Tremors

Have you seen Tremors? No? Why, why, why not? Go down to your video store and pull it out of the bowels of the Action section where it probably lives with things like Richard Chamberlain's classic King Solomon's Mines and take it home and drink a beer (if you're over 21, Intenseus and Guitar Guy) and watch it. Alternatively, get it from Netflix, although that won't give you the same jolt of self-esteem as pulling a New Classic out of the dregs of the video shelves with the fading boxes.

For the uninitiated, Tremors is a movie that was released in about 1990. It stars Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross and Reba Mcintyre. It is about a group of loser-types, survivalist nutjob types, an overeager grad student, a token teenager and a token child who live in some nameless desert valley whose lives are threatened by giant man-eating worms. Yes, giant man-meating worms! Various people get eaten, there's a lot of standing on buildings and, in the end, the giant man-eating worms are defeated.

The Muse and I first caught Tremors flipping channels one day in the mid-90's on one of the Bay Area UHF channels. It might have been channel 20, which used to have people's dogs on commercial breaks. We hadn't seen it in a long time. My parents were here this weekend and mentioned that they had seen this funny movie Tremors and the Muse and I welcomed them to our exclusive club. Two hours later, the Muse and I were flipping channels and came across . . . on the SciFi Channel . . . the last 45 minutes of Tremors!

Anyway, it rocks. When the worms are chasing someone (they feel the vibrations of people running and walking around), the camera cuts to a worm's-eye view of dirt flying by. Michael Gross and Reba Mcintyre play survivalist nuts with a basement full of guns and ammo and basically blow all of it shooting up one of the worms. At one point, Gross breaks the glass cabinet and gets his elephant gun, which he uses to finish off the worm. OK, why was the elephant gun in a glass cabinet when there were a thousand other guns hanging on the wall? It makes no sense, but that's Tremors. It doesn't care, it's funny. When a worm gets blown up or otherwise exploded, it blows apart in this totally fake orange stuff. Big fun. There's a lot of talk about these stinkin' (or something-in') worms "can't be smarter than us." It also features one of the great lines uttered at the climax of a movie ever. I won't quote it here, so you can enjoy it yourself when the time is right. (On a little bit more serious note, I quite appreciate that the child is never really placed in harm's way. That kind of stuff bugs me, which is the subject for a future post.)

Tremors is also great because you can play fantasy Hollywood games about it. Not Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, although you could play a pretty good game of that this with movie. Kevin Bacon (via Tremors to) Michael Gross (via a Law & Order episode to) Jerry Orbach (also via Law & Order to) Sam Waterson (via The Killing Fields to) Haing S. Ngor. Kevin Bacon (via Tremors to)Fred Ward (via Remo Williams to) Joel Silver (via Cabaret to) Liza Minnelli (via birth and a 60's TV special to) Judy Garland (via, you know, to) The Munchkins. Tremors is a good one for Fantasy Movie Pitch too. This game is inspired by a comedian the Muse and I saw once talking about Edward Scissorhands: "How did Tim Burton pitch this movie? OK, I want to make a movie about a guy with scissorhands for hands . . . who looks like the lead singer of the Cure. OK, OK, whatta you think?" For Tremors, it would have to be something like: "OK, let's make a movie about giant man-eating worms with the dad from Family Ties as a gun nut? Whatta you think?"

What would be even more fun would be playing Fantasy Agent Pitch. If you watch Entourage, it would be kind of like Ari trying to sell Vince on Aquaman. For Michael Gross, it maybe went something like: "AGENT: Michael, you want to play a gun nut survivalist guy in a movie about giant man-eating worms? MR. GROSS: Sure, 'cause I was sick of playing Alex P. Keaton's liberal, aging hippie dad." For Fred Ward, maybe: "AGENT: They never quite made that sequel to Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. Wanna be a leading man again? Oh yeah, there's giant man-eating worms. MR. WARD: Sure, it can't be as strange as being in a movie with the guy from Cabaret playing a bullet-dodging monk or something." (BTW, Remo Williams is a very underrated movie. Joel Silver was dodging bullets in that one almost 15 years before Keanu. They hadn't invented bullet time yet, though.) Reba Mcintyre, maybe: "AGENT: They're offering you a gig in a movie with giant man-eating worms. So? MS. MCINTYRE: Well, got to start my movie career somehow." Kevin Bacon, maybe (remember this is about 1990, not now): "AGENT: Been a while since Footloose. MR. BACON: Yeah."

Anyway, go watch yourself some Tremors. Save it for some Saturday evening when you're thinking you've got nothing to do. Have a beer (if you're over 21, Intenseus and Guitar Guy) and have a good time. I think you want to avoid the sequels, though. They always sounded pretty cheesy.