Shaking Grounds

For some reason, I've amassed quite a number of great films to watch but for the past few months I've been watching only crappy films or stuff that lets your mind wander while you're watching. I guess I picked this up when I was trying to reduce my VHS collection (still way too much).

You see, for years I was into trading and all that stuff so basically what that means is you get a shit load of films for nothing, all of them rare as hell (mostly eurotrash) so you have a tendancy to archive everything just in case you might want to see them again at some point. Seems like a good thing when you start, but after a couple of years, you're crying your eyes out to find more room for all that shit. You wish you could travel light. And then, DVD hit.

The buying frenzy began, replacing a lot of great films from VHS to DVD and more room was created both in your house and in your wallet. Not to mention a lot of the rare as hell stuff was now coming out on DVD and available anywhere in great quality which is really nice. Except for the fact that non-connoisseur and people not open to general cinema now had an opinion on this unusual stuff, basically saying that it is crap compared to the films of today and stuff like that.... well fuck you too. Widely available........... That means everybody's getting an opinion and not necessarily an open one.

Anyway, so it seems that while trying to get rid of VHS, I picked up the habit of trying to watch every crappy movie I had to get rid of them. And that habit stuck for some reason. Hopefully, I'll get nourished back to health some day.

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This past week, I watched the whole franchise of TREMORS which a friend lent me. What a way to present myself and my tastes on this blog. I guess you'll discover by yourself that I'm very eclectic in my choice of movies. And now, with the aforementioned addiction, I preferred watching those just in case I might fall asleep while watching them after a hard day at work. If you don't know what these movies are, it's about these creatures (like big worms) that live underground and pop up to eat people and terrorise a little town called Perfection in Nevada. So here's a quick view of 'em all (4 total)....

TREMORS (1990, Ron Underwood)
I always enjoyed this one, maybe because I watched it when I was at a young age and it still aged pretty good. It has its cheesy moments all done in a 50s invasion monster/sci-fi way which always works out with the comedy in there. Tongue-in-cheek, this stuff is quite entertaining. Fun to see a redneck Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward team which have quite a good chemistry together. Michael Gross as Burt Gummer is also a hoot and he's basically the character that endures throughout the whole franchise, Bacon never to set foot in the series again after this one. This one is all in good fun.

TREMORS 2 : AFTERSHOCKS (1996, S.S. Wilson)
Here, we pick up a couple of years after the events of the first one where we see Ward has been fucked over money-wise and still has a recluse existence in the middle of nowhere which suits him quite well. Of course the graboids (that's what the big worms are called) are back and Ward gets an offer he can't refuse to go hunt the damn things. So here we go for another round with Michael Gross poping up to get things more entertaining and less cheesy. You see, he's a gun freak and always fun to watch. The big worms have evolved which brings in a new challenge for our heros.... This second installment is also fun, much less than the first one of course, but what do you expect from a sequel ?! A nice time-waster.

TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION (2001, Brent Maddock)
Now we're falling into usual straight-to-video territory where our gun-freak is back to kill off more of these things which have evolved once again. This one has its moments but none of the characters are really that interesting and we wish most of them would get eaten. Kudos to the creators for bringing in most of the actors that consisted of the secondary characters in the first one, we see what they're up to now. With this one, everybody thought the series was finished 'cause, well, how long can you keep people being entertained with giant worms that evolve into new creatures ? The way to get out of this mess is always a prequel.....

TREMORS 4: THE LEGEND BEGINS (2004, S.S. Wilson)
Guess what ?! A prequel in 1889 !!! Damn. Of course, they brought in Michael Gross to play the first Gummer to come to Perfection so we have a british dude that will develop an affinity for guns. Has some fun moments, but mostly bores you except for Billy Drago who plays a fun hired gunman but he gets eaten up quite fast. Other than that the cheese factor is up and the creature factor is down which isn't necessarily a bad thing since we all know these worms after three movies but try entertaining an audience with boring characters in 1889.... And that's the end of the franchise for now.

Hopefully, I'll attack some other kind of films in the next few days..... Buko-san out.