In 1889, the Bottom Dollar silver mine in Rejection Valley, Nevada is shut down after "dirt dragons" attack the workers. Mine owner Hiram Gummer (Michael Gross) comes all the way from Philadelphia to investigate the problem while just about everyone else in the town of Rejection moves away. Only a handful of stubborn residents refuse to abandon their town. Among them are Christine Lord (Sara Botsford), who runs the local hotel, her Indian friend Tecopa (August Schellenberg), miner/rancher Juan Pedilla (Brent Roam), and the Chang family—Pyong Lien (Ming Lo), wife Lu Wan (Lydia Look), and young son Fu Yien (Sam Ly)—who have invested their life savings in Chang's Market. When the dirt dragons prove to be too much for them to handle, Hiram hires Black Hand Kelly (Billy Drago), the fastest gunslinger in the west, but the dirt dragons quickly overwhelm Kelly. The only thing left for Hiram to do is to escape to Carson City...or maybe to stock up on heavy arms and return to Rejection in order to help fight off the beasts.
Tremors 4 is the fourth movie in the Tremors series, preceded by Tremors (1990) (1990), Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996) (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) (2001) and followed by Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) (2015). The story and screenplay were written by Scott Buck, based on a story by previous contributors S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, and Nancy Roberts.
The "dirt dragons" are the graboids of the Tremors movies, so named by Chang descendant, Walter Chang (Victor Wong) in the first movie. It's shown in this movie that four graboid eggs were washed out of the mine by a warm spring. The eggs hatched into the dirt dragons. In previous Tremors movies, which are set in the late 20th century, it's learned that the graboids are actually Precambrian in origin, meaning that the creatures existed over 500 million years ago when the only other lifeforms on Earth were one-celled organisms. It's never explained in any of the movies where these massive creatures actually came from.
It's a punt gun, an extremely large shotgun (like with a two-gauge, one-gauge or half-gauge bore) that fires enough shot at a time to kill dozens of waterfowl. It was used in the 19th century to harvest large numbers of wild game for commercial markets, but its use was pretty much outlawed in the early 20th century.
With three dirt dragons down and one more to go, the seven remaining residents (Christine, Tecopa, Juan, Pyong, Lu, Fu, and Hiram) come up with a plan to make a big firecracker bomb out of the gunpowder for the punt gun and use it to blow up the last worm. They quietly set to work while the graboid circles the town looking for prey. Suddenly, the telegraph begins to click loudly, and the graboid goes wild, tearing up the entire back end of Chang's market. Christine, Yu, and Fu jump on a wagon, Pyong goes for the almost-completed bomb, and the others try shooting at the graboid. When one of the graboid's tongues latches on to Fu, however, they realize they can't wait for Pyong to finish his firecracker bomb, so Hiram comes up with another plan. They remove the big belt from the steam engine and attach a hook to one end of it, essentially creating a big fishing line. They hook the graboid by the tail and use the steam engine to reel it in. When the graboid and the steam engine collide, the impact is so great that the graboid is decapitation, raining bits of tissue all over. In the closing scenes, Hiram learns that the bank has approved his loan, allowing him to reopen the mine. They agree to never tell anyone about the dirt dragons and to use the first proceeds of the mine to finish building Christine's hotel and the Changs' store, to pay off Juan's land, and to commission a new statue for Tecopa. In the final scene, the town's name of Rejection on the water tower is being painted over to read "Perfection," and Christine presents Hiram with his own gatling gun.
Well, let's see. In Tremors 4, it's learned that the baby graboids hatch from eggs and quickly grow into huge, blind "dirt dragons" that live underground and hunt by sound vibrations. In Tremors 2, the graboids go through a second stage of development, turning into "shriekers" that are bipedal, live above ground, and hunt by sensing heat via heat detectors on the tops of their heads. In this second stage, they are able to reproduce hermaphroditically after eating, giving birth to more shriekers. In Tremors 3, the shriekers undergo a third stage of development as "ass-blasters," so named because they are able to fly with rocket-propelled farts. It can be assumed that it's the ass-blasters that lay the eggs for the next generation.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content