Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)

2015
Directed by Don Michael Paul
Starring Michael Gross, Jamie Kennedy and Pearl Thusi

The people behind this franchise have always had a knack for upping the ante and trying new things.  Whether it's a prequel, a new creature, or a TV series with a whole slew of non-Graboid-related mayhem, Stampede Entertainment did a hell of a job taking its simple concept of "quirky characters meet even quirkier monsters" and milking it for all it was worth.  Now, we're in 2015.  As far as I know, Stampede had nothing to do with this particular feature film, choosing to bring Michael Gross back as Burt Gummer but none of the previous cast members, and filming live on location in South Africa.  Sounds like a decent enough concept, but with no Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson and Nancy Roberts involved?  It just didn't seem right.  At any rate, this movie is still pretty fun, so let's just get right to it.

The movie opens up with an introduction for a reality show starring Burt Gummer - "The Survivalist," which serves to both remind us of who this guy is at the same time that it educates new viewers as   Michael Gross might be 68 years old, but he has lost absolutely none of his charm or his ability to make this character likable and badass.  Within short order, he is interrupted by filmmaker Travis Welker (a.k.a. Jamie Kennedy on a motor bike), who relieves Burt's cameraman of his duties before announcing that he wants to expand Burt's brand.  Within even MORE short order, a representative of the South African wildlife organiation (or something - it's not important) arrives with an assignment.  Ass Blasters (and yes, that's what they're still called) are on the loose on the dark continent, and Burt is on the way along with Travis, who wants to film the proceedings and make Burt a household name once again.

There's your setup, and it's time to meet the secondary characters, beginning with two paleontologists (one of which played by the impossibly hot Natalie Becker) who summarily get slurped by a Graboid.  Of these, the two most important are Erick Van Wyk (Daniel Janks), the guy who did the aforementioned hiring, and Dr. Nandi Montabu (Pearl Thusi), the woman in charge of the village conveniently located near creature central and even more conveniently a master bow and arrow marksmen.  This coincides with the South African government confiscating Burt's expected cache of huge guns that he brings with him, meaning that our heroes are behind the 8 ball from the beginning.

Overall, this movie is MUCH less humor-driven than previous entries in the series, no doubt an effect of not having the usual Stampede suspects in charge of the script and creative direction.  Instead, it's much more about rampaging monster action and gunplay.  On that level, however, it is pretty fun.  The last time we saw Graboids, Shriekers and Ass Blasters (seriously, that name) given the heavy CGI treatment, it was pretty rough.  Fortunately, there have been some big advancements in the field in the last 12 years or so.  Thus, we get some pretty cool-looking monsters on a low budget.  The script again doesn't disappoint when it comes to bringing new wrinkles, either, as the Graboids have now gone mobile (their tentacles detach - spoiler alert) and we get something of a human villain in the form of Erick Van Wyk (he's actually a poacher who wants the Graboid eggs for himself - more spoiler alert).  All throughout, we get some pretty effective action sequences, with Burt and Travis shooting down the new monsters in the South African wilderness while Nandi fights off an AB invasion in the village. 

It's very strange.  Ever since Tremors 2, I have had the exact same experience with each movie.  I start off not liking a particular character, but by the end of the film, I'm somehow on their side.  It's a hallmark of old school creature features that put a focus on writing...and it happens ONCE AGAIN with this movie.  The subject in question: One Mr. Jamie Kennedy.

This dude is one of the strange cases in my long movie fandom.  I absolutely loved his character in the first Scream movie, thought he was pretty cool in Malibu's Most Wanted, and then outright hated him on Ghost Whisperer.  I didn't even know this movie existed until I subscribed to Netflix, and when I saw him on the marquee along with Michael Gross (and folks, it isn't a Tremors movie without Michael Gross), my heart kind of sank.  Or maybe I was just still mad at him for dating Jennifer Love Hewitt in real life.  Again...take my word for it, he grows on you as the movie goes on, and by the time this movie throws its BIG curveball at you with this character, you'll accept it readily.  Complete with what's admittedly a pretty damn cool ending showdown and mid-credits sequence featuring the character.

