Tremors (1990)

Episode 157, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We’re continuing our Request Month with Tremors, which was a 1990 film and this was requested by long-time listener Francis. So thank you, Francis, for requesting what was really 1 of my childhood favorites. Actually, it’s funny. I remember renting this movie. I remember a lot of people renting this movie. I remember the posters being up in the rental stores. And then as I was reading through the trivia, and maybe it was on Wikipedia, I’m not sure, it mentioned that this, although this movie did make a little bit of money back, it was a bit of a box office disappointment. Although it went in like at sixth place when it came out, but it made back like 4 or 5 times. It’s theatrical run in VHS Rentals. It was like the most popular rental in 1990. So yeah, I guess that kind of makes sense. We all knew this movie. We all watched it a lot. It was a lot of fun and it’s a really good, I think, film that blends horror and comedy together in a really, really good way. It’s not too funny and it’s not too scary. It just is what it needs to be in any given scene and it all works really quite well, I think.

Craig: Yeah, I think so too. I mean, We’ve put off doing this a little bit and I think the only reason that I was a little bit hesitant to do it Is just because I’ve seen this movie so many times I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen it I rented it and watched it when I was a kid. For a long time it played on cable regularly and I watched it a bunch of times. But when we were picking movies to do for request month, this is 1 that our friend had mentioned a couple of times. And so we decided to finally go through with it. And it was fun to sit down and watch again from beginning to end. It is a fun movie. It’s really reminiscent to me of, it’s kind of a throwback to the B movies of the 1960s, the monster movies of the 1960s. It captures that vibe really well while at the same time, like you said, really balancing out the comedy. And it’s just, it’s well executed. It’s good acting and and fun practical effects and It’s really got a lot going for it.

Todd: It does and it’s actually kind of a family-friendly movie There’s there’s a little bit of blood but it’s mostly monster blood The creature effects are pretty terrifying at times. And I guess from time to time, some of the killings are a little… If you’re old enough to imagine yourself in that situation, it’s pretty terrifying. But, you know, as a kid, I think, you know, we all watched this together. It was 1 of those kind of movies. And I was also surprised to hear that this initially got an R rating. The only reason that it got a PG-13 is at the last minute they decided that they wanted to go for something a little more family friendly. And the reason it was R mainly was language. And so this was something that was blatantly obvious to me watching this now because it’s been ages I probably the last time I saw this I was probably a teenager yeah but blatantly obvious to me now how many f words have been changed or overdubbed yeah into more ridiculous words

Craig: yeah like mother humper and stuff yeah but it almost even kind of adds to the charm of it to me a little bit because it’s you know the what they redubbed over all the F words, they got really creative. And I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s now as an adult, it’s very obvious to me, but I don’t even know if I noticed at the time. I just thought it was funny. I just thought they were using funny words

Todd: My favorite line is when 1 of the characters kills a grab oid and then he gets on the radio It’s like

Craig: we killed it And congratulations Be advised, however, there are 2 more, repeat, 2 more mother humpers.

Todd: So it works better that way, it sure does. And I think what really makes this film work for me is the characters. They’re so well drawn and you kind of like them all. Especially the chemistry between our 2 leads, Earl and Valentine. Val is played by Kevin Bacon. Aside from Flashdance, this might be the movie that I, even to this day, have most associated with Kevin Bacon.

Craig: Well, it’s interesting that you associate Flashdance with Kevin Bacon since he’s not in that movie.

Todd: What am I saying?

Craig: You’re probably thinking of Footloose, would be my guess. Thank you, Footloose. Footloose. Yeah, and I don’t know. You know, this movie came out in 1990. I think it was slated for release in 1989, but it got pushed back. And I don’t remember, you know, Footloose was earlier in the 80s, but not a lot. And Kevin Bacon is still looking very young and fresh-faced in this movie. And it’s a lot of fun to see him kind of in his glory days, not to say that he’s not still. I mean, he’s still a very handsome man, still very successful. But what was funny to me in reading about this was that he took this movie and they started filming. And at 1 point, he collapsed in front of his wife in tears and said, I can’t believe that my career has come to this. I can’t believe that I’m making a movie about giant killer underground worms. And At the moment, he kind of felt like it was a low in his career. He’s since come to embrace it. In fact, just last year, or I don’t know, my sense of time is so skewed anymore, but recently within the last couple of years, they tried to get a TV series going on sci-fi. There actually was a TV series years ago on sci-fi, but they were trying to do a new 1. And Kevin Bacon was involved and was gonna reprise his role and was gonna star in it and they filmed the pilot and then it got canned. It didn’t get picked up. So he’s since come to embrace it, but at the time…

Todd: Yeah, and then Earl is played by a guy named Fred Ward, who you’d recognize if you saw him. He’s been in a lot of different things. But again, this is the 1 movie that I most associate him with. Maybe it just came at the right time in my life, or it’s the 1 that’s really stuck with me the most. And they just have a chemistry on screen. You know, they’re 2 handymen out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, they’re out in the middle of Nevada in this town called Perfection that has a population of 14. It’s just a store and some houses and like a trailer and then some couple’s bunker, like end of the world bunker. Right. And that’s it. And I don’t know how they get so many jobs there. This is the thing that you just kind of have to suspend your disbelief that this town of 14 people is so busy and that everyone has these very distinct jobs and things to do.

Craig: I guess.

