Monster 90s Horror Cult Classic Is A Streaming Hit On Peacock
If movies have taught us anything over the years, it’s that people love watching ordinary people banding together to fight unimaginable terror that threatens their everyday lives. In the case of the 1990 horror-comedy cult classic Tremors, that unimaginable terror took the shape of massive, worm-like behemoths who emerged from within the earth to wreak havoc on a small desert town. Although the film never really took off at the box office, it eventually became a massive home release hit and has now even joined the ranks as one of Peacock’s most popular horror films to stream during the spooky season.
A Town Besieged By Giant Worms
Tremors follows the story of down-on-their-luck handymen Valentine “Val” McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward), two guys who are sick of living in the town of Perfection, Nevada. Looking for their chance at a new life, they attempt to make their way out of town only to come across a series of unexplained deaths, leading them to finally confront a group of monstrous worms called “Graboids.” When the pair of men team up with graduate student Rhonda Lebeck (Finn Carter), they attempt to rally the remaining townsfolk together and fight off the mindless Graboids.
From The Mind Behind Short Circuit
Years before becoming a cult classic horror movie, Tremors got its start when screenwriter S.S. Wilson was working as an editor at a navy base in the middle of the Mojave Desert. While hiking through the desert one day, he pondered what would happen if something had come up through the ground to attack him, and he was forced to take refuge on a single boulder. Following the success of Short Circuit, a film that Wilson wrote alongside co-writer Brent Maddock, the duo teamed back up and penned the script for the zany worm-monster flick.
Creative With A Tiny Budget
Despite originally settling on the name Land Sharks, the screenwriting team then changed the title to Beneath Perfection until finally settling on Tremors. When Ron Underwood came aboard to helm the project, the film was given a modest budget of around $10 million, which could have proven to be pretty challenging considering the main antagonists of the film are 30-foot prehistoric worms with teeth. Filming for Tremors took place in early 1989, with an initial release slated for November 1989, before eventually being pushed back to January 1990.
Box Office Bomb, Home Video Cult Classic
Upon its theatrical release, Tremors received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, earning a respectable 88 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, that critical acclaim did little to help the film’s financial success, earning just under $17 million throughout its box office run. With a modest haul at the box office, many expected the horror comedy to gradually fade into irrelevance following its home release, but in a shocking twist, Tremors steadily developed a cult following, becoming one of the most in-demand movie rentals of the 1990s and spawning six more films in the franchise.
Streaming On Peacock
REVIEW SCORE
Sure, this movie may never be as frightening or as gory as other monster movies out there, but I always savor the opportunity to rewatch Tremors, a film that knows how to deliver a fun movie-watching experience while going completely off the rails. While Bacon brings the star power and Ward and Carter do great jobs with their roles, Michael Gross absolutely thrives as the gun-toting and action-loving Burt Gummer, an incredible character who would later become the primary focus in the Tremors franchise. With a unique setting and an original monster, Tremors excels at being a wild ride that never takes itself too seriously.
Will Tremors force you to sleep with the light on? Unless you have a severe case of Scoleciphobia, then probably not. But the movie delivers on being some of the most fun you can have while watching a movie, making this 1990s iconic cult classic a must-watch.
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