Kevin Bacon Heading Back To His Best Franchise?
Kevin Bacon says he's "waiting for the call" to return to the Tremors franchise.
Kevin Bacon has become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but he has humble roots in horror. In addition to memorably getting stabbed in the first Friday the 13th movie (a scene made downright gasp-worthy by Tom Savini’s special effects), he also headlined Tremors, a 1990 horror comedy about Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward’s characters fighting off “Graboids,” their term for giant worms that burrow out from underground and wreak havoc on a tiny Nevada town. A recent scene in a preview for Shazam! Fury of the Gods made fans nostalgic for this venerable series (it has spawned seven movies so far), and when asked whether he’d return for another film, Bacon replied that “I’m just waiting for the call.”
If you’re not a fan of the Tremors series, the simple idea of an aging actor hungry to return to a popular role may not seem very newsworthy. However, Kevin Bacon has not appeared in any of the franchise entries past the first one, with many fans assuming he had no interest in returning to the world of low-budget creature features after becoming such a prominent Hollywood star. However, it now seems like Bacon is quite happy to reprise this role, although bringing his character back into the franchise may take a bit of narrative wizardry.
Back in the first sequel (Tremors 2: Aftershocks), Fred Ward’s character offered a brief explanation for why Kevin Bacon’s character is no longer around. In short, the explanation is that Bacon’s character fell in love with someone and retired from monster hunting, and this is meant to explain why we have seen or heard nothing of Bacon in this franchise for all these years. If his character does return, it might be because the Graboids (or whatever they mutate into next) attack his family, making the entire affair more personal than it ever was before.
Even if Kevin Bacon returns for an eighth Tremors film, though, it will be very bittersweet for long fans of the series. That’s because his onscreen partner Fred Ward died last year, so we will not get to experience any more of their awesome onscreen chemistry in any sequels. Ward’s own character left the franchise after the second film because he, too, fell in love, and it’s possible that his death could be written into a sequel, especially if it helps to get Bacon back into the saddle.
One thing that fans of the franchise might hope for is that, with Kevin Bacon’s involvement, this horror comedy franchise might finally return to the big screen. So far, only the first two films had theatrical releases (and only briefly for the second one), with everything else going direct to video. If someone with as much pull as Kevin Bacon is willing to return, we might finally see Tremors on the big screen once more.
A simple reason that Kevin Bacon may be willing to star in another Tremors movie is that he has recently been diving into more genre films. This includes the horror film They/Them as well as the popular The Guardians of the Galaxy: The Holiday Special as himself. In short, he has extensive recent experience in both genre horror and genre comedy, and we’d love to see him combine it all to give Tremors fans the proper sequel they’ve waited more than three decades to experience.
