Tremors: Shrieker Island Movie Review
Nathan Swank
October 20th, 2020
In 1990 the world was blessed with TREMORS, perhaps the greatest horror/comedy that teeters the B-movie line of all time. Starring Kevin Costner, Fred Ward, and Michael Gross, TREMORS has grown into a cult classic favorite. I have always loved the Jaws-esque fun scares and the absolute goofiness of the characters and their remote town scenari
In fact, I would say I love TREMORS so much that I’ve endured all seven installments just to get a hint of that fun from the original. Because of this love, I once again put myself through the trenches of another smelly Graboid hole for TREMORS: SHRIEKER ISLAND… (sigh).
If you are unfamiliar, Graboids are giant underground worm like monsters that will find and eat you base on the vibrations you make walking on the ground. Sometimes they mutate internally into a few Shriekers that can walk on the ground and make loud noised to cripple their prey before devouring them. TREMORS: SHRIEKER ISLAND, I assume, spends all of its budget on Michael Gross’ returning character Burt, who has become quite the famous hunter of these legendary Graboids. And Gross is over-the-top fantastic as always, ultimately making this the character he is most known for, even over being the dad in the Michael J. Fox 80’s TV series Family Ties. But SHRIEKER ISLAND barely peaks at the creature and outside of a couple of scenes, doesn’t even try to pretend the monsters are nearby. Shouldn’t everyone be terrified of being on the ground? Apparently it’s not near as big a deal.
In the most recent installment Jamie Kennedy has been dropped for NAPOLEON DYNAMITE’s Jon Hader. I’m not sure why this choice was made. Perhaps Kennedy turned it down. Unlike other film’s the TREMORS franchise is oddly careful about explaining why past characters are missing. But for being a horror comedy. The comedy just isn’t enough and the horror is minimal.
The thing is, there is potential here. This time a rich man owns a couple of islands – one with a research crew and one that he uses as an exotic animal hunting ground. The mix of a PREDATOR style, machine gun wielding hunters trapped on an island attempting to use the monsters as sport is very exciting. Unfortunately the series keeps squandering nearly every over-the-top absurd opportunity when they actually have interesting funny premises. The “Shrieker Island” scene is about the only time where the film has more fun with EVIL DEAD type gory fun. But it lasts about 5 minutes.
I’m sure we will get more TREMORS movies as the Graboid monster, ironically, has a lot of legs, perhaps for people like me who continue to keep hope alive for something as close to fun as the original… maybe one day.
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