Todd: But, you know, just from the very beginning, we’re introduced to them and Kevin Bacon turns around. He’s just, you know, taking a leak off the side of a cliff and he shakes his buddy awake in the back of a pickup and he’s where he’s sleeping and he falls out the back and says, you asshole, and makes a comment about a stampede because the first thing he sees is cows standing there. And then they just have this repartee, you know, this dialogue back and forth. And what’s really neat about this movie, I think it’s very well written in that there are lots of little moments that have payoffs later. Comments that are made, things that are said, situations that happen that later on have a payoff. And some of them are so clever that you kind of forget about them. But this is 1 that comes at the very end, is his comment about a stampede. But they also have this game where they, whenever they’re arguing, they settle all their arguments or disagreements by playing rock, paper, scissors. And It seems like Val always wins. No, he always loses. I’m sorry. Val’s, you’re right. It seems like Val always loses. And so he’s kind of the cockier, younger of the 2. And then Earl is the older, supposedly wiser 1, but really they’re, they’re pretty well equals, you know, in this and in there. And they, you know, I know guys like this and they played it just like people I know. Just good old boys who just go out and they know how to get stuff done with their hands and work hard. And their goal is to get out of perfection. Basically, they’ve about had it by the time we’re there. They just feel like they can’t do anymore and they wanna go to nearby Bixby.

Craig: Yeah, the other thing, and I totally agree with you that those 2 guys, You know, I think that it just comes from the fact that they’re both good actors and and we believe their relationship They just seem very comfortable with 1 another you believe that these guys are friends and and have been for a long time and that’s cool, But the other characters, you know, it’s such a small town and I we see the entire Population because there’s only 14 of them granted at least 1 of them is dead first time we meet them and some of them are dispatched rather quickly. Just even the supporting cast. Oh yeah. They seem like, you know, real people. They seem like small town people and like you said, they’re all likable, you know. Well most of them. There’s 1 pain in the butt kid and that’s his job to be the pain in the butt kid Melvin and he’s super annoying and gets on everybody’s nerves but even that is a little bit endearing yeah but I just and there are some really good people in here, like Michael Gross from Family Ties. Gosh. Michael Gross filmed the last episode of Family Ties and started this movie like the next day or something like that. And he was, you know, that was a huge show when it was on. And so he was definitely a familiar face in households across America. So he plays Burt. His wife, Heather, is played by Reba McEntire in her first film role. And Reba McEntire is an amazingly talented musician, country singer, and songwriter. But she totally pulls her weight here.

Todd: I mean,

Craig: she plays her part very naturally, and she seems like a very real person and they’ve got good chemistry. It’s not like they’re some romantic, it’s not a lovey-dovey type thing, but you totally buy them as husband and wife and she does a really great job. Just everybody. I don’t want to go through everybody, but there’s a guy named Miguel, a Hispanic guy played by Tony Gennaro who’s really endearing. There’s a mom and daughter. Nancy is the mom. The daughter is Mindy, played by Ariana Richards, who would very soon go on to play the young blonde girl in Jurassic Park. A guy who runs the store, Chang’s General Store, the only store in town played by Victor Wong, who you would totally recognize from lots of, any movie that had Asian people in it in the 80s. Yeah. Victor Wong was in it. That’s right. I remember him specifically from The Golden Child. He was hilarious in that movie.

Todd: Oh yeah, I think of Big Trouble and Little China.

Craig: Yeah, well, yeah. Totally recognizable, especially if you’re a kid of the 80s. And it’s a really nice ensemble. The movie is tight, you know, and that it’s all pretty much in 1 location. It’s this relatively small cast of characters, and it all takes place over just a couple days. I don’t know, it works, you know? I believe this little town of perfection and these little folks that live there and that they would look out for 1 another. It’s cute.

Todd: It is. It’s economical. The script is very economical. It shows us a lot in a very short period of time without having to tell us too much. Everything unfolds very naturally from the beginning to the point where the story is really flying by up to the point where it gets really serious with the monsters. And even then it’s moving, you know, at a nice pace. But it doesn’t take long to set up these guys and their pickup and they decide they’re going to leave town. And it’s funny. It’s funny the way they do it. But in the meantime, they’re going around and they’re hitting pretty much every character in the town. They go into Chang’s store and they have a conversation. And That’s when Bert and his wife are sitting in there and they have a quick chat and we kind of set them up and Melvin the boy is kind of like the boy who cried wolf He’s always yeah being super annoying and then playing really mean pranks on people and he’s always on everybody’s last nerve And then of course the Nancy and Mindy There’s a guy named Nestor who seems to come in a little later. Maybe we see a snippet of him in the beginning, but he might be the only character really that’s not very well drawn. You almost wonder if there was a scene or 2 with him that got cut out of the final show because he’s in there and he’s really in some pivotal scenes but you almost forget like it’s like oh where did this guy come from

Craig: right right by the

Todd: time he is but yeah it goes through all this and they finally they’re on this job and they’re taking out the septic tank mess into a truck and it spurts all over them while they’re talking about. Now what’s the 1 thing that’s gonna make us finally leave? And then the next shot is them piling everything in the back of their pickup. And it’s funny, because they take off out of the town and it’s like they are the ones who encounter 1 thing after another that lead them to turn back around and come back and warn everybody that there’s a problem.

Craig: Right. And along the way they also meet Rhonda who is a graduate student from some university, I don’t know, and she’s out there, she’s a cis- well, she’s studying seismology. She’s obviously being set up as the romantic counterpart for Kevin Bacon, even though he has a very distinct type.

Clip: You will have Long blonde hair, big green eyes, world class breasts, ass that won’t quit, and legs that go all the way up.

