TREMORS 4: THE LEGEND BEGINS (2004)

The storyline from Part 3 continued on into the TV series, so Part 4 instead tells about how the Graboids first showed up in Perfection Valley way back in ye olde 1889. Water from a hot spring hatches some old Graboid eggs that have been sitting there for Satan only knows how long.  The new baby Graboids kill 17 miners that are working nearby.  The mine is now effectively closed, so the owner, Hiram Gummer (Michael Gross), travels from Philadelphia to personally see what the hell is going on.  What he finds is a dying town.  Everybody has hightailed it and there's only a small handful of people left.  People that suspiciously look like they could be the distant relatives of the characters from Part 1.

City-slicker Gummer isn't accustomed to the frontier life, but he goes to investigate the silver mine anyway and finds it infested with Graboids! Barely making it back to town alive, he hires the help of a bounty hunter and even buys a wagon full of guns.  He quickly discovers that he really, really likes guns.

I like TREMORS 4. The budget is respectable, there's less CGI than in Part 3 and the awesome full-grown adult animatronic Graboids are back. I also liked the story and enjoyed seeing the origins of Perfection.  The transformation of Gummer from city boy to rough, gun-toting outdoorsman was silly, but funny.  If you like the TREMORS series then this film is a must watch.

Part 1 - Tremors (1990)
Part 2 - Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996)
Part 3 - Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)
Part 5 - Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)
Part 6 - Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)

Part 7 - Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)

TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION (2001)

After his adventures down south, Burt Gummer returns to Perfection, Nevada for a little peace and quite. He doesn't get any because on his second day back, there's a Graboid attack. But that's not the worst of it, because now, there's a third type of Graboid: the flying Ass Blasters who fly around powered by their own farts! Much like Mary Poppins.  That umbrella was just a diversion.

TREMORS 3 is kinda weird as far as sequels go. Not only was the story better than the one from the second movie, but it had even more returning cast members from the original film than the second one did. Six as my counting goes (Yes, I'm counting the actor who played government agent who was a road crew worker in the first film). That said, while it is a fun film, it's nothing mind blowing and you can tell the budget was very low.

Good acting, nice pace, fun characters, well thought out story, world's fastest microwave, dated special effects, interesting Graboid life cycle facts, satisfying ending that was continued in the short-lived TV show.  Definitely worth a watch for Tremors fans.

Part 1 - Tremors (1990)
Part 2 - Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996)
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)

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)