Featured Post

Featured Post - Mystery Movie Marathon

I thought I'd kick the new year off with another movie marathon. I thought it was time to check out a few old school mystery flicks. Som...

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)


As promised in my franchise review for the earlier Tremors movies I purchased this one the day it came out and watched it. Sure, it has been more than a week before posting this review, but I had to watch it again before writing the review. Spoilers I love this movie!

Burt Gummer and his son Travis are back to do battle with the Graboids. This time things are very different when they get a call from a Canadian Arctic research station. Seems that the scientists there disturbed some Graboids while drilling core samples and now they are in a heap of trouble. The boys immediately head out to take a look and along the way their airplane gets “shot down” by an Ass Blaster. If you’ve got Graboids you’ve got Ass Blasters!

The rest of the movie is your typical Graboid hunt with the added complication that Burt has been poisoned by one and is dying. So, they can’t just blow the last one up. Nope they need to harvest the gland sack of a live one to make the cure and save Gummer’s life. Just in case you were wondering that is as gross as it sounds. But as one of the characters mentions, “at least it wasn’t an anal gland!”. Along the way we also get to meet Valarie, the daughter of Val and Rhonda from the first Tremors. This is only one of the excellent call backs to the earlier movies in the series.

The first thing that came to my mind when watching A Cold Day in Hell is that whomever wrote the script knows the franchise and loves it. In this day of remakes and re-imaginings it seems like most filmmakers run away from the established lore of the franchises they are continuing. I already mentioned the callback to Val and Rhonda thru the character of their daughter. There is even a snide and funny line about Kevin Bacon that I appreciated. But that isn’t the only one that put a smile on my face.

Burt Gummer rules!
There is another funny bit with a female character getting tied up in something and being told to take her pants off to get loose. This is clearly referencing Rhonda from the original Tremors. But here the character refuses. If you were thinking it was a blow for feminism or something like that don’t. She almost immediately lets them know that she isn’t wearing underwear! Funny line no? We even get Burt Gummer yelling, “You broke into the wrong God Damn Hanger…” As a fan of this franchise and characters I loved that they were referencing the other movies in this one. It makes me love these movies even more.

All of the creatures in Tremors 6 are CGI. I miss the old latex monsters from earlier in the series but will admit that this allows them to move around much faster and probably are a bit meaner looking. They get a decent body count and we get some bits and pieces (head, leg, torso) laying round for our characters to find. And of course, you get some Graboid guts splattered on the cast. Here we get it not once, but three times. Can’t have a Tremors movie unless someone gets gooey!

I like monster movies, and this is a great monster movie. Fast paced, funny dialogue, great characters, and cool monsters. The fact that it also is the sixth entry into a franchise I love is just icing on the cake. I highly recommend that you check it out.


© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer


No comments:

Post a Comment