Craig: Earl, you know, gives him a lot of crap for that. Damn it, Valentine. You won’t go for any gal unless

Todd: she fits that stupid list of yours from top to bottom.

Clip: Well, sure.

Craig: Yeah, and there’s dumber than my hind end. I mean, like that… Bobby Lynn Dexter. Tammy Lynn Baxter. Don’t matter. They’re all the same. Dead weight.

Todd: Ooh, I broke a nail.

Craig: Makes my skin crawl. Well, I’m a victim of circumstance.

Todd: I thought you called it your pecker.

Craig: And Rhonda is not that, you know. She’s a very pretty girl. She’s played by Finn Carter. She also was in a movie that I loved as a kid, but it was so obscure. It was called How I Got Into College. It was really funny. Anyway, she was in that. And so she tells them that there have been some weird readings on her, you know, machines or whatever. They are driving out of town and they see the old town drunk that they know up a like a power line, I guess? And they think that he’s just crawled up there and passed out so they play rock-paper-scissors and of course Val loses so he has to go up there to try to drag this guy down but when he gets up there he realizes he’s not drunk, he’s dead and they take him to the town doctor’s trailer and the doctor says, well it wasn’t a heart attack or anything, he died of dehydration, He had to have been up there for 3 or 4 days. And of course, that’s mysterious. And then we get a cool scene with a sheep farmer and he’s just kind of hoeing rows in his garden and his sheep start to freak out and he’s kind of puzzled by that but he keeps doing his thing. And then I don’t feel like we see much, but we see that something happens to him. And when Val and Earl come around there, they see that his place is torn up and all of his sheep are dead. And so they’re looking for him and they can’t find him. But they see his hat laying in his garden. And so Val picks up the hat and his face is underneath it. And obviously now they know something’s wrong. They head back into town to warn everybody, but they think that there’s some psycho killer on the loose. And I read that initially, that’s what the filmmakers had intended. They didn’t want there to be any suggestion of a monster until later in the movie. They wanted the audience also to think that this was going to be more of kind of a psycho killer kind of movie only then to reveal the monster later. But the studio wanted a creature movie. And so they made them film some scenes that indicated the creature early on. So we know it’s a monster early on, but it’s relatively slowly revealed. The first way that it’s revealed is Val and Earl, first there’s this road crew working. And they warn them as they’re coming back into town that something bad is going on. And then they go back into Perfection and the people in Perfection are like, oh, okay, well there’s something scary and we’re in this big valley and so we can’t reach anybody outside. So Val and Earl, you guys go out to Bixby and get help. So they go out to get help, but the road has collapsed, or something has collapsed down over it because the road crew has been killed, and they find the dead road crew. So they’re gonna head back into perfection, but their car gets tied up, the truck gets tied up on something, they finally break free, and when they get back to town, there’s this huge snake-like thing attached to their back axle, and that’s what had tied them up. And that’s kind of the first sense we get of the monster, but even that, it’s a misleader.

Todd: Yeah, it doesn’t give you the full scope of what

Craig: this monster’s going to be. Right.

Todd: And this is 20 minutes into the movie. The movie, again, night’s tight, 98 minutes. It’s gone by so quickly, it feels like 10. Yeah. That’s how quickly all this happens. And so we get another scene with a guy and his wife who are clearly out building a house and maybe living in a trailer while they’re doing that. And I thought that this scene was the most terrifying of all of them because it is really seriously scary and sad. You know, they’re out there and they’ve got this generator going and suddenly all the power goes out. It’s nighttime and he goes over to find the generator and sees that the generator has been like sucked into the ground and when he pulls the cord away it’s just like it’s been chewed up and then suddenly he starts sinking into the ground. He’s getting pulled down by this thing but it’s just a heart-wrenching scene where this guy is screaming and he’s yelling and there’s nothing he can do and his wife is clawing at him and trying to pull him out and there’s tears in her eyes and he just slowly, slowly, slowly goes under. And I thought, this is really quite dark for this movie. Like, I don’t remember, I mean, I just don’t remember that scene. I don’t remember it being so dark at that time. Or maybe when I was a kid, I just didn’t see it quite the same way. My wife, she remembers this too, and so we were able to watch this together. Which again, thank you, Frances, for that opportunity. I always love these movies. We can watch together. And she just could barely watch it. She was like, oh, this is awful. You know? And so this woman goes to the car and tries to start the car, but the keys aren’t, well, how about the keys are in there? I can’t

Craig: remember. She can’t remember. Yeah, the keys aren’t

Todd: in it. But somehow she gets the lights on. I don’t know. Anyway, the car starts to sink into the ground as well, and she gets pulled down, and the car gets pulled down into the ground upright. And this scene I do remember because it’s quite it’s cool that shows you from far back just kind of over the hill where you just see these 2 beams of light streaking up into the sky and a wiggling back and forth and eventually 1 of them goes out and then the other 1 goes out and the cars buried you know but you don’t see the fight for the finale but when Kevin I’m sorry when Kevin I’m just gonna call him when Kevin Bacon when Val and Earl go out there to find them, I guess, because they go out to warn people and they find, you know, no sign of them. They said, that’s odd, I wonder where their car is. Well, maybe they just took off. And he says, well, where’s that music coming from? Val does. And they walk over to the spot in the ground and as they pull aside the dirt, there are the headlights of the car shining up at them. And that was just iconic to me. I don’t know why that scene really stuck in my head, but I just thought it was really clever. But as far as it being as dark as it was, man, that came out of left field for

