Hey you! Yes you! Do you want more Graboids? Well you’re getting more Graboids courtesy of 1996’s almost entirely direct-to-video sequel – Tremors 2: Aftershocks. The boys are back in town! Well, two of them are, at any rate. Kevin Bacon was off doing some little film you’ve probably never heard of.
What was it again? Oh yeah, Apollo 13 and that, sadly, is what led to this movie being sent straight to the shelves of your local video store. The studio didn’t have faith that audiences would return without the star power of Kevin Bacon (who played Val) or Reba McEntire (who played Heather Gummer), leading to the budget being slashed to barely a quarter of what it had been.
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Tremors 2 picks up some unspecified number of years after the first film. Val is off being happily married and Earl (Fred Ward) has spent all the money he made as a celebrity. He lives in a trailer, trying unsuccessfully to raise ostriches, when there’s a knock at his door in the form of a gentleman by the name of Carlos Ortega (Marcelo Tubert) who finds himself in need of a Graboid expert to stop the creatures eating the workers at his oil field. Initially uninterested, the offer of $50,000 per dead Graboid encourages him to take up the offer.
Earl heads to Mexico, accompanied by new partner and gushing fanboy Grady Hoover (Christopher Gartin). The pair initially make good progress against the local Graboid population until they come to the conclusion that they’re outnumbered and need more firepower.
And who else could they call but Perfection’s resident prepper and gun nut, Burt Gummer (played by Michael Goss, who is the only cast member to show up in every one of the Tremors films). But is even Burt’s firepower going to be enough for what’s waiting for them out in the oil fields? Graboids are smart critters, after all, and maybe they’ve got some new tricks in store for the so-called Graboid hunters.
Despite being a direct-to-video effort, Tremors 2 holds up well, some rather suspect CGI aside, and the story is both fast-paced and entertaining, with Chris Gartin settling into Kevin Bacon’s shoes quite well, even if he’s a little insufferable to begin with, though that is the point of his character. It’s a shame to think about what could have been if we’d had a sequel with a proper budget, but the filmmakers still do their best with what they’re given.
The film is now available in a shiny new UHD or Blu-ray from the fine folks at Arrow Video, sporting a spiffing new director-approved 4K restoration. Some previous releases featured exactly zero special features, but that’s not a problem here as we’ve got not one but two new commentary tracks. One with director S.S. Wilson and producer Nancy Roberts, and another with Jonathan Melville, who wrote Seeking Perfection: The Unofficial Guide to Tremors.
There’s also two new interviews: ‘Critical Need-to-Know Information’ with the legend that is Phil Tippett, and ‘Graboid Go Boom’ with special effects designer Peter Chesney. Add to that the usual smorgasbord of outtakes, trailers, images, and a behind-the-scenes featurette, and you’ve got pretty much all the background information you could want.
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These Limited Edition releases also come with a booklet that talks about other versions of the Tremors 2 script, a double-sided poster of the new case art, and a little poster showing off the anatomy of the Shriekers. All in all this is a lovely release for a movie that, it could be argued, deserved better than it got. Now it has another chance to find the fanbase it should have had all along.
Tremors 2: Aftershocks is out now on Limited Edition 4K UHD and Limited Edition Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
