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Tremors 2: Aftershocks




Tremors 2: Aftershocks
Monster Horror Comedy / English / 1996

WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Been sitting in my backlog. Time for RRRRReassessment time!

WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Ostriches, Deer, someother taxidermied thing.

"I FEEL I was DENIED some CRITICAL NEED-TO-KNOW INFORMATION."

Once again the redneck saves the day as we return to the graboid dilemma, except this time the movie basically assumes you've seen the first one, understand the basic concept, and essentially writes off hunting graboids shortly into it as a relatively easy way to make money up until the series makes it's Aliens-style sequel-justifying deviation; the graboids are merely a larval form from which approximately 3 smaller monsters hereby referred to as "shriekers" are born from.

Shriekers, being that they are much smaller than the monster they came from are a pretty anticlimactic step up, but I can appreciate the deliberate lampshade they hang on the moment of reveal, if anything to drive home the confusion of the situation. It would seem, provided the later movies, that the graboids develop new (or just previously unknown) developmental stages in response to their environment. I can appreciate this as a rationalization for sequels (as everything after Aliens was pretty much a rehash), but I do feel the shiekers are pretty dull monsters.

They at least retain a gimmick to them, here being that they can sense heat, which, putting them a couple feet above the ground, allows them to deal with humans who may otherwise be safe from regular graboids, although this eventually returns to people just climbing out of the way again to high ground.

The story itself is pretty predictable (especially romance-wise, take a long hard look at them thar denim ass), and the return of Earl's character (in the absence of Kevin Bacon) plays second fiddle to Burt's character, who also returns as the humdinger of a paranoid redneck ol' huntin' man. He's definitely the highlight of the cast, but apart from standing out he's doesn't seem unnatural among the rest, everyone pull their weight here.



There's not all too much to say about this movie. The first half of it is really just refamiliarizing with the predicaments of the movie before it, and the second half is really just the first half of every other monster movie, that is the attempt to slow burn reveal the monster, dripfeed the characters' it's apparent strengths and weaknesses, and eventually finagle everyone into a narrative position to foil it. Not much beyond that other than the occasional bad CG (but most of the time, the practical effects are pretty solid).

I enjoyed it for what it's worth, but I think the original got more creative with it's central gimmick.


Final Verdict:
[Pretty Good]