Craig: me. Yeah, it’s sad. I mean, it’s the doctor and his wife, the same doctor that they had taken the dead guy to. And you’re right. I mean, I think it’s just, it’s seeing them being torn apart, I think, is what is heart-wrenching. And you can kind of put yourself, Not maybe in a giant killer worm situation, but in a situation where you don’t know what’s happening and something bad is happening to your loved 1 and you can’t help them. Yeah, it’s kind of a helpless. And then, you know, the wife getting submerged in the car, I mean, that’s, it’s a frightening image and she’s all panicked. And I also read that, you know, that was supposed to be a much more elaborate effect. We were supposed to see the car being submerged more. She was supposed to bust out of the windshield and be standing on the hood of the car as it was submerged and then she would get sucked down into the sand. But they just ran out of time. They filmed it at night and they ran out of nighttime. The day came and they just had to move on. But I actually really, it’s maybe 1 of those happy accidents because that scene with the beams of light shining up in the air in a really unnatural way, you know, as far as car headlights are concerned, and then slowly 1 goes out and then the other goes out, so you get the impression that it’s been completely submerged. I actually thought it was really effective.

Todd: So much better, yeah. It’s like, you know, when the shark in Jaws doesn’t work anymore, you get a better

Craig: effect.

Todd: Right. Yeah.

Craig: Right, and I don’t remember how this happens. You know it’s so funny cuz Val and Earl just keep going back and forth like trying to get out of town and then something happens And then they have to go back and then they send them out again and then they have to come back. So I don’t remember exactly how it happens but eventually they get sent out on horseback and there’s this great horseback riding scene through the desert but of course eventually the monsters attack the horses and get the horses and this is then when we get the full reveal. 1 of the what they eventually the Chinese guy Chang eventually names them and he names them Graboids and that’s the name they keep throughout the whole rest of the series. Like that becomes their official name. It’s such

Todd: a corny name, you know, and it’s supposed to be. It’s just funny.

Craig: Yeah, it’s hilarious. But 1 of the Graboids exposes its true self. And it’s this huge worm. It’s really reminiscent of the worms from Dune in that it’s subterranean and it travels really fast. What makes it a little bit different, I guess, is the snake things are actually, they come out of its mouth. I don’t know if it’s tongues or whatever, but they come out of its mouth like I

Todd: don’t know if it’s like

Craig: tongues or whatever but they come out of its mouth like tentacles and then they can grab on to things and draw them back into the big worm’s mouth and that’s how it eats. It pops up out of the ground and rears up and roars at them and they see how big it is and then it chases them and they’re running next to this big concrete ravine. And eventually they come to a place where they have to jump across this ravine. And Val’s like, we’ll make it, we’ll make it. And they jump and of course they don’t make it and so they’re down in this ravine but then the worm runs into the concrete wall and dies from the impact. Yeah. And so they’ve they’ve got 1 and Rhonda shows up and she sees it and Kevin Bacon digs up. I have 1 of my face, such a stupid line but it’s so funny. You know Rhonda and Val are kind of talking and then, or no excuse me Rhonda and Earl are talking and then we hear Val from offscreen. Hey! Hey, check this out! I found the ass in! And it cuts over to him, and he’s dug up the whole thing, and he’s pulling up the hind end of it. And gosh, I don’t know, it’s probably 20 feet long, good 4 feet, maybe 5 feet across. It’s a great big thing and it looks very alien.

Todd: We don’t even know where these things come from and it’s never explained. Why these things suddenly jumped up and were doing it, like were they always kind of in this area? Did they get awakened somehow? Are they from outer space or whatnot? And I don’t remember, I’m pretty sure I saw the sequel. There have been like 6, 5 or 6. Do you know if it gets explained at some point?

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’ve seen them all. Oh really? Oh yeah I’ve seen them all and I don’t remember if it’s ever explained or not and the characters speculate but they they just don’t know. You know at 1 point Rhonda, you know, she says well there are no fossils of them but maybe they predate fossils, but that would make them billions of years old, or whatever, millions, I don’t know. And she’s like, and we’ve never seen 1 until now? And good question. Where have they been all this time? How has nobody ever seen 1 in all this time? And it’s not explained here. I don’t know if it’s explained later or not. I mean, the, in the future movies, the creatures continue to evolve and they turn into different things and they build on, you know, the mythology of them. But I don’t know if it’s ever explained where they come from. But yeah, I mean, even within the context of the movie, it’s a little, because Edgar, the guy who was up on the power lines, they said he’d been up there for 3 or 4 days. Well in that time nobody noticed them. And it turns out, you know, they think they’ve killed this 1 and they’re all excited. You know, they’re planning what they’re going to do. They’re going to sell it. They’re going to make all this money. And then Rhonda’s like, wait a second. And she pulls out her seismographs and she realizes that she’s gotten readings from different areas at the exact same time. So based on the readings that she’s gotten, she speculates that there are 3 more of them. And it turns out that there are. And 1 of them comes and starts chasing them right away.

Todd: It’s just like a movie like this, there’s always a scientist, right? There’s always some scientist who’s gotta be there, part of the group, who can impart this important information that nobody else could possibly know. Yeah. It’s part of the formula, it’s kind of funny.

