I am a huge Tremors fan since the first film, up to and including the television series. So I was somewhat hyped about Tremors 5: Bloodlines, especially given that in a time when demons and ghosts are all the rage, it’s nice to get some B-movie monster cheese. But, you may ask, how does one breathe new life into this dead horse? Going into space? Found footage?? Tremors in the ‘hood? (I’d so watch that.) For better or worse, Tremors 5 isn’t quite so cheesy.
I guess I should cover the story. A slightly older looking Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) is making a living starring in his own survival show, the intro for which also serves to tell all the new people about graboids and their Pokemon-like evolutionary line. In the video Burt makes a point of saying how he has kept the graboids confined to the northern hemisphere. It is here I should point out this movie overly telegraphs EVERYTHING. So even knowing nothing about the movie, I knew it was taking place outside of Nevada.
Burt meets his new cameraman, Travis (Jamie Kennedy), who will be filling the annoying sidekick role in this instalment. On the annoying sidekick scale I put him above Grady from Tremors 2: Aftershocks, but below Jack from Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. Naturally no one comes close to Kevin Bacon.
He’s a tool, but at least he has a character, unlike the supporting cast, all of whom are probably racist stereotypes against African people white and black. And of course it’s not enough to have monsters, you got to have a human villain Erick Van Wyk (a name that no doubt makes Victor Von Doom jealous) played by Danial Janks. At least that’s what IMDB says, so that’s probably not his name at all. Would not surprise me.
Remember what I said about telegraphing things? Let me ask this; is there ever, ever, a guy in a monster movie that wants to catch the monster, that isn’t a total douchebag? It’s like being the mayor of a coastal town having shark attacks. You’re gonna be a douche, and you’re going to be at odds with the sheriff, the corrupt mayors natural enemy.
Now thankfully this isn’t just a gimmick sequel. The monsters do get updated, and look less like Jim Henson creations. The Ass Blasters (*sigh* I hate that name) look less like goofy birds, and more like monsters. And now they actually fly instead of blasting off and gliding, making them a good deal more badass. The Graboids are also upgraded, and get some fun new attacks, which brings us to some plot holes, cause segue.
It’s not enough to make them a separate species branch, they also need to be a mutated side branch. Couldn’t we have them experimented on by an evil corporation as well? I mean, this is Africa, let’s keep the Resident Evil parallels to a minimum thank you very much. What I’m not okay with is why the eggs suddenly started to hatch in Africa. This was actually explained in either Tremors 3, or Tremors the series. The excuse that this is a hatching period does not apply because Tremors 5 takes place fourteen years after 3. How freaking long do hatching periods last?
There is scene where Burt doesn’t trust Travis, and I would have loved it if Travis had been in truck with the bad guy, but the moment goes nowhere. I guess it was the conclusion of the Travis-is-useless-but-now-Burt-is-cool story arc.
And while we never get a reason why the monsters are mutated, or suddenly hatching from fossilized eggs, we do get why they are attacking the human settlement is being attacked. You may want to sit down for this one. It’s because a little girl at the settlement has an egg, and the Graboids want it back. Well someone saw Jurassic Park 3. There’s also a sub-sub-subplot about Travis being Burt’s son.
Oh, I get the subtitle now. Because Hiram Gummer started the fight with graboid’s, then Burt continued, and now he has a son.
Such clever.
If it seems like I skipped a lot of the movie, I really didn’t. If you have seen the Tremors movies, you know what to expect. Desperate people with dwindling resources versus underground monsters. I wasn’t expecting them to try and bring back the horror, but I was disappointed the monsters didn’t evolve ways around the human attacks, which is as much a series staple as the douche sidekick.
This is a fairly solid entry overall, though. If you loved the first two movies, you will probably enjoy this one.