April 22, 2025 • 27 mins
This week on SlashBack Cinema, we head to Perfection, Nevada for 1990’s Tremors— a creature feature throwback packed with desert chaos, underground monsters, and side of Kevin Bacon. Grab your elephant gun - it's Graboid hunting time!
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Episode Transcript
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Shanny Luft (00:00):
Shanny, welcome back to Slashback Cinema, the
(00:07):
podcast that digs up theweirdest, wildest and wormiest
horror classics from the GoldenAge of VHS. I'm Shanny
Ryan Dreimiller (00:14):
and I'm Ryan.
This week, we're going fullCreature Feature with tremors.
It's like a 1950s monster moviegot drunk, passed out in the
desert and then woke up as 1990stremors. We're
Shanny Luft (00:24):
talking giant underground desert death worms,
survivalist fever dreams andKevin Bacon trading in his
dancing shoes for dynamite.
Ryan Dreimiller (00:31):
Get on the roof and grab your elephant
gun. It's Graboid hunting time.
Shanny Luft (00:35):
Graboid, yeah. Did you know that they
were I always called them, look,sand worms. Did you know there
were graboids?
Ryan Dreimiller (00:39):
I didn't remember that I just thought
they were like worms or like,sort of, I always thought of
them as sand worms, like, fromdune or whatever.
Shanny Luft (00:47):
I feel like we're going from
little monsters to big monsters.
Ryan Dreimiller (00:50):
Yeah, this is, I would say, more
traditional, definitely athrowback to the 50s era where
everything seemed to get dosedwith a good amount of radiation,
and they grew it to be giantmonster size.
Shanny Luft (01:02):
Giant ants, giant crabs. Yeah, giant worms. This
movie, also, I noticed there'sno explanation for, I think in
tremors two, they go more intothe background of, "So why
exactly are there giant, giantworms that are underground?"
This movie doesn't even likereally explain that.
Ryan Dreimiller (01:16):
I was thinking about that too,
because in our Hellraiserdiscussion you had, we had
talked about how sometimesyou're just right into it
without the lore backstory.
Then, yeah, as you get furtherinto the series, they unpack the
you know, where do they live?
Why are they so evil, right?
Yeah, this one sort of justskips that whole part. And it's
like, for whatever reason, theworms are here, like, yeah, and
(01:38):
no backstory. Why is ithappening now, right? This is
what's going down.
Shanny Luft (01:41):
Do you remember this movie? Did you see it in
1990 ?
Ryan Dreimiller (01:43):
Yeah, probably would have been 17. I saw this
one, and I couldn't remember ifI saw it with you, or who I
watched it with, but this one isdefinitely stuck in my brain and
in my mind, was a really bigmovie in my in my head, and
significant to me growing up,but then you realize that what,
it costs like, 10 million andmade 16 million. So it was,
(02:05):
right, this was not a breakoutsmash hit.
Shanny Luft (02:08):
Yes, I remember everything about this
movie being bigger. I rememberthe worms being bigger. Even the
biggest worm is not as big. It'snot even a size of, like, an 18
wheeler. Yeah, it's like, it'sbus size. I thought they were
going to be gigantic,dune-sized, but they weren't
really that at all. So Iremember, like, bigger action,
bigger explosions, bigger sets.
It's actually like a prettymodest movie.
Ryan Dreimiller (02:29):
It's very kind of contained in kind of the set
and scenery, although it didhave, I mean, it's got this very
expansive landscape. I think itwas filmed in Nevada, or
supposed to be in that area,right? But right. It's a very
the space that the movie shotin. It's definitely small scale,
right? You're really talking forinteriors. It's like the bomb
shelter and then the generalstore. The rest of it's just in
(02:51):
the desert.
Shanny Luft (02:52):
They built this fake town for the
movie. What was the name of thattown?
Ryan Dreimiller (02:55):
Perfection,
Shanny Luft (02:56):
perfection. And it says the beginning of the movie,
what's the number of citizens inthe town? It was like 14 people
in perfection.
