There has never been a time in film history where franchises
weren’t a thing. Okay, maybe the first few years when things were getting
started. People needed to figure out how to do the film thing and have audiences
appreciate it. But by the 1920s, serials and sequels and franchises and series
were something that had flourished throughout the film industry. Everyone has
grown up with franchises that they love. Unless they weren’t into movies, but
what kind of heathens are those?
Franchise filmmaking became more apparent during the
blockbuster era that was kicked off by Jaws and Star Wars. Each
of those franchises grew into something bigger than the first hit movie. And
there were new franchises starting or continuing all the time. That age is
ongoing with the reboots, remakes, television adaptations of movies, and film
adaptations of television shows. Everyone who loves movies has a special relationship
with one, two, or however many franchises. Those people will always go back for
a new installment. If they don’t, they’re at least interested that a new
installment comes out. The reason for those connections might vary, but they
all come down to one thing. The audience has a love for whatever that franchise
is about and the people involved.
Tremors was released in 1990. It starred Kevin Bacon
and Fred Ward as Valentine McKee and Earl Bassett, two day laborers working in
the desert community of Perfection. They wanted nothing more than to leave the
almost nothing town for greener pastures. On their way out of town, the pair
stumbled upon some horrific scenes where townspeople died. They informed
everyone, then encountered the monsters that had caused the deaths. It was up
to them to lead the town to safety, as much as they wanted to leave and never
look back.
Since the release of the first Tremors film, the
franchise has blossomed into something much bigger. There have been four
direct-to-video sequels, a direct-to-video prequel, a one season television
show, and two cancelled television pilots. The cast went through many changes
with familiar faces popping up now and then. Kevin Bacon was in the first film
and one of the aborted pilots. Fred Ward was in the first two films. Ariana Richards
and Tony Genaro were in the first and third. Reba McEntire and Victor Wong were
in the first film. Jamie Kennedy joined the franchise for the fifth and sixth
film entries, while Dean Norris, Nicholas Turturro, and Christopher Lloyd
showed up in the one season television show. The constant through all the
movies and the television show is Michael Gross.
With the evolution of the franchise from theatrical to
direct-to-video to television and back to direct-to-video, there was also an
evolution in the monsters that were wreaking havoc throughout Perfection and,
in the case of the second movie, Mexico. They started off as giant worm-like
creatures called graboids that dug through the ground and burst out to eat
people. Their primary sense was though vibrations. If they could feel a
vibration, they went after it. If they heard anything, they attacked. In Tremors
2: Aftershocks, the creatures evolved into two-legged giant head things
that could sense heat. They couldn’t hear anymore, but they could track people
by their body heat. They could also reproduce asexually by eating. Tremors
3: Back to Perfection evolved them once again into winged heat-seeking
two-legged creatures that could fly by shooting fire out their butts.
Following the third film, a television series picked up the
story for a single season. Many of the characters who survived the third film
returned for the series, though some of them had new actors in the roles. Then
came a prequel the year after the series. The prequel showed that graboids had
been in Perfection for much longer than people thought. The fifth and sixth
films in the franchise came out in 2015 and 2018. They had Burt, the only
character to be in all of the films and the television show (minus the prequel,
which featured the ancestor of Burt instead of Burt), teaming up with his long
lost son.
The Tremors franchise has a special place in my heart
because I grew up on the first three films. The first film came out the year I
was born. The second film, which evolved the graboids into shriekers, came out
when I was five. I had evolved from a baby into a school-going child. The third
one came out when I was eleven. The shriekers had now turned into ass blasters,
and I was about to hit puberty, if I hadn’t already. Then the series came out
and the prequel was released when I was fourteen, and I fell off the franchise.
I can’t remember if I ever actually watched the prequel. Either way, I was now
in my teen years. It was a transitional part of my life, just like it became a
transitional part of the franchise’s life. It had no direction for eleven
years. I had barely any direction through high school, three years of
university before dropping out, and the few years I worked a full-time minimum
wage job. Then the franchise came back when I was 25 and had decided to go back
to school and put my life on track. I was soft rebooting my future, while
Universal was soft rebooting Tremors.
That connection might seem forced. I just tied the entire
franchise into my life through checkpoints. In reality, I grew up on the first
three films and watched them countless times. Of course, I saw the first more
than the second or third. It was released eleven years before the third and was
much more popular because it was theatrically released. The direct-to-video
market was not respected at all back in the day. Anything that wasn’t released
in theaters was seen as subpar. It usually was. The standard of quality on
direct-to-video releases wasn’t a high bar until more recent years. The change
in potential film outlets might be the cause of that. Netflix, Redbox, Hulu,
Amazon, and all the other new ways to access movies has vastly changed the
landscape and forced people to try and bring a higher quality.
