Tremors was the kind of monster movie that seemed to find its way into my childhood video library - was it meant for kids, I have no idea (it's not not meant for them, if that makes sense) - and it was something that got repeat viewing. I think it was because the tone was sharp for this kind of material. The filmmakers had more of a budget than something like a Japanese Godzilla movie, and the actors, including people like Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, are not taking a s*** so to speak, they're not there just to collect a paycheck (or if they are, they hide ir so well that you don't notice).
The pacing is what keeps things tense and breakneck. The premise is simple: underground worms chase and hunt down townspeople in the tiny Perfection, Nevada. There's enough character in the set-ups with these people first though, with Bacon and Ward as laborers, and with the townspeople (Michael Gross and Victor Wong get some ample screen-time), and it helps that the filmmakers spend just enough time in the first ten-fifteen minutes so that we can care enough about them while also making them fairly comic characters.
This is a fun movie. It doesn't have much pretension or things in the way to make it draw too much attention to it being "art". It's a killer-worms movie that gets some build-up early on for the what these worms are - first it's snakes and then it's the GIANT worm that's attached to everything and then when it gets going. And the special effects mostly hold up well with everything being practical effects. If you are inundated with CGI and don't remember a time when effects got to be MADE, not simply on a computer, with things moving quickly underground at people and shooting out of the ground with guns blazing at it and with gore flying everywhere. It's glorious work by talented craftsmen.
So watch it knowing that it's funny, wild and made with energy and some clever characters (a couple being gun nuts, plus Reba McEntire!)
