50 Fun Facts About Tremors

Which country music star made her acting debut in Tremors as survivalist Heather Gummer?

Reba McEntire postponed her honeymoon until the shoot was over. She kept touring on weekends, taking two flights and a drive to reach the desert set for early call times.

Which actor plays Val McKee in Tremors, a role he at first saw as a low point in his career?

Kevin Bacon changed his mind about the film. He later called it the only one of his movies he wanted to revisit, and the only one he had watched again.

In Tremors, what are the giant worm-like monsters that tunnel beneath the desert town called?

Graboids got a name on screen but never an origin. The writers left it unexplained because the usual science-fiction answers felt too familiar.

In Tremors, what do the giant underground worms sense in order to hunt people on the surface?

Vibrations in the soil give away every footstep, which is why the survivors spend much of the film stranded on boulders and rooftops.

The gooey innards of the exploded monsters in Tremors were made partly from which canned food?

Pumpkin from a can gave the splattered monster guts their orange colour. The creature heads themselves were foam latex skins over fiberglass jaws.

Ariana Richards, young Mindy in Tremors, later played a lead child role in which 1993 blockbuster?

Jurassic Park cast her as Lex Murphy, a role she briefly reprised in The Lost World. She also returned as Mindy in the third Tremors film.

In Tremors, what is the ironic name of the tiny desert town where the monsters attack?

Perfection was a full set built in the California desert over two months, with a market, a paved street, telephone poles and a horse corral.

Which actor began playing Burt Gummer in Tremors one day after his long-running sitcom ended?

Michael Gross went straight from Family Ties to the desert, and the part outlasted the sitcom. He played Burt for 30 years and is the only actor in every film and the TV series.

The first cut of Tremors was rated R for which reason, before edits brought it down to PG-13?

Strong language, not monster gore, earned the R. The filmmakers trimmed the swearing until the film qualified for a PG-13.

In Tremors, how do Val, Earl and Rhonda move between boulders without touching the ground?

Pole vaulting with discarded poles gets the trio from rock to rock and finally to Rhonda's truck. The director asked for a more uplifting music cue for the scene.

In Tremors, what do Val McKee and Earl Bassett do for a living in their isolated desert town?

Handymen was a deliberate choice. The writers wanted two ordinary men as heroes rather than the lawman, soldier or scientist usual in monster films.

Which actor plays Earl Bassett in Tremors and returned without his co-star to lead Tremors 2?

Fred Ward came back for Tremors 2: Aftershocks, in which a broke Earl takes a bounty job hunting the creatures.

Tremors was filmed in California, but its fictional desert town lies in which US state?

Nevada is the setting, though the town was really a set built near Olancha, California, with real mountains for a backdrop.

In Tremors, where do Burt and Heather Gummer shoot a giant worm after it breaks into their home?

Their basement doubled as an armoury, so the couple had plenty of firepower to hand. The room was a studio set built in Valencia, California.

In Tremors, the snake-like creature torn off by Val and Earl's truck is which part of a giant worm?

Its tongue is one of several grasping tentacles inside the mouth. The filmmakers first imagined the monsters as giant snakes, then made the snakes part of a far larger animal.

Which Tremors character, owner of the town market, comes up with the name for the giant worms?

Walter Chang names the creatures not long before one of them kills him. The part was first written as a Vietnamese character, then changed before Victor Wong auditioned.

In Tremors, what homemade weapons does Earl plan to trick the last giant worms into swallowing?

Pipe bombs work on one creature, but the last one spits its bomb back at the survivors and destroys nearly all of their remaining explosives.

In Tremors, how does the last of the giant worms finally die in its showdown with Val?

It plunges off a cliff after Val stampedes it toward the edge with his final explosive. The cliff effects relied on quarter-scale miniature puppets.

In Tremors, what is graduate student Rhonda LeBeck studying in the desert when the attacks begin?

Seismic activity readings let Rhonda work out that three more creatures are still out there after the first one dies.

The ending of Tremors was reshot after preview audiences demanded what from Val and Rhonda?

A kiss settled the romance in the reshot final moments. Test audiences also sank the original opening, which used real earthquake footage.

Which director made his feature debut with Tremors, then directed Billy Crystal in City Slickers?

Ron Underwood got the job because the writers lobbied for him. He had given them their start in educational films, and they wanted to repay the favour.

Before Tremors, writers S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock scripted which 1986 science-fiction comedy?

Short Circuit came four years before Tremors. The same writing pair also worked on Batteries Not Included and Wild Wild West.

Which working title did Tremors drop because of a famous Saturday Night Live character?

Land Sharks was dropped because the sketch show's Land Shark, a Jaws parody, was too well known. The project also briefly carried the title Dead Silence.

Tremors was shot around which California town, long a favourite location for Hollywood Westerns?

Lone Pine sits beside the Alabama Hills, which have hosted hundreds of productions. The town's film museum now has an exhibit devoted to Tremors.

Tremors co-writer S. S. Wilson dreamed up the idea while hiking in which desert near a naval base?

Mojave hikes gave him the image of being stuck on a rock while something moved under the sand. He was working there as a film editor at the time.

