Tremors
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50 free Tremors trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tremors arrived in 1990 as a modest creature feature and found its real audience later, when repeat rentals turned it into one of the best-loved monster movies of its era. Its heroes are two ordinary men rather than soldiers or scientists, and its monsters attack in broad daylight. This quiz covers the original film from the first body to the final showdown, the cast and the people who made it, the practical effects behind the creatures, and the sequels, prequel and television series that kept the story going for three decades. It is written for fans who know the film scene by scene and for anyone who caught it once on late-night television. Every answer comes with a brief explanation, so you will pick up a few behind-the-scenes stories along the way.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country music star made her acting debut in Tremors as survivalist Heather Gummer?
Reba McEntire
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.
Q 02Which actor plays Val McKee in Tremors, a role he at first saw as a low point in his career?
Kevin Bacon
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.
Q 03In Tremors, what are the giant worm-like monsters that tunnel beneath the desert town called?
Graboids
Graboids got a name on screen but never an origin. The writers left it unexplained because the usual science-fiction answers felt too familiar.
Q 04In Tremors, what do the giant underground worms sense in order to hunt people on the surface?
Vibrations
Vibrations in the soil give away every footstep, which is why the survivors spend much of the film stranded on boulders and rooftops.
Q 05The gooey innards of the exploded monsters in Tremors were made partly from which canned food?
Pumpkin
Pumpkin from a can gave the splattered monster guts their orange colour. The creature heads themselves were foam latex skins over fiberglass jaws.
Q 06Ariana Richards, young Mindy in Tremors, later played a lead child role in which 1993 blockbuster?
Jurassic Park
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.
Q 07In Tremors, what is the ironic name of the tiny desert town where the monsters attack?
Perfection
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.
Q 08Which actor began playing Burt Gummer in Tremors one day after his long-running sitcom ended?
Michael Gross
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.
Q 09The first cut of Tremors was rated R for which reason, before edits brought it down to PG-13?
Strong language
Strong language, not monster gore, earned the R. The filmmakers trimmed the swearing until the film qualified for a PG-13.
Q 10In Tremors, how do Val, Earl and Rhonda move between boulders without touching the ground?
Pole vaulting
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.
Q 11In Tremors, what do Val McKee and Earl Bassett do for a living in their isolated desert town?
Handymen
Handymen was a deliberate choice. The writers wanted two ordinary men as heroes rather than the lawman, soldier or scientist usual in monster films.
Q 12Which actor plays Earl Bassett in Tremors and returned without his co-star to lead Tremors 2?
Fred Ward
Fred Ward came back for Tremors 2: Aftershocks, in which a broke Earl takes a bounty job hunting the creatures.
Q 13Tremors was filmed in California, but its fictional desert town lies in which US state?
Nevada
Nevada is the setting, though the town was really a set built near Olancha, California, with real mountains for a backdrop.
Q 21Which director made his feature debut with Tremors, then directed Billy Crystal in City Slickers?
Ron Underwood
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.
Q 22Before Tremors, writers S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock scripted which 1986 science-fiction comedy?
Short Circuit
Short Circuit came four years before Tremors. The same writing pair also worked on Batteries Not Included and Wild Wild West.
Q 23Which working title did Tremors drop because of a famous Saturday Night Live character?
Land Sharks
Q 14In Tremors, where do Burt and Heather Gummer shoot a giant worm after it breaks into their home?
Their basement
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.
Q 15In Tremors, the snake-like creature torn off by Val and Earl's truck is which part of a giant worm?
Its tongue
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.
Q 16Which Tremors character, owner of the town market, comes up with the name for the giant worms?
Walter Chang
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.
Q 17In Tremors, what homemade weapons does Earl plan to trick the last giant worms into swallowing?
Pipe bombs
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.
Q 18In Tremors, how does the last of the giant worms finally die in its showdown with Val?
It plunges off a cliff
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.
Q 19In Tremors, what is graduate student Rhonda LeBeck studying in the desert when the attacks begin?
Seismic activity
Seismic activity readings let Rhonda work out that three more creatures are still out there after the first one dies.
Q 20The ending of Tremors was reshot after preview audiences demanded what from Val and Rhonda?
A kiss
A kiss settled the romance in the reshot final moments. Test audiences also sank the original opening, which used real earthquake footage.
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.
Q 24Tremors was shot around which California town, long a favourite location for Hollywood Westerns?
Lone Pine
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.
Q 25Tremors co-writer S. S. Wilson dreamed up the idea while hiking in which desert near a naval base?
Mojave
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.
Q 26Which producer of The Terminator and Aliens backed Tremors as its executive producer?
Gale Anne Hurd
Gale Anne Hurd took to the script at once and stood behind the choice of a first-time feature director to make it.
Q 27Which effects studio, founded by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., built the Tremors monsters?
Amalgamated Dynamics
Amalgamated Dynamics built four articulated full-scale heads and deliberately steered the design away from the giant worms of Dune.
Q 28Which studio released Tremors in cinemas and later kept the series alive with home-video sequels?
Universal Pictures
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.
Q 29Which 1995 film did the actor who played Val in Tremors choose over returning for Tremors 2?
Apollo 13
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.
Q 30Tremors 2: Aftershocks sends Earl Bassett to hunt giant worms at an oil field in which country?
Mexico
Mexico was a money-saving switch. The sequel was first planned for Australia on a budget more than four times larger.