I originally saw Tremors (1990, directed by Ron Underwood) when it was in theaters and then never afterwards. I may have seen bits of it when it was on television, but I don't remember ever sitting down to watch the whole thing in the thirty-five years since. I remember renting the hell out of it when I was running a video store, which was maybe a sign that it should be in the rotation for Halloween. It was popular. It's still popular if the response to me watching it on social media is any indication. One of my friends calls it a masterpiece. Another claims that it's the anti-A24 horror movie. I can see that. The monsters in Tremors are purely the embodiment of a hostile universe, and not some metaphor for trauma or grief or whatever other literary therapy themes art horror likes to weave into their metaphors these days. Moreover, Tremors is antithetical to the middlebrow horror of our own age in which the nuclear family under threat is the ultimate horror bogey. The graboids in Tremors are none of that. They hearken to an older storytelling tradition, when our ancestors gathered around the campfire to hear stories of mighty heroes slaying monsters. Admittedly, we don't really have "mighty heroes" in this movie, but Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward as our two protagonists will do in a pinch. Tremors is old fashioned in another way, too: it's nothing but fun.
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