So...this is it.  This is it for the Tremors attack-a-thon, as the franchise has come straight up to the present day.  I must say, I was expecting something pretty bad, and instead was actually given something pretty slick and polished.  Odds are, if you're watching this movie, you've probably seen the previous movies.  And if you're watching this, you're not going to see anything that pisses you off.  The writers of this movie seemed to understand that, as continuity and pleasing the audience were always hallmarks of this franchise.  It shows.  It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it's fun.

*** out of ****.  Cool creatures, decent characters, and some good swerves that Vince Russo would be proud of.  Check it out.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)

2004
Directed by S.S. Wilson
Starring Michael Gross, Sara Botsford, Brent Roam, Ming Lo, Lydia Look, Sam Ly, August Schellenberg and Billy Drago

Yes, folks.  It's a prequel.  And everybody loves those.

This was the first I'd seen this movie.  Once again, by the time this one came about in January of 2004, I was just burned out on Tremors.  I hadn't watched the series and I wasn't interested in a prequel, particularly after being disappointed by two of the godawful things in the Star Wars franchise.  Then I read the plot description on the burgeoning message board scene and gleamed that it took place in the Old West.  Seriously?  It just seemed like a far cry from the series that I was used to by this point, and kind of desperate attempt to continue making movies.  But then I saw Michael Bay's various remakes and reduxes of popular childhood franchises, and it made me realize that this flick couldn't possibly be worse.  So here we are.  100 minutes later, I can report that it's about as successful as any movie in the series has been up until this point, and up to par with where the series had gone in the early 2000s mini-boom.

Welcome to 1889 and the mining town of Rejection, Nevada.  The prologue gives us the opening attack of the Graboids (we're back to just the giant worms in this film - no Shriekers or Ass-Blasters to be had) in said mine that kills some 17 people in an offscreen rampage for the ages.  This is followed by the prologue of Star Wars-esque panning shot that brings us to the nearby town.  We've got the return of several of the well-known landmarks that we're used to, like Chang's Market, the water tower, etc., complete with a cast of crazies inhabiting them.  The market is run by a family of Chinese immigrants, and we've also got tough-as-nails hotel owner Christine Lord (Sara Bostford), miner/wannabe rancher Juan Pedilla (Brent Roam), handyman-of-sorts Tecopa (August Schellenberg)...you get the gist.  Anyway, the mine has been shut down and everyone is moving away from Rejection, prompting the arrival of one Burt Gummer's great-grandfather Hiram Gummer.

Played by Gross, this character really surprised the hell out of me, in that he's the complete opposite of everything we're used to.  Prissy, cultured, not prepared...he doesn't even use firearms or do any form of menial labor.  He's kind of like how I picture Leonardo DiCaprio in real life.  And, truth be told, folks...I REALLY didn't like this switch at first.  Gross did his best with Hiram, but it just wasn't clicking with me.  Now, the character DOES get more engaging later on, but this dude is going to test your patience early on with him.

The script moves along at a brisk pace here as Hiram demands to be taken up to the mine to see his investment.  Up here, all of the secondary characters that aren't worth mentioning get picked off by the early larvae stage of the giant Graboids, leaving only Hiram and Juan to return to Rejection.  See those last two sentences?  That's like 30 minutes of Tremors 4 condensed.  This is followed up with Hiram hiring a gunfighter played by Billy Drago (a.k.a. Captain Awesome - see his turn in the X-Files episode "Theef" for further proof) to take out the worms.  This is where the movie starts to turn the corner, as Drago is always great.  He's particularly great here as he sells his strengths to the townsfolk before humorously trying to teach Hiram how to shoot before he gets Walter Chang'd and is almost never mentioned again.

Now, I WILL give credit to the fine folks at Stampede Entertainment here in a really important regard - the effects.  Maybe I just missed it, but it didn't seem to be like there was any CGI here.  The Graboids are animated almost exclusively with puppetry and camera tricks, and that's just the way I like it.  I didn't get taken out of the movie here like I did a few times with the last on, and that's a big plus.

