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Remember This Scene: 'Tremors'

Jeremy Fuster |
October 21, 2014 | 10:39 a.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Though it has fallen back to cult status, "Tremors" remains the gold standard of horror-comedy. (Universal)
Though it has fallen back to cult status, "Tremors" remains the gold standard of horror-comedy. (Universal)
Every Tuesday, Jeremy Fuster analyzes a critical scene from a popular film. Join him every week as he delves into what exactly makes these critical scenes so memorable and successful.

There's a movie debate I love having every year around Halloween: what is the best horror-comedy film?

Horror-comedy -- or HC for short -- is one of my favorite genres of film and usually gets more plays on my Netflix account than straight horror flicks. This is because the best HC films work a delicate balance, creating a danger that has to actually be scary while keeping the reactions to said danger light and hilarious. Take "Shaun of the Dead" for instance. The protagonists are trapped, some machine is making noise that is attracting a horde of zombies to kill them, and one of them just broke in. Now make the machine a Queen-playing jukebox and the protagonists' only weapons some pool cues, darts, and a fire extinguisher. BANG. A deadly threat is answered in funny fashion and you've got a scene that has become synonymous with Simon Pegg's career.

But "Shaun Of The Dead" isn't my pick for best HC ever. There's a film that came 14 years earlier, one that perfected the balance of laughs and frights and became known for both elements rather than just one over the other: "Tremors."

In my personal experience, this film isn't usually brought up in discussions of the HC genre. Usually the conversation goes to the aforementioned "Shaun," Sam Raimi's black comedy films like "Evil Dead 2" or "Drag Me To Hell," or Joss Whedon's super-meta satires like "Scream" or "Cabin In The Woods." "Tremors," meanwhile, seems to have been forgotten outside of its cult fan base, and that's quite a shame because it does things that few films before or since have done.

While Whedon and Raimi rely on dark humor and satire, "Tremors" commits itself to making a cast that is vibrant, mixes well, and fun to watch. While a great deal of horror films start off with a tease of the frights to come, "Tremors" spends the first 15 minutes or so showing who the characters are and making each one feel vital to the story, regardless of whether they live or die. There's the buddy protagonists, the nutty gun enthusiast, the visiting college student, the jackass teenager, among several others. The film just takes the time to show each member of this little nowhere town go about their day and interact with each other, and these relationships become the basis for some great jokes once things start going horribly wrong. 

READ MORE: Remember This Scene: 'Saw'

And BOY, does it go wrong, as people are found dead around town in mysterious ways. A face buried in the sand, a man dehydrated to death up in an electric pylon, and a snake like creature found underneath a truck are among the first signs of the deadly graboids terrorizing the town. Again, the introduction of the graboids becomes vital to the film's balance of horror and comedy. The graboids are as creepy as the protagonists are funny and likable. Every time the graboids manage to kill someone in the town, it's just as twisted and frightening as any such scene in a normal creature feature.

"Tremors" forms a conflict between man and abomination, each side embodying one half of the film's hybrid tone. Combined, they clash beautifully in a struggle for survival that, unlike a lot of horror films, actually feels like a battle of wits. The townsfolk aren't just a bunch of dopes who do all the things audience scream at the screen not to do, nor are they just interchangeable meat sacks whose only defining trait is their destiny to be victims of a gruesome death to shock the audience (looking at you, "Final Destination"). No, this cast is smarter than that, making them more sympathetic to the audience. Bit by bit, they learn about the graboids' capabilities and potential weakness and create a series of ingenious plans to outsmart the monsters. The graboids, however, aren't dumb, either. More than once, they shatter the humans' sense of security by setting up traps, destroying their defense, and getting wise to their strategies. It's such a thrill watching each side one-up each other and escalate the tension right up to the climax.

There are so many scenes I can pick that demonstrate this conflict, but let's go with probably the most beloved scene of them all, the rec room scene. Here, we have Burt and Heather Grummer (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire), a pair of survival nuts who have armed themselves for any potential apocalypse. Their paranoia towards the government and their obsession with guns makes them the butt of jokes around town…until the graboids come. That's when Burt and Heather whip out their firepower and go to work.

This scene is set up so brilliantly. At first, it looks like the Grummers are just going to be the usual horror victims, doing the one thing that the audience knows they shouldn't do and drawing the wrath of a threat too big for them to face. Of course, once that gun wall comes into view, it's pretty clear that it's the graboids who should be scared, as Burt and Heather strike back with great vengeance and furious use of their Second Amendment rights. Seeing a protagonist just outright kick the monster's ass is something that just isn't seen often in horror films, and it made Burt the de facto star of "Tremors" as he returned for all the film's sequels and a short-lived TV series.

READ MORE: Remember This Scene: Groot And 'The Iron Giant'

But beyond establishing the film's legacy, this scene is also incredibly well shot. The graboid in this scene is a hand puppet in a miniature set filmed separately from the shots of Burt and Heather pumping lead. The beautiful design of these puppets shows the kind of special effects work being done in the final years of pre-CGI filmmaking. Check out this video of the Graboids being created by SFX studio Amalgamated Dynamics and then go back to the rec room scene. There is only one shot where Burt and the graboid are in the frame together, and that scene is done through video projection. The rest is just smart editing that patches the miniature filming with the studio filming in a seamless fashion. This is B-movie film making at its finest, using its lower budget to make a scene that's just as thrilling as any blockbuster.

Just one question: all that gunfire in that closed space should have destroyed their eardrums, right?

Find other "Remember This Scene?" posts here.

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