Which producer of The Terminator and Aliens backed Tremors as its executive producer?

Gale Anne Hurd took to the script at once and stood behind the choice of a first-time feature director to make it.

Which effects studio, founded by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., built the Tremors monsters?

Amalgamated Dynamics built four articulated full-scale heads and deliberately steered the design away from the giant worms of Dune.

Which studio released Tremors in cinemas and later kept the series alive with home-video sequels?

Universal Pictures was reportedly unsure whether to sell it as horror with laughs or comedy with scares, and the writers blamed the marketing for its weak box office.

Which 1995 film did the actor who played Val in Tremors choose over returning for Tremors 2?

Apollo 13 won out, and without its star the sequel lost its planned cinema release and most of its budget, going straight to video instead.

Tremors 2: Aftershocks sends Earl Bassett to hunt giant worms at an oil field in which country?

Mexico was a money-saving switch. The sequel was first planned for Australia on a budget more than four times larger.

What are the two-legged creatures that burst from the giant worms in Tremors 2: Aftershocks called?

Shriekers needed more puppets than the first film's monsters because they live above ground. One full-scale puppet took 16 people to operate.

In Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Earl Bassett has sunk his money into a failing ranch of which animals?

Ostriches have left Earl broke, so a bounty of $50,000 for each monster he kills is enough to pull him back into the fight.

In Tremors 2: Aftershocks, what toys do Earl and Grady load with explosives to kill the giant worms?

Remote-control cars carry the charges at first, but there are too many monsters, so Earl calls in Burt Gummer and a truckload of firepower.

In the third Tremors film, what does Jodi name the winged creatures that rocket through the air?

Ass-Blasters fly by igniting chemicals in their stomachs, and the survivors work out that they evolved to carry eggs to new territory.

In the third Tremors film, which infertile giant worm ends up as a protected resident of the town?

El Blanco is an albino that cannot produce offspring, so the locals choose to live alongside it. It stays on as the town's resident monster in the TV series.

In the third Tremors film, what tool does Jack use to cut Burt Gummer out of a giant worm?

A chainsaw frees Burt after the creature swallows him whole and then kills itself against the concrete barriers buried around his house.

In the prequel Tremors 4, mine owner Hiram Gummer is which ancestor of Burt Gummer?

Great-grandfather Hiram starts out disliking firearms and has to hire a gunfighter, the opposite of his arsenal-owning descendant. One actor plays both men.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines relaunched the series after 11 years by moving the action to which country?

South Africa hosted the shoot as well as the story. It was the first film in the series made without the original creators, who were offered credits but no say in the story.

In Tremors 5: Bloodlines, cameraman Travis Welker reveals that he is what relation to Burt Gummer?

His son, he says, from a one-night stand in Florida 40 years earlier. Burt accepts him, and the pair end the film co-hosting Burt's monster-hunting show.

In Tremors 5: Bloodlines, what force of nature do the villagers use to kill the giant queen worm?

Lightning from the daily thunderstorm strikes a metal trap the villagers have built, destroying the monster along with the egg used as bait.

Which star of a 2004 cult comedy plays Jimmy opposite Burt Gummer in the seventh Tremors film?

Jon Heder is best known as the awkward nerd of Napoleon Dynamite. His character Jimmy tracks down a retired Burt and talks him into one more hunt.

How does Burt Gummer's story end in the seventh Tremors film, released in 2020?

He sacrifices himself, letting the giant queen swallow him so that she dies in the trap. The survivors leave his hat and sunglasses at a memorial.

Which veteran film actor had a recurring role as Cletus Poffenburger in the 2003 Tremors TV series?

Christopher Lloyd, Doc Brown in Back to the Future, guest-starred in three of the 13 episodes. His introductory episode had to be re-edited when the run aired out of order.

Which future Breaking Bad star played W. D. Twitchell in the main cast of the Tremors TV series?

Dean Norris was still five years away from his best-known part as DEA agent Hank Schrader when the monster series aired.

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, the sixth film, sends Burt Gummer to a research base in which region?

Arctic Canada is the setting, in the territory of Nunavut. The plot blames unusual polar warmth for letting the monsters thrive there.

Which James Gunn horror comedy names its high school after Earl Bassett of Tremors?

Slither, from 2006, tips its hat with the school's name. Edgar Wright is among the other filmmakers who have spoken of their appreciation for Tremors.

After Tremors 5: Bloodlines filmed in a cave, university researchers inspecting it found what?

Hominid fossils turned up almost at once, the first lying on the cave floor beneath graffiti left by the film crew.

In Tremors, which nearby town are Val and Earl leaving for when they find the first body?

Bixby is where the pair hope to start over after growing sick of their odd jobs. A rockslide and dead phone lines then cut the valley off from it.

Which composer kept sole credit for the Tremors score although Robert Folk wrote much of the music?

Ernest Troost had a contract clause that protected his credit. Folk, hired late, wrote 30 to 40 minutes of new music in about three and a half weeks.

In Tremors, what does the town doctor say killed Edgar Deems, found dead atop an electrical tower?

Dehydration killed him because he would not come down, the film's first hint that something on the desert floor is worse than thirst.