Slashing The Seats

Tremors is a movie that your mind hides from you. You’ll forget about it for years at a time, but on a rainy sunday it’ll be on ITV2 and you’ll find yourself watching the whole thing, looking it up on IMDB and considering buying the box set of all the movies. Yes – there are four. A series and a fifth movie are planned.

Kevin Bacon is pretty cool and strangely likable (for Kevin Bacon) and Fred Ward provides a gruff comic foil, but the best thing about Tremors (apart from the brilliantly named Graboids) is one Burt Gummer, played by the higly underrated Michael Gross.

He’s a strange oxymoron – a lovable survivalist gun-nut. He lives with his equally militant wife in a fortress / bunker / house along with one of the most impressive gun-racks seen in modern movies. He is permanently expecting a Soviet attack, but had not prepared for the possibility of giant prehistoric worms smashing through his basement wall.

When this moment does arrive, it’s one of the most enjoyable scenes in modern movies as the Graboid gets more than it bargained for. Burt and Mrs Burt pump round after round into the prone monster with a variety of weaponry. It’s great to watch, as the Gummers are clearly enjoying the chance to use their stockpile and are completely unfazed by the situation. Total professionalism in the face of a big ugly snake-worm-mole-thing.

Essentially, he’s the ideal ‘fun uncle’. What kid wouldn’t want to spend the summer holiday with an amiable survivalist, his wife and a vast collection of guns?

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