REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS (1985)

New York City cop Fred Ward is murdered while on duty and then unmurdered by a secret government agency. He’s given a new face and then shacked up with a crazy dude who beats the crap out of him 24/7, compares him to a clubbed-footed baboon and shoots a gun at him while he does chores. Somehow this eventually trains him to be a badass or something. I don’t know.

True story: I remember being a little girl and excitedly getting my mom to rent REMO WILLIAMS for me when it was still a new release at the video store.  Then later that evening after watching it, I stood up and passionately cried out with the intensity of 1,000 pregnant yaks all giving birth at once, “I hereby declare this movie to be hella unslay!” That was around 1986 and I still stand by that statement.

Medium paced story that never really goes anywhere, boring action scenes, average acting, zero gore, zero nudity, zero blood, zero cheerleaders, corny comedy bullshit that’s not even close to being funny, impressive cast full of familiar faces. I’m sure the filmmakers had their hearts in the right place, but it’s just a dull movie.

TREMORS 2: AFTERSHOCKS (1996)

Good news: the Graboids are back! Bad news: they only brought along a budget of $4M (the original, 6 years earlier was $11M) and Kevin Bacon is nowhere to be found.  That sucks.

An oil company down in Mexico has a Graboid problem, so they hire Burt Ward, Michael Gross and their new dingleberry assistant/ Andrew Dice Clay impersonator Grady to hunt them down. Thanks to a bunch of heavy firepower, things start off promising enough, but then the worms start mutating into a smaller and more agile land walker that looks like a Chicken McNugget with legs.  After that, things kinda just meander off. Also, the new Graboid mutation don't hunt by vibration, instead they use a heat sensor (much like Predator).

Fun movie, but nothing stands out as being particularly badass. It would have been more fun with a bigger budget, zero crew sightings (instead of, at least, three!), a completely different script and Kevin Bacon still onboard, but you can't have everything. So instead, let's just enjoy it for what it is and be thankful they made a sequel that didn't piss all over the original.

Part 1 - Tremors (1990)

Part 3 - Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)

Part 4 (prequel) - Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)

Part 5 - Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)

Part 6 - Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)

Part 7 - Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)