Fantasy/Horror, 96 Minutes, 1990
[My daughter recently discovered that all her Jewish friends go the movies on Christmas day. She came up with the idea of watching a movie for each night of Hanukkah. This is number four!]
There are only a very small handful of modern movies that truly, madly, deeply capture the spirit of classic 1950’s horror movies. Movies like “The Blob” [IMDB] and “Them” [IMDB] defined how horror was experienced in America. They were simple, straightforward and designed, above all, to entertain. They were also completely honest: there’s the monster, here’s the heroes. There were no twist endings or reversals: in the end the heroes got the monster and, usually, the girl.
Tremors takes everything great about those classics, adds a collection of wonderfully lovable everyman characters, and one of the hands-down most enjoyable monsters ever. The multi-point reveal of “the graboids” is absolutely masterful even when you know what’s coming and pacing is damn near perfect.
Spawning three generally excellent sequels and a fun, but doomed, TV series “Tremors” resonated well with audiences. Never before (and very likely never again) will giant worms be more enjoyable.
Love it! You couldn’t have picked a better movie for night #4 🙂 I have watched it at least 4 times. lol
Whenever this is on, I can’t help but leave it on.