Craig: Oh yeah, it definitely is. And again, it goes back to those B movies. There was always a scientist there to explain things that were going on. But this leads to 1 of my favorite parts of the movie, just because it’s so fun and cute and silly. And another 1 of the grab boys shows up and starts chasing them. They’re trying to get to Rhonda’s truck. But this is when they figure out that these creatures operate by listening to the vibrations in the ground. And so if they stand perfectly still, the creatures can’t locate them directly. They can get kind of close, but if they’re not making any movement, then they’re kind of blind. The creatures are kind of blinding them. And they also, as they’re running away from this thing, 1 of them says, get up on the boulders, because they’re in the desert and there are all these big rock formations and they figure out that if they get up on these big rock formations then the things can’t get to them. And so they sit up there all night, 1 night, and they keep testing the ground to see if the thing’s waiting for them, and it is. I mean, it’s just waiting them out. And they say, oh, that must have been how they got Edgar. He sat up there for 3 or 4 days until he just died So they don’t know what to do, but Rhonda’s truck is probably I don’t know 150 yards away And while Val and Earl are arguing about what they should do Rhonda grabs where this came from I have no idea, but there are these huge poles laying around right next to the rock formation and she grabs 1. And I had never noticed this before either, but it made me smile. She grabs 1 of these poles and the pole that she grabs couldn’t have been longer than 4 feet long. And then they then they use them to pole vault from rock formation to rock formation. And the reason that I said the 1 that she grabbed couldn’t have been more than 4 feet long is because when they actually start pole vaulting, the poles are like 8 feet long. Like, significantly bigger than when they actually grabbed them. But it’s just fun imagery, you know, because like they do this long shot of this long line of rock formations and all 3 of them are just pole vaulting in unison, you know, 1 right behind the other. It’s cute. To the next. Yeah, it’s fun and it’s silly. They get to the truck and the worm chases them but they get away and they get back to town. Then once they’re back in town, that’s kind of, you know, we still got a good amount of the movie left, but really most of the rest of it is kind of a showdown in town where they have to get everybody together and they start out in the store and then the Gravoids attack and everybody ends up on the roof. I don’t know, there’s a lot that goes on.

Todd: There’s a lot of

Craig: stuff, yeah. Yeah, but it’s really, you know, at that point just kind of falling under siege and trying to stay safe.

Todd: Well, you know, and I think the action of this movie is really well done. In every situation, there’s always a moment where you’re just like, how in the world are these people going to get out of this? And there always is some crazy, weird thing that they do to figure it out. And it’s really satisfying in that way. I was reading a screenwriter the other day, it was giving advice, I think it was, I can’t remember who it was, but he’s written 1 of the last couple Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise, and he was talking about how to write good action and he was like you need to put your characters in impossible situations. Then anything that comes up, you can bring in other things, it only makes it worse. They can get lucky but it’s got to be bad luck, you know? And so it’s just like as an audience you’re constantly wondering how in the world can they get past this and I feel like the movie does a really good job of that. This scene in the you know the store a lot of the people in town are already in there and talking about what they’re gonna do and how they’re gonna make a break for the mountains because in the mountains they’re safe because they’re mountains and these creatures can’t get there. And then they can get over to Bigsby and get help on who’s going to go do that and what truck are they going to use and how are we going to outrun them and that sort of thing. And the worm comes in and it eats Walter, which is really sad, you know. And then they end up climbing up on the shelves inside the store and hopping from shelf to shelf. It’s kind of like the pole vaulting really, except without poles. They’re running across the top of these shelves, hopping from shelf to shelf, and then climbing up onto the roof through a opening that’s at the far end of the room. This is where things do get a little muddy and a little weird with the creature because supposedly this thing can’t see. All it can do is sense vibrations. Yet it’s able to figure some things out and do some things that seem like it would require sight, like it would require knowing exactly what these people are doing. I mean, they’re not on the ground, they’re leaping from thing to thing, but the next shot we see is 2 of these tentacles have grabbed the base of 1 of these shelving units, and it’s very deliberately pushing it over to set them going down like dominoes. I was kind of like, oh yeah, there’s some holes in this. And there’s several of these moments.

Craig: I just feel like, of course when they made this movie, I very much doubt that they thought that it would have spawned 6 sequels and and there’s a seventh 1 on the way like I don’t think that this is going anywhere anytime soon but yeah it’s

Todd: I don’t know like maybe it’s just knowledge we don’t have is that kind of

Craig: well I don’t know I mean I feel like they were trying to pack as much into the 1 movie I assume they only thought they were gonna get 1 movie It doesn’t really make all that much sense like in the same way. Where did they come from? Why are we just seeing them now? And then as soon as they show up, they immediately get really smart. Like, they learn, they figure out the people’s behaviors and they learn and it’s almost like mentally they’re evolving at just a ridiculous rate, you know? Like, they set traps and stuff, the grabboids do. And that’s some pretty sophisticated stuff.

Todd: It is. It’s like they’re learning, you know, they’re burrowing under their homes to try to, and their homes, So once everybody’s kind of up on the roof, Rhonda’s over on a water tower and the other family’s up on their roof and the 1 guy is up on his trailer and they can all kind of see each other and yell at each other from above. You know, there’s yelling and stuff going on. You think, doesn’t that create some vibration in the ground? Apparently not, because the thing is pretty silent when that’s going on and they’re not so worried about doing that. Yet later on in the movie they do a lot of yelling to try to distract the creature and it seems to work to a certain extent. So it’s a little uneven on that. And then here’s the other thing that bothered me if I’m gonna get nitpicky, and you know, I like to get nitpicky. When they first kill that first creature, right? They’re in this culvert and that creature barrels into that concrete wall and that’s what kills it. Well, it barrels into the concrete wall, but it kind of breaks through a little bit. So you can see that the concrete wall isn’t that thick. Okay, fine. So something harder than dirt is gonna kill the creature. Yet we see them burst through a lot of stuff in this movie, including the cinder block wall bunker of Bert and Heather later on. And it has, doesn’t have that effect at all. You know, of killing.

