I have this strange fixation on the Tremors franchise, probably one that's unhealthy. Regardless, the original film is easily in my top 5 and I could ramble for eons about its hidden genius. Its sequel, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, is surprisingly very good for a home media release, and it probably sits in my top 50 favorite films. Tremors 3 and 4 aren't as near as good as the first two and have a ton of problems, but they still have a certain charm to them: cool effects, funny dialog, great action, and Burt Gummer, who is an unsung B-movie badass hero. I've been awaiting a 5th film for years, and I figured it wouldn't happen...
...until I read an article in early 2015, stating Tremors 5 had gone into surprise filming in South Africa. My heart pounded out of my chest, my trembling hands nearly dropped my phone. I was a 1st grader (about 7 years old) when Tremors 4 came out, and now I was about to enter college. Was this film finally happening, with Michael Gross and all? I thought it was too good to be true, maybe a hoax or joke article. Sure enough, it's real, and so is my excitement.
Then I see the director: Don Michael Paul, one of the cheapest, laziest, and overall worst modern film directors currently working. Maybe he's a nice guy, seems like it, but he is one of the worst directors I can think of. My heart stopped pounding. The guy who directed celebrated classics like Who's Your Caddy? and Jarhead 2 is now directing one of my bucket list sequels.
Months past and I finally saw it after it came out. I read a lot of reviews saying it was rather good, including my local paper that called it "by far the best Tremors sequel...almost as good as the original" and after just 30 seconds of watching the film I could tell you that those claims are very misguided. Fans of the original franchise liked this terrible, soulless, nonchalant cash-grab of a sequel? The same fans who were even critical towards Tremors 3 and 4 are now celebratory about Tremors 5?
So much is wrong with this trainwreck. First, the monster designs are completely different, and for zero purpose. I actually think they are pretty cool on their own, but this is not a remake or a reboot, and none of the characters seem to notice anything different. Why change the designs of the monsters in a sequel, thus breaking continuity? It'd be like if they made Gremlins 3, but the gremlins are now pink, furry, and have eight legs, and then the characters never asked why they looked different. Failed comedian Jaimie Kennedy plays Burt Gummer's sidekick, though I feel as if his role were originally written for Pauly Shore or Rob Schneider. He's about as irritating as you'd think: memes, pop culture references, shouting and overreacting about everything, completely stupid and makes situations worse, extremely annoying and pointless. "Hey, he mentioned Breaking Bad and then said 'YOLO'! That's funny because..." Someone remind me how many times the original franchise had to mention pop culture to stay relevant? None is the correct answer. Not surprising, the terrible direction is terrible. The film is so flat and uninteresting, with NO cool angles or engaging shots. The film could've been much, much better had the director known anything about making a cool-looking movie, or had he even cared (which I'm assuming he didn't). Everything is so unremarkable, like they just pointed the camera from the most static and basic angle and pressed record. How do people like this even get work, where idealistic college graduates are scooping gum off of diner tables just to make a living? There is only one scene in this entire film where the directing is slightly interesting, and it's like another person took over.
More than anything else, this sequel is absolutely soulless and void of creativity. It feels nothing like any of the other films in the franchise, obviously because this is the first film in the franchise to be helmed by different people. Burt Gummer has gone from sarcastic but no-nonsense survivalist to bipolar drill instructor who shouts psuedo-military jargon every other line. He even rather heartlessly lets an innocent person get crushed by a dead monster with zero remorse, which is the exact opposite of who he was in the previous installments! The lovable and charismatic side characters have always been a trait of the sequels until now, where everyone is bland and boring. Tell me a single name of any of these characters. Awesome music has also been a distinguishing element of all Tremors until now, where the creators decided to use stock orchestras and even more stock royalty-free rock music. The story is boring and just zig-zags all over the place with very little cohesion, and the way they kill the final graboid in this movie not only makes the final kill in Tremors 4 seem plausible, but it should make every Tremors fan snap the DVD in half. I guess fans thought African voodoo magic causing a lighting bolt to strike and explode a graboid just as it was leaping mid-jump out of the air fit in totally fine with the franchise's theme? Nonsense.
How did fans like this movie again?
It's a sickening world to know this film could've been much better had only a few things been changed. I think what made the other films work, even Tremors 3 which is not a good movie, is that the people who made them cared about Tremors. Don Michael Paul and his crew clearly do not care about Tremors in the slightest, as Paul even said in the commentary track that he had never seen a Tremors film until Michael Gross forced him to watch the original after filming had been completed. What a hack, and what a terrible film. To prove even further than they did not give a flying fart about this film, there's a line that mentions graboids never have been seen "in the southern hemisphere" when Tremors 3 freaking opens with monsters in Argentina! Did they not even WATCH the sequels? Anyone who thinks this atrocious mess of cinema is the best sequel since the first is absolutely bonkers, and anyone who says this is the first sequel to "capture the feel of the first" is even more insane, because I don't recall Tremors having pop culture references, a meandering non-flowing plot, boring characters, and voodoo lighting in it.
