Movie Review: Tremors 5

‘The giant, man-eating Graboids are back and even deadlier than before, terrorizing the inhabitants of a South African wildlife reserve as they attack from below-and above.’

We are now 25 years later since the original Tremors starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward was released and the fourth sequel to the franchise is released. Now the only person from the original movie left through most of these is Michael Gross (Family Ties). Still playing the gun toting maniac Burt Gummer after all this time and now has made it his life’s mission to eradicate the world of graboids and their ilk.

I seem to recall seeing the first 2 Tremors flicks and I knew there were a couple more I honestly couldn’t tell you if I remember watching the third or fourth installment and if I did that I completed watching them.  I figured I have watched a lot of horrible movies in my day such as the reboot of TMNT how bad could this one really be?  Jamie Kennedy does make an appearance in this sequel so there is some possibility of some laughs right? (Hey I can make mistakes now and then also you know!)

The movie starts out with an infomercial for a show about Burt as a survivalist in New Mexico and talks about the different graboids and forms they come in and how their circle of life happens.  Travis Welker (Kennedy) comes in and replaces Burt’s videographer and he attempts to improve the Gummer brand and online appearance as well.  It jumps to 2 men on a safari in Africa when they encounter one of the forms of the graboids which leads to a man coming to the U.S. to hire Burt and crew to take the graboids alive (unknown to Burt at the time)  There is a small African community that comes under attack as well due to a nest of eggs which are taken out by Travis and Burt but find out that the graboids in Africa are more evolved than the U.S.-based variety but manage to take it down and save the African community in time.  During the final events Burt also learns that Travis is actually his son (Hmmm gee I guess that was the idea of the Bloodlines in the title… Not too obvious)

This movie is using the same types of creatures from 4 previous movies and with a slight twist.  How surprised can’t we get or how excited can we get about this now?  Not very much at all.  You have to have some comedic milestones to have this movie be tolerable.  Even if you were to bring back the original cast with Bacon and Ward it would be enough with their chemistry.  The first film had its own comedy elements to it but it wasn’t not stop laughter.  I may have chuckled a couple of times but I was clock watching this one after about 30 minutes for the remaining hour or so of the movie until it was over.

I am wondering how on earth they managed to get 5 movies out of this franchise in the first place.  I think the first is one of those classic movies that everyone should watch at some point and just leave it at that.  It never made a tonne of money ($16 million in 1990) but yet managed to spawn 4 sequels and a very short lived TV series also.  Someone really had a hard-on for this franchise and who is Michael Gross to turn down a paycheck at this point?

Would I recommend this flick? Not at all. Unless you are a completionist and have seen the other four Tremors movies then of course you must see the fifth installment as well. That will happen like negative one time. Yes I said negative one time. Just deal with that alright. Don’t buy this, don’t rent this, don’t waste your time on this. Just think of me doing you a favor by watching this from beginning to end and taking up my time and then spending more time than I probably should reviewing it and telling you not to watch it. Here is a recommendation go pick up a copy of Dead Hooker In A Trunk and watch that instead. Support some independent Canadian filmmakers!

1.5 Beards out of 5

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