Ryan Dreimiller (03:03):
Yeah, I thought I live in a small town
where I think our population is1800 No, yeah, that was the
right, that was the next level14.
Shanny Luft (03:10):
Maybe when your budget is $6,000,000 in 1990,
you're only attacking 14 people.
Yeah, that's as many people aswe can afford.
Ryan Dreimiller (03:17):
And I think they scaled back the
amount of worms too. I knowwe're sort of jumping ahead, but
like, there's definitely budgetfactors in play here.
Shanny Luft (03:24):
So you want to do a little, uh, summary.
Ryan Dreimiller (03:25):
Sure, it's set in this western town in the
desert, and you've got our twomain characters, Val and Earl,
and they, they've had it withthis town that working these
crappy jobs, and they're,they're fixing to pack it up and
get out of town. Events wouldhave their fates taking a
different turn when they comeupon this one individual who's
died, and then there's a seriesof unfortunate deaths, and
(03:47):
basically they find themselvestrapped into this town as
there's a rock slide, and thenthe story unfolds. And basically
there are these undergroundgiant worms that are terrorizing
the townsfolk, and they need tocome together and figure out a
way to defeat this monstrousinvasion. And it goes from
Shanny Luft (04:03):
the beginning part of the movie, they were attacked
there. Inby these little worms that were
surprisingly close to what I'dsay is guy's arm inside of a
puppet. And that is exactly whatthey looked like. And I thought
there were little worms, andthen there were going to be big
worms, but like, the twist ofthe movie is those little worms
are like the mouth. I don't knowhow to describe it. They're like
inside of the big worm. It'slike the big worm has little
(04:24):
worms inside of it, almost likean alien. When it opens its
mouth and a little mouth comesout.
Ryan Dreimiller (04:29):
It definitely felt sort of inspired by sea
creatures, that those littleworms, sort of like moray eels
or something like the creatureeffects were really cool and
well done. You could tell theyspent a bunch of time figuring
out what the anatomy was andright how they would move. And
yeah, how those little becausethey had, I don't know, half a
dozen of those little moray eel.
They were the ones kind of likefeeling things out and grabbing
(04:52):
things, and then the mouth wouldcome and chomp people down, or
cars, or whatever.
Shanny Luft (04:55):
It's funny, there's this scientist in
the movie named Finn, and sheis. A, I think, a geologist,
who's doing, like, seismographwork in perfection. And she's
the one who, even though she's ageologist, she's also like an
expert on, like, worm biology.
So when they kill one of them,she explains, look at these
little nodes on the side. Thisis how it goes. This is how in
sand. And I thought, yeah, Idon't really need an
(05:17):
explanation. Like you didn'tneed to convince me that the
sand worms in the movie can movethrough the sand. I just assume
they just wiggle their way, justlike actual worms. But the movie
actually takes the time to showyou we did our homework. We know
how a sand worm would getthrough underground like that.
So did you remember this wholemovie? Because it came out 35
years ago?
Ryan Dreimiller (05:36):
Yeah, I know I saw it, and it probably saw it
more than once, but in terms ofremembering everything. No, you
know, little fuzzy these days.
My friend,
Shanny Luft (05:43):
did you have like, favorite moments
from this movie that youremembered, or anything that
surprised you?
Ryan Dreimiller (05:48):
I would say they're, they're probably two
pieces. One is kind of therelationship between Val and
Earl. They're basically thesetwo kind of, like, you know,
handymen that do these randomodd jobs, and they're in the
desert, and it opens up withthem kind of clearly they don't
run the tennis ship, and they'rejust kind of their interaction.
It was just really enjoyable tokind of watch their banter and
(06:09):
how they play off of each other,
Audio Clip (06:13):
their linoleum today and do the garbage tomorrow.
do Nestor is not home tomorrow.
Now, look, we don't