Over the eleven years between the prequel and the fifth
film, the landscape for direct-to-video product had changed. People have
started to come around on movies being put directly into the video market. Trick
‘R Treat earned a huge fanbase when it was released on DVD. WWE Studios has
been putting out sequels to The Marine that have gotten some mild
acclaim. The Scooby-Doo animated films are as strong as ever and they’re
each premiering on home video. There’s a whole world of Marvel and DC animated
films retelling many stories from the comics. Plus, there are plenty of low
budget action flicks starring the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph
Lundgren, Steve Austin, Scott Adkins, and Steven Seagal out there for people to
eat up. The direct-to-video market was seen as a wasteland, but now it’s an
outlet for the lower budget work that doesn’t tend to make it to the big
screen.
And that’s probably part of the reason that Universal wanted
to bring the franchise back with the fifth and sixth installments. I haven’t
seen those, so I can’t say too much about them. What I can say, however, is
that people have been revisiting the second and third Tremors films and
finding fun in them. Now that the direct-to-video market has grown into a
semi-respected branch of film release, people are reassessing some of what came
out before, I’d say, around 2007 when more effort started being put into the
movies. That and the rise of streaming services from each studio. Universal
needs to bulk up on their catalogue to compete. Reviving the Tremors
franchise brings in a built-in audience.
Those first three films are something special to me, though.
The first one was one of those horror movies that my parents would let me watch
because it wasn’t particularly scary. It had people being eaten by graboids and
it had some bad language, but in the end, it was on the lighter side of horror
movies. It helped usher me into the horror world alongside kids shows like Freaky
Stories, Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Tales
from the Cryptkeeper. Tremors 2: Aftershocks was one of those movies
that I remember watching on TBS back when it was called TBS Superstation. I’m
not sure if it actually played on that channel or if I’m just placing TBS over
another channel in my memories. The third one was a movie I watched repeatedly
when we had (illegally free) pay per view channels. They were all a part of my
childhood for good chunks of time.
Everyone has a franchise or two or three that they’re
attached to. Sometimes they have even more. Tremors is one of many for
me, and one that likely wouldn’t be the first one that anyone would think to
mention. It’s still a franchise, though, and it’s been around for twenty-nine
years. It doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon, either. There’s
another sequel on the horizon. The only question is when it will come out.
Studios will keep making franchises knowing that they
connect with people. There’s something about familiarity that people enjoy.
They want comfort food and going back to a franchise that they know gives them
that comfort. That’s why reboots, remakes, and sequels are all over the place.
There’s a built in fanbase. That fanbase is attached to the franchise. They’ll
stick with the franchise through thick and thin. That’s the magic of franchise
filmmaking and the magic of film in general.
Now let’s take a look at the magic of these notes:
- Michael Gross has become the face of the Tremors franchise. He appeared in all of the films. But the first three Tremors movies aren’t the only Sunday “Bad” Movies to feature him. He was in Cool as Ice (week 348) as well.
- Robert Jayne was in Tremors and Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. He had previously made an appearance in Iron Eagle (week 90).
- Ariana Richards was also in Tremors and Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. A few months back, she made an appearance in Battledogs (week 346).
- Tremors II: Aftershocks was the third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance of Marcelo Tubert. His other two appearances were Alex Cross (week 12) and The Marine 3: Homefront (week 30).
- Tom Woodruff Jr. returned from Mortal Kombat (week 140) to show up in Tremors.
- Sunshine Parker made his second appearance in Tremors after having a role in Road House (week 200).
- Fred Ward was the only actor to appear in Tremors and Tremors II: Aftershocks before bowing out of the franchise.
- A few people were in Tremors and Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. They were Tony Genaro, John Pappas, and Charlotte Stewart.
- Have you seen any of the Tremors movies? What do you think of them? Were the first two direct-to-video sequels kind of fun? Are there other franchises you have an attachment to? Let me know about this stuff in the comments or on Twitter.
- The comments and Twitter are also a good place to tell me about the movies I should be checking out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments. I’m open to suggestions. They help with the variety in the blog.
- There’s a Sunday “Bad” Movies account on Instagram. There hasn’t been too much in the past week on that account, only because I’ve been busy with a film festival. It’ll pick up again soon.
- Now onto the next post. To finish of the Halloween season, I decided to go back to one of those classic cult movies from the 1980s. I tend to do that a lot. Last year, I went with Chopping Mall, a movie that I love, but is completely a B-Movie. This year, I’m going that route again. The next post will be about something related to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Come on back soon to find out what I wrote.
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