Fortunately, there are another couple big things this movie has going for it.  Firstly, the characters are pretty likable.  This was another complaint I had about Tremors 3, and it got rectified here.  All of the townspeople are given nuances that make them pop, and it's a much-appreciated move.  Secondly, the final showdown is some pretty damn cool stuff.  This is where Hiram Gummer has his babyface turn, coming back to Rejection after having a change of heart with a whole slew of guns and ammo that we're used to.  Lots of explosions and fire to be had here as Hiram and the townspeople square off with the big suckers, and it works.  It's even got a Wayne's World-style Mega Happy Ending that didn't feel out of place. 

For many years, this was the final Tremors-related thing released by Stampede.  As a final sendoff, it actually isn't half-bad, giving maybe the final clues as to how these damn monsters spread and re-populate was the final question that a lot of us had about how something that had been on Earth for as long as it has been around could stay hidden for so long.  More than anything, though, while it has its faults, it's still got the moral of this story down to a tee.  The series has always been about how human ingenuity and fortitude can win out over pretty much anything.  Do what you can with what you have, just like Burt Gummer likes to say.  If you like that stuff, odds are you'll like this movie and everything that came before.

*** out of ****.  Admittedly, this movie starts slow, but stick it out.  It has a payoff that works.

Tremors: The Series (2003)

From cult classic to cult phenomenon to TV series.  Seems like the logical progression that a story about giant mutating killer prehistoric life forms should take, doesn't it?  Lo and behold, that's what we got, as Tremors: The Series hit the Sci-Fi (not SyFy) channel in 2003, with Michael Gross returning once again as Burt Gummer and the entire production team responsible for the films.

Fortunately and unfortunately for everyone, I have no nostalgic story to share when it comes to watching the show.  Truth be told, I was kind of burned out on Tremors when this hit the airwaves.  Not enjoying Tremors 3 in the least bit on that first viewing didn't help, either, and I more or less wrote this show off as a cheap cash-in.  Having bought this series for something like the cost of a BK Veggie recently, I think I made a mistake.  The series isn't a masterpiece or anything, but it's definitely got its fair share of fun characters and moments going for it.  Thus, if you watched every movie in the franchise up until this point, this is a logical, funny and occasionally pretty damn entertaining extension with some new Graboid/Shrieker/Ass-Blaster action for everyone to enjoy.  Or maybe not.

Your basic premise: The conclusion of Tremors 3 saw the city of Perfection essentially deemed nonlivable due to the presence of a lone Graboid, dubbed "El Blanco" by the locals.  Led by master of kickass Burt Gummer, the townsfolk decide to stay and coexist with El Blanco, taking pride that their town is known as Graboid Central and facing daily attacks from the Graboid and occasional surprises from Shriekers, Ass Blasters, and a whole assortment of random human villains looking to either exploit the Perfection situation in some way or get Burt and his merry band to pick up their stakes and move away.  Cool idea, but the execution is hit and miss - more hit than miss, mind you.

For starters, the characters in the series are much more likable than they were in the third movie.  As for holdovers, Gross is the only one, but he really is indispensable when it comes to anything connected to this story.  He's lost none of his charm or ability to get you on his side.  We do, however, have a couple of the same characters, albeit played by new actors - Jodi Chang, Walter's niece who runs the general store, and Nancy, the former hippie who sells pottery stuff (and also the mother of Mindy, who also shows up in an episode).  Although we DO get the return of Melvin, now a weasely real estate mogul hoping to turn Perfection into a strip mall, so there is that, in addition to the new character of the red-hot former Vegas showgirl Rosalita, Miguel's niece who has come to take over his farmland.  'Cus when you think smooth transitions, that's a good one to make.  At any rate, Jodi and Rosalita provide lots of good comic relief, with the latter also being a potential love interest for Tyler.  

