When an army of Graboids threaten the Petromaya oil refinery in Mexico, its owners call on Earl Bassett, who once helped kill four of the creatures in Perfection, Nevada.
Our monster killing heroes from the original “Tremors” have split up and all gone their seperate ways. Soured that everyone else profited from Graboids-mania, Earl has no choice but to re-enlist to help battle a new breed of Mexican Graboids.
Although the first “Tremors” wasn’t a big hit during its theatrical run, the film became a runaway smash in the home video market, and ultimately tripled its original box office gross with VHS sales and rentals. Despite this it took six years to make a sequel and the sequels budget was only just over a third of the original.
Also with this release it saw Writer S.S. Wilson make his debut in the directors chair, a bold and risky choice but one that worked well. It’s a shame that Kevin Bacon didn’t reprise his role for the sequel, whether it was to do with money or script only Kevin knows, but at-least his absence from the film is given a good explanation.
Talking of cast members, it’s great to see Fred Ward back as the cool and charismatic Earl, plus his trigger-happy friend Burt Gummer, played by the great Michael Gross. The pair make a great team and you feel their friendship goes further than just on screen which helps add more to the film.
With this entry we get to learn more about the ‘Graboids’, we learn they are a superior breed of monsters, since they evolve and rapidly work their way up the food chain, we witness this evolution with the ‘Shreikers’. I’m one of those people who think that when it comes to monsters the less we know the better, but I do understand that they had to have some sort of explanation to keep the fans happy.
“Tremors II: Aftershocks” does a great job of continuing the franchise, building on the foundations built by the first entry it sticks to what the audience loves.
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