What to Stream: Hilarious Killer Worms in 'Tremors'

Richard Rushfield
·Features Editor
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Tremors (1990) Amazon Instant, iTunes
The Basics: A horror comedy starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, and Reba McEntire.
If You Liked: Cabin in the Woods, Zombieland, and The Evil Dead
The Nugget: A race of giant worms called “graboids” terrorizes the residents of a hard-scrabble desert town.

In these days of deadly-serious CGI destruction, it’s great to remember how much fun could be had from a pack of preposterous monsters laying siege to a tiny dusty town. Tremors opens with two Nevada handymen (Bacon and Ward) discovering a corpse clinging to the top of a phone tower. The victim was apparently so terrified by something on the ground that he preferred a slow death up high over climbing down. What kind of creature instilled such fear? Giant burrowing worms, naturally. The opening sets the mood for a film that manages to achieve the near-impossible trick of being genuinely scary while remaining totally hilarious. Also a hoot: country star Reba McEntire and Family Ties dad Michael Gross as a pair of very well-armed survivalists.

 

Photo credit: © Everett Collection