Wait, Tyler?  The new character that sets the season in motion is Tyler Reed, former NASCAR driver and new owner of Desert Jack's Graboid Tours.  After being saved by Burt in the prologue of the first episode, he becomes Burt's partner of sorts, traveling all around Perfection Valley as they exterminate the worm- and non-worm connected creatures that pop up in the area.  The pilot episode itself consists of some very good stuff, as Melvin is revealed as the mastermind behind a scheme to get the locals to kill a newly batshit El Blanco and render the valley as his new personal Lex Luthor-esque Austrailia.  In fact, the episodes that focus more on the traditional monsters of the series tend to be the strongest ones, as the one where the Ass Blaster that Nancy sold to a Las Vegas magic duo in the third movie returns in one of them while another one involves Shriekers invading a nearby town festival.  Very good stuff involved here, with plenty of government bureaucrats to be made fun of and lots of monster shredding action.

Unfortunately, it's the episodes that consist of an over-arching plot that aren't as strong.  Christopher Lloyd (yes, that Christopher Lloyd) materializes out of thin air in one episode as kinda mad scientist with a pet monster that needs to be taken out.  Through some miracle, there's a decades-old government research lab buried in the Perfection countryside that invented a compound called Mixmaster with the power to blend the DNA of animals.  I suppose this plot convention existed so that every episode wouldn't be the same, but surely there were other ways to get around this, as instead there's a stretch where we get Burt and Tyler hunting down rhyno creatures, giant brine shrimp...stuff like that.  And while Christopher Lloyd is always game for any role he's in, I just think that this plot convention was just a little too convenient for convenient sake.  Cliche statement time: call it glandular.

For mysterious reasons, this series only lasted half a season despite some pretty strong ratings on the Sci-Fi Channel.  Anybody out there have an inkling as to the exact reason why this was?  Wikipedia is pretty vague on it - something about how the demographics weren't quite up to snuff with Farscape.  But man, ratings are ratings.  Or was the show just too expensive?  While the CGI is about as laughable as it was in the third movie, it WAS CGI, combined with the usual puppetry that the [i]Tremors[/i] flicks were known for.  Who knows.  Provided that they wrapped up the Mixmaster storyline, I would've been more than game for this series continuing.  It's got all of that same tongue-in-cheek charm and monster movie convention that we've come to know and love.  In addition, the new characters of Tyler and Rosalita are very likable, and Jodi and Nancy get much better showings than they did in Tremors 3.  And if you like Christopher Lloyd, he gets yet another chance to play a trademark nutbag.

*** out of ****.  I'd say that the quality-to-crap episode ratio is somewhere around 2-1, and that's pretty decent for a Sci-Fi/SyFy series.  Pick this one up for five bucks if you're even a casual fan of Tremors, it's worth it.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)

2001
Directed by Brent Maddock
Starring Michael Gross, Shawn Christian, Susan Chuang and Ariana Richards

My personal history with this flick is a bit of an interesting mixed bag.  I remember not liking it AT ALL back when I first caught it in 2001, and I spent more than a decade pretty much not acknowledging its existence.  There were a couple different factors that fed into my distate for it back then: (1) They seemed to be basing the entire script around whatever actors from the first film they could persuade to return, and (2) the Graboid and creature effects were nowhere near as good as what I was used to.  Fortunately, I now become enraged to Incredible Hulk proportions whenever somebody gives me the "this movie sucks because it has crappy special effects" speech these days, so after giving it another try on AMC FearFest and re-watching it again on DVD, I can report that this movie is alright for what it is.

Ringing endorsement, I know.

Anyway, we've got a lot of the same actors from the first film for this one, and pretty much the EXACT same production and creative teams still in place.  This time, it's Brent Maddock who gets the directing duties as we reach the digital age fully, and Michael Gross as your full-fledged star character Burt Gummer.  By this point, the powers-that-be knew that this guy was the bread and butter character for the franchise, and this was a wise move - he's still just as awesome as he was before, particularly in the flick's opening sequence where he gets to mow down a large herd of Shriekers in the Argentinian countryside.  And no, folks, I'm not going to explain the various factions of creatures contained in the Tremors universe this time.  Look up my previous reviews or read them when they're posted, people.