Craig: To be fair, it’s when it hits that concrete ravine, It’s going at full speed chasing these guys and it hits it at full speed. Once everybody else gets up on the roof in town then they start thinking about who’s not with them and and that’s Bert and Heather. And so Bert and Heather are down in their basement, which is like you said, like a bunker. It’s like, I mean, there are guns, you know, just lining the walls and you know, it’s very, I don’t know, it’s, It’s kind of crazy.

Todd: It’s a funny reveal because early in the movie, and we don’t see them a whole lot before this, but every time they come in, they’ll mention something about guns. You get the sense, okay, this is the couple that’s into guns or into survival or whatnot. And then we see them in this bunker, I originally thought, oh, it’s just like their basement. Yeah. She turns on a machine, that’s what sets the vibrations. I’m not sure what that machine is. Is it some kind of thing you put bullets in and?

Craig: It was, yeah. You know what that is? No, I mean, she was putting, I couldn’t tell if she was putting. Shells? Yeah, like shells, like casings, I don’t know.

Todd: Yeah, it was some kind of machine. It looked like a stone polisher or something. I don’t

Craig: know. Yeah, like an agitator kind of thing.

Todd: But it’s filmed against their workbench there. And so, you know, and they’re talking and whatnot, and he’s got a CB, the radio and it seems a little militant, you know, militaristic like. But it’s funny then when this grab-oid bursts through that wall at them, they run away from it and they run back and the opposite wall, which we see for the very first time, I think, at least that’s the impression I got, is just guns from floor to ceiling. It’s just a huge rack. And they start grabbing the guns off the wall, and then shooting them out at the monster, and then grabbing another gun, shooting them out at the monster. It’s so funny, and it’s so funny how that’s just, the fact that they waited to show us that wall of guns until they absolutely needed it was brilliant.

Craig: Well, and it’s also funny, because it goes on for quite a long time. I’m sure in real time it’s only a minute or a minute 30, but it seems like it goes on for a really long time where they’re just unloading gun after gun after gun into this monster. But it’s just the people back in town, they hear over the CB, they hear the monster breakthrough and, you know, they all get this, these sad looks on their face like, oh, that’s it. But then they start hearing the guns firing and it goes on for so long. But I just really liked this scene because they just unload these guns into this thing and it takes forever and eventually Bert busts through this glass casing over this enormous shotgun which they later refer to as an elephant gun and he unloads a couple of huge rounds from that into it, and eventually they kill it. And I like that. They’re not invincible, these monsters. They’re just really tough, but you can kill them if you have the right resources. And what I was getting at before was that 1 grab boy just hit the concrete super hard at full strength, but this 1, the walls kind of start shaking before it eventually pushes through. So to me it almost seemed like it didn’t hit it head on, just like in the town where it was kind of loosening up the foundation and then kind of pushed its way through. So that didn’t bother me so much. And I just love that set piece. I just love that set piece. And it looks really cool when the wall collapses and the monsters, you know, it’s just its big head, but it’s rearing all over the place and roaring at them. And the little snakes that are coming out of its mouth, and 1 of them grabs Heather at some point. But they kill

Todd: it.

Craig: And so now they’re down to what? 1 or 2? I don’t remember. There’s Just a couple

Todd: left. And all the effects are practical, which is very nice. I mean, this was before we really had too much of that CG. I mean, a couple years later, Jurassic Park would blow us away, but up until that point. And it’s really well done. I mean, it’s not a cheap movie. I mean, it’s a lower budget film for what it is, but it doesn’t look it. I thought they did quite a good job with all that.

Craig: Oh yeah, I like it a lot.

Todd: A bunch of stuff happens. I think Nestor gets killed and his truck is swallowed. They all are on the roof, but the monsters are smart now, and so they’re burrowing underneath these homes and the homes are starting to collapse. So they’ve come up with this plan and it’s a weird plan but their reasoning is that they can’t just get in their truck because we’ve seen it swallow vehicles But he has this cat, you know, it’s caterpillar, it’s got treads, it’s like a tank. Yeah. Piece of farm machinery. And he’s like, that thing weighs, you know, so many tons, so it’s not gonna be able to do that to that. And so we’ll hook it, we’ll hitch it up to this other semi-trailer thing that’s junkie that’s sitting over here and we’ll use that to sweep everybody around. We just got to get out to it first. And so they come up with this plan and they do it and it’s really great. It’s a great action sequence. Earl and Val are arguing about who’s going to go out and get the cat.

Craig: I’m making the run for the cat. Like hell you are. Get real, Earl, I’m faster than you.

Todd: I’m best at driving the cat.

Craig: Not while I’m around. Look, damn

Todd: it, now listen to me. I’m older and I’m wiser.

Craig: Yeah, well, you’re half right.

Todd: They do their rock, paper, scissors thing, and Earl wins. And just as he’s about to go, Val says, hey, good luck, buddy, and he elbows him in the ribs a little too hard, and Earl doubles over and Val takes that opportunity to run off and do it anyway. So, you know, it’s kind of unexpected moments like this are really peppered throughout the movie and really kind of keep you on your toes.

