gartin) arrive to offer him quite the deal: $50,000 for each animal that he can kill. Only, in this movie and in all subsequent ones they call the worms "Graboids," since that's what a quirky side character in the original named them. 1950s-style creature names FTW.
Anyways, that's your setup, as Earl and Grady head to Mexico to begin Graboid hunting. Once again, the movie has a real strength when it comes to its characters. Grady starts off a little grating but take my word for it, the dude reallly grows on you as the movie goes on. He's got this endearing idiocy about him, and I remember thinking back in 1996 that Christopher Gartin was going to be a big deal. Yeah, that didn't quite turn out to be the case. The opening chapters show us that all the tropes that the series invented in the first go-round, with the seismology monitors that they use to track the worms and their inability to climb onto rocks, are still alive and in effect. That, and it just looks really fun to use remote control cars to blow the suckers up. And before long, Burt Gummer shows up to assist these two jokers in their quest for money/human safety. And yes, Michael Gross is again aces as this paranoid gun nut.
I've got to give the powers-that-be responsible for this series credit, because this is definitely not a rehash of the original movie. It might start out that way, but a good deal of the second act of this film gives us an evolution. Both in terms of the creatures themselves and the storytelling devices that need to get invented to deal with that. After the mostly fun and harmless first act, the worms enter their second life cycle that had conveniently been left out of the first movie, turning from giant no-legged creatures into vicious bipeds that hunt by body heat. We get some secondary character deaths here from some of the refinery workers who might as well have been labeled "cannon fodder" when they were initially introduced. By my count, its one of the movie's few weaknesses.
Make no mistake, though, once the Shriekers (the name given to the new small animals, given that they shriek like the Shrieking Sheik when they spot body heat) hit the scene, the movie cranks it up to 11. Just like the original, the characters, which also include a comely scientist played by Helen Shaver (seriously, what's up with female scientists being so damn attractive in these movies?) find themselves barricaded on the rooftops with the creatures down below. The final showdown is a slight disappointment compared to Kevin Bacon yelling "can you fly, sucker?" in the original, but it's a minor complaint considering we get one damn big explosion.
I also need to point out that this flick definitely doesn't LOOK direct-to-video. This is thanks to the special effects work of Phil Tippett, one of the guys who made the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park come to life. Dealing with only $4 million to work with, I've got to hand this guy a thousand Fonzie cool points for the job he did, because both the Graboids and the Shriekers look great, including the scenes where they move - typically where low-budget tends to struggle. Thus, if the direct-to-video label typically scares you off for the cheapness factor, that's no reason to avoid this one.
But it's the first movie's strengths that largely define this one as well - humor and characters. I'll admit that I was a little worried when I saw the above poster back then, as I had my doubts that Fred Ward could carry a movie as Earl Bassett. Those fears were quickly assuaged, because the increased focus gave Ward the opportunity to showcase what he could do as an actor and a tough guy. His chemistry with both Michael Gross and the new guy gives the movie much more emotional investment than, say, Avatar in its finale sequences for that reason.
There really isn't a whole lot more to say about Tremors 2. If you liked the first movie, and just about everyone who has seen it does, odds are you'll like this one almost as much. It's well worth a check-out.
*** 1/2 out of ****. This is arguably the best direct-to-video film I've ever seen. Take that out of the equation, and this is still just a damn entertaining, fun time in front of the TV. Highly recommended.
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