From there, it's just like the title says...Back to Perfection, Nevada, and I've got to say that coming back to this setting actually does feel like a little bit of a homecoming.  Years after its release, I actually do find the characters a bit more endearing than I did initially.  There's Jodi Chang (Susan Chuang, and it's a shame she didn't get more roles - she's pretty and pretty great), Walter Chang's niece who now runs his general store.  There's "Desert" Jack Sawyer (Shawn Christian), the character that turned me off this movie in a big way back in 2001, a kind of backwoods cool dude who runs Graboid "attack" tours for the tourists.  Yeah, he is annoying, but take my word for it - he actually does grow on you with repeat viewings.  Then we've got the returning characters - Miguel (Tony Genaro), Nancy (Charlotte Stewart), Mindy (Ariana Richards) and Melvin (Robert Jayne), all of whom have various roles of various importance levels.  Another ringing endorsement, I'm sure.

But you don't come to Tremors for character drama.  No, sir, you come for quirkiness, humor, action, and good, solid creature action, and in that regard, Tremors 3 gives us another decent helping.  Burt has converted his survivalist compound into a Graboid-proof stronghold, and it's a good thing, because lo and behold there are three of the creatures roaming around the Perfection countryside (isn't calling this place "countryside" a little redundant, AMIRITE, people?).  It seems that their egg gestation period is something like 300 years.  Of course, Burt wants to blow all of them out of the water, but some slimy government agents show up to declare the Graboids an endangered species and threatening Burt's greatest eminent domain fear if he does so.  It isn't long before the Graboids morph into Shriekers (well, with the exception of one - more on that later), leaving Burt, Jack, and Jodi primarily as a trio to fend them off once their next evolutionary phase comes into play.

And...yeah.  The first gave us giant Graboids.  The second gave us the biped Shriekers.  And this one...has Ass Blasters.  Not a typo.  This form isn't quite as cool, and I'm not unconvinced that it's largely due to that ridiculous name, but that's pretty much what they are - creatures that fly after launching from their posterior nether-regions.  The dialogue gets plenty of milage out of this, so much so that it actually gets a little annoying, but the action sequences are enough to break it up before it reaches punch in your TV levels.  Listen, people - I really did like this movie.  It's got its irritating passages, but fortunately it has a pretty big ace in its hole.

Time for the "broken record" phase of the Tremors "Attack-a-Thon" reviews - these movies are all about funny, quirky characters, not the monsters.  Thus, while they don't look as cool and while we get goddamn ASS BLASTERS as villains for the final trimester, we've fortunately got Burt Gummer, Desert Jack, and Jodi Chang.  Once again, this group of survivors is interesting enough during the Attack scenes that we've got an emotional investment, and that's the most important thing that any movie can have.  I've said it approximately 7,484 times, so it must be true.  I also hasten to mention that the movie has a pretty impactful character death, a pretty funny sequence in Burt's "safe room," plenty of jokes at the expense of Gummer's insane lifestyle, and a really solid setup for the TV series of the same name that followed involving the aforementioned Graboid that I said I would get to.  Seems like this guy is sterile and Shriekerize, meaning that our heroes have to co-exist with a giant worm under their feet once these end credits roll.  It's a a pretty nifty plot move, I must say.

Summary time.  Tremors 3 isn't as strong as the first two flcks.  That much is a given.  But it's still a joy to return to this world every few years or so, and I'm glad I did return to this movie after many years of not giving it that chance.  It's got a certain charm of its own, a nostalgia for the original film, old characters being used in new ways, and a couple new characters that grow on you like a Fungus.  And while the production values definitely show their reduction, I wouldn't say that it lacks in action or excitement in the least bit.

*** out of ****.  Give this a shot, people, because it's got its own things going for it.  Another 100 minutes of Burt Gummer doesn't hurt, either.