Craig: And it’s really fast paced, you know, the action keeps up. There’s not a dull moment and like, it’s just clever. They come up with this plan before even they decide who’s gonna run off. Miguel says, why don’t we turn on this little lawnmower tractor and send it off down the road? And then they’ll chase that as a distraction. So they do that and then it works and you know the monsters follow it. And then Val takes off running but then the tractor turns over and so their attention is back on Val and he’s running. Rhonda yells at Val stop stop they’re coming and so he stops and so the monsters stop and they’re probably within like 5 feet of them and they’re sending out their snake tongues to like feel around, and they’re super close to him. And so she comes up with this idea, because she’s on a water tower, she climbs down the ladder a little bit, and she kicks and bursts the pipe so that the water falls onto the ground and causes vibrations which draws the monsters. Which is just clever.

Todd: Yeah, so now she’s in danger.

Craig: Yeah, right, they come and they start trying to take down the water tower. Meanwhile, he gets the cat and he gets it hooked up to the trailer and he starts going through town and everybody’s jumping in and he gets Rhonda and you know they make it out to the Gummer’s house, to Bert and Heather’s house and they take too long. This frustrated me. They take way too long to get in because they’re like inventorying their guns or something. My partner watched it with me too and I was yelling at the TV, I’m like, hurry up. Are you serious? What is wrong with you? Come on. Like they were taking forever. But they all get in and it seems like everything’s great and they’re gonna make it. There’s nothing that the monsters can do to get them. And then the monsters set a trap. They dig out part of the path or whatever so that the cat falls into this trench and is disabled and then they’re stuck there. Fortunately Bert and Heather have made some homemade dynamite out of household chemicals.

Todd: In the right proportions. Right.

Craig: They use 1 and they throw it and 1 of the monsters, 1 of the graboids, eats it and blows up. And so then there’s only 1 Graboid left, but this 1 last Graboid is the 1 with the Stumpy tongue because it’s the 1 that’s tongue got torn off by the truck earlier And it’s apparently really smart and once the 1 gets killed by the dynamite then this 1 is too smart to fall for that.

Todd: And he spits it out.

Craig: Yeah, right. But they use the dynamite to, like, if they throw the dynamite, every time it explodes, it hurts. And even if the grab-oid’s not right next to it, the vibrations are so intense that it hurts them and they run away. The monster does. So they use it to help them get to a set of rocks and then eventually Val comes up with a plan And this is their big fishing plan.

Todd: Yeah, they go fishing and they’ve got this really long. It looks like a rope, but it’s kind of weird and Bert and Heather just have everything in their pack.

Craig: All right, how much we need?

Todd: I don’t know, but pretty quick, 15 seconds

Craig: at least.

Todd: What kind of fuse is that? Cannon fuse. What the

Craig: hell are you using it for? A cannon.

Todd: This is hilarious. And they tie it, you know, they light 1 of these things and they tie it to this and then toss it way out like a fishing line. Get the grab oi to eat it basically, like you said, and then the grab oi explodes. And the second time they do this the grab oid eats it and they think they’ve got it but then it spits it out way up in the air back toward the rocks and it lands on their whole stash of Explosives and they all have to leap off the rocks really fast and everything explodes So now they’re out there without their explosives, except for 1 Val still had in his hand. And he has to come up with a real quick plan because they’re all gonna be sunk here in a minute. And so he tears across towards the cliff. We saw this cliff earlier in the movie.

Craig: It’s the 1 he was peeing off of right in the beginning, yeah.

Todd: Exactly. Again, it’s just really neat how all this kind of wraps around. He tears off towards the cliff and the Graboid’s chasing after him and he gets to the cliff with his buddies. He tears the fuse a little bit so that it’s really, really short And he’s like, not yet, not yet, not yet, okay now. And he lights the fuse and he tosses it behind the grab oint so that it shocks him and makes him run away, which would be directly towards him on the edge of the cliff. And at the last minute he leaps over it as It crashes through the side of the cliff, and he looks over the side as this thing is falling and says,

Craig: Can you fly, you sucker? Can you fly?

Todd: And it can’t fly. It hits the ground and explodes.

Craig: Yeah, and it totally grows, you know, like it just splats like a water balloon on the ground below. And that’s pretty much the end. I mean, there’s a little bit of resolution where we see, you know, of course Val and Rhonda are gonna get together and… Yeah, and if I

Todd: were to criticize anything that was so unnecessary in this movie. There weren’t many moments except at the beginning and at the very end of this sort of chemistry kind of playful flirting between the 2 of them. Most of the movie is everybody doing what they’ve got to do to survive. It felt like that romantic subplot was really shoehorned in there, you know?

Craig: Yeah. I mean, not that this is really all that relevant, but there was a part when the whole big showdown in the town, There was a part where the monsters were chasing Rhonda and she got caught up in some barbed wire and her legs get tangled up in it and Val comes to try to help her and he says, And so that’s what she has to do. And I read, I just thought it was just a funny anecdote that she didn’t rehearse that scene and she didn’t wanna rehearse that scene because she wanted her reactions to be realistic as though she had to deep pants in front of Kevin Bacon in 5 seconds. Which I thought was kind of funny. And then right after that, a scene that we kind of skipped over. It all happens so fast. It’s easy to skip over things, but there’s a point where it’s chasing them and it chases them. They’re running across the porch of the store and it’s like a slatted porch. And as they’re running, the slats of the porch are just flying up behind them. And it’s just such a cool, practical effect. It is. There was some sort of mechanism under there that was firing these boards up right behind them. And it just looked really cool. And just in general, the practical effects, I think they looked great, you know, things looked pretty real for the most part. I mean, the blood and stuff of the grab boys, I mean, it just looked like some kind of gelatinous goo. It was cool looking and it didn’t look super fake and they did a good job of not allowing us to see behind the curtain. They revealed enough that we could see and it looked pretty realistic and I would just say that overall for the whole movie that was kind of the case and I just it’s it’s cool you know and I I I’m sure they expected this to be a one-off but because of how well it did in video sales and rentals. They got a sequel and then I don’t remember, there was, I think there were 2 sequels and then there was a prequel and then there were more sequels and they kept doing, have you seen the sequels?