Also, the film has some sort of fixation on pee. Gummer drinks pee, a character wets his pants, a girl mentions having to pee, a dude pees on a rock, a guy dies while peeing, and a lion pees on Gummer's face. Do the writers have a urine fetish? If so, maybe they should explore that and stay away from the Tremors franchise.
...until I read an article in early 2015, stating Tremors 5 had gone into surprise filming in South Africa. My heart pounded out of my chest, my trembling hands nearly dropped my phone. I was a 1st grader (about 7 years old) when Tremors 4 came out, and now I was about to enter college. Was this film finally happening, with Michael Gross and all? I thought it was too good to be true, maybe a hoax or joke article. Sure enough, it's real, and so is my excitement.
Then I see the director: Don Michael Paul, one of the cheapest, laziest, and overall worst modern film directors currently working. Maybe he's a nice guy, seems like it, but he is one of the worst directors I can think of. My heart stopped pounding. The guy who directed celebrated classics like Who's Your Caddy? and Jarhead 2 is now directing one of my bucket list sequels.
Months past and I finally saw it after it came out. I read a lot of reviews saying it was rather good, including my local paper that called it "by far the best Tremors sequel...almost as good as the original" and after just 30 seconds of watching the film I could tell you that those claims are very misguided. Fans of the original franchise liked this terrible, soulless, nonchalant cash-grab of a sequel? The same fans who were even critical towards Tremors 3 and 4 are now celebratory about Tremors 5?
So much is wrong with this trainwreck. First, the monster designs are completely different, and for zero purpose. I actually think they are pretty cool on their own, but this is not a remake or a reboot, and none of the characters seem to notice anything different. Why change the designs of the monsters in a sequel, thus breaking continuity? It'd be like if they made Gremlins 3, but the gremlins are now pink, furry, and have eight legs, and then the characters never asked why they looked different. Failed comedian Jaimie Kennedy plays Burt Gummer's sidekick, though I feel as if his role were originally written for Pauly Shore or Rob Schneider. He's about as irritating as you'd think: memes, pop culture references, shouting and overreacting about everything, completely stupid and makes situations worse, extremely annoying and pointless. "Hey, he mentioned Breaking Bad and then said 'YOLO'! That's funny because..." Someone remind me how many times the original franchise had to mention pop culture to stay relevant? None is the correct answer. Not surprising, the terrible direction is terrible. The film is so flat and uninteresting, with NO cool angles or engaging shots. The film could've been much, much better had the director known anything about making a cool-looking movie, or had he even cared (which I'm assuming he didn't). Everything is so unremarkable, like they just pointed the camera from the most static and basic angle and pressed record. How do people like this even get work, where idealistic college graduates are scooping gum off of diner tables just to make a living? There is only one scene in this entire film where the directing is slightly interesting, and it's like another person took over.
More than anything else, this sequel is absolutely soulless and void of creativity. It feels nothing like any of the other films in the franchise, obviously because this is the first film in the franchise to be helmed by different people. Burt Gummer has gone from sarcastic but no-nonsense survivalist to bipolar drill instructor who shouts psuedo-military jargon every other line. He even rather heartlessly lets an innocent person get crushed by a dead monster with zero remorse, which is the exact opposite of who he was in the previous installments! The lovable and charismatic side characters have always been a trait of the sequels until now, where everyone is bland and boring. Tell me a single name of any of these characters. Awesome music has also been a distinguishing element of all Tremors until now, where the creators decided to use stock orchestras and even more stock royalty-free rock music. The story is boring and just zig-zags all over the place with very little cohesion, and the way they kill the final graboid in this movie not only makes the final kill in Tremors 4 seem plausible, but it should make every Tremors fan snap the DVD in half. I guess fans thought African voodoo magic causing a lighting bolt to strike and explode a graboid just as it was leaping mid-jump out of the air fit in totally fine with the franchise's theme? Nonsense.
How did fans like this movie again?
It's a sickening world to know this film could've been much better had only a few things been changed. I think what made the other films work, even Tremors 3 which is not a good movie, is that the people who made them cared about Tremors. Don Michael Paul and his crew clearly do not care about Tremors in the slightest, as Paul even said in the commentary track that he had never seen a Tremors film until Michael Gross forced him to watch the original after filming had been completed. What a hack, and what a terrible film. To prove even further than they did not give a flying fart about this film, there's a line that mentions graboids never have been seen "in the southern hemisphere" when Tremors 3 freaking opens with monsters in Argentina! Did they not even WATCH the sequels? Anyone who thinks this atrocious mess of cinema is the best sequel since the first is absolutely bonkers, and anyone who says this is the first sequel to "capture the feel of the first" is even more insane, because I don't recall Tremors having pop culture references, a meandering non-flowing plot, boring characters, and voodoo lighting in it.
Also, the film has some sort of fixation on pee. Gummer drinks pee, a character wets his pants, a girl mentions having to pee, a dude pees on a rock, a guy dies while peeing, and a lion pees on Gummer's face. Do the writers have a urine fetish? If so, maybe they should explore that and stay away from the Tremors franchise.