Todd: I think I saw the second 1 a long time ago. And I think the 1 thing that links them all together, right, is the character of Bert.

Craig: Michael Grossman.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: Michael Grossman. Yeah, he’s in all of them. And I think that 1 of the sequels was actually the pilot for the TV series, which actually ran for like 13 episodes and then it got canceled. And that’s the only 1 I haven’t seen. I’ve seen the movie that was the pilot, but I haven’t, I didn’t watch the show. But you know, they kept building on them. Like in the second 1, I think it was like apparently the grab boys, that’s kind of they’re, they’re like butterflies and like that they go through a metamorphosis and the next thing that they turn into like they’re called shriekers and they’re these little like two-legged things they kind of look like those Chattery teeth from when we were kids with the little feet Because they just got there just like these they’re like a potato You like it just a big head and mouth on these 2 little teeth. And they called them shriekers and then eventually the shriekers evolved into these creatures that could fly, but The way that they fly is that they would ignite their farts and that would shoot them into the air. So they were ass blasters. Oh my gosh. And like they, I know they get these crazy names in every 1. And then in the last 1, I don’t remember them all, I have seen them all but I don’t remember them all, the last 1 was called like Tremors of Cold Day in Hell or something and at this point they are relying pretty heavily on CGI and like the Graboids are jumping up into the air and flying through the air and then burrowing back down into the ground But what I will say, you know, they’re they’re pretty low budget The sequels all are and it shows But they’re all entertaining. They’re not great movies, any of them, by any stretch of the imagination. But they’re fun. I’ve watched every 1. There’s a new 1 in pre-production, and Michael Grossman is going to be in it. And I’ll watch it too. I mean, they’re just, they’re fun, no brainers. They’re, it’s just good, silly fun.

Todd: Well, I really, I enjoy this movie and I was worried, you know, going back and watching it so many years later that I would revise my opinion of it and I really haven’t. It was just as fun now, Maybe even more fun for me now. And maybe that’s just because we’ve ended up watching so much schlock lately that it’s good to see something a little nice, but yeah. And there are just a couple other things about this film that I think are cool. There are little moments of comedy and even little subtle things like at 1 point the annoying boy is sitting on the counter while they’re talking and he’s like eating gummy worms. You know, blink if you miss it, but if you do notice it, and we did because we happened to pause the video at that moment to go do something and I was like, wait a second, is that a jar of gummy worms next to him? And there’s another point when the grab boys tentacles are going through the store, searching through the store and it reaches out and it like squeezes a can of tomatoes, You know, so it looks like it’s, you know, something bloody or whatever. And then just these little things peppered throughout the movie that I caught this time around that I don’t think I caught the first time. And just kind of showed the care and the joy, you know, that went into it. It’s a movie that I would say, you know, just feels full of joy through in and throughout except when that old guy and his wife sucked into the sand. The director of this movie, Ron Underwood, this was 1 of his first big movies and he went on after this to do almost a movie a year for a little while. He did City Slickers after this, also a very well regarded movie. Heart and Souls, speechless, Mighty Joe Young. Then he got to The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and we all know that that didn’t do so well. And he’s been all over TV since then.

Craig: Yeah, big stuff, yeah. Like, that Once Upon a Time, the Disney characters. I mean, you know, he’s been very successful.

Todd: And the writers of this movie wrote Short Circuit before this, and that’s what I’d like to go back to and watch again, because again- I love that movie. I remembered loving it as a kid, and I haven’t seen it since, and I really hope that my feeling of it doesn’t get tainted by watching it now. But you know, they did Short Circuit, which was a great film. A bit of trivia that we found about them is that they got the idea for this movie. They worked in the US Navy and they were, you know, cinematographers and they were shooting footage for instructional videos basically and they’re out in the desert standing on some rocks and thought, what would it be like if there was something here and we could not leave these rocks. And the idea evolved from a concept that they started calling land sharks, which is such a goofy name. And then of course Saturday Night Live used to do a thing about land sharks, so they had to change that. But at 1 point, you know, it was like beneath perfection, which I guess gives off that feeling of the mystery that they originally wanted to have before they settled on Tremors but yeah those guys wrote some really good movies too. They did Batteries Not Included.

Craig: Oh, it’s a cute movie.

Todd: I love that movie. You know, they did the screenplay for Heart and Souls as well. So anyway, yeah, I would totally recommend this movie to people. And I, that’s kind of what I expected to say when we first sat down to watch it. And I was happy to have that affirmed this time around.

Craig: Yeah, I’m glad we did it. Like I said, I was a little reluctant just because I’ve seen it so many times, but it was fun to sit down and watch it from start to finish again. It was just as fun this time as it was in the beginning and so thank you for the request. It was well worth it.

Todd: It sure was. Well, we had a great time doing this and we’re looking forward to doing a couple more requests this month before we go into February where we might have another theme month planned for you. We’ll see. Until then, you can catch us on Google Play, on iTunes, or on our website, twoguyz.red40net.com if you want to catch up with some of our back episodes. We have over 150 of them now. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and help spread the word. And also if you have more requests, please send them our way. You can find us on Facebook if you search 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. You can leave a message for us there or on our website as well. We’ll be sure to get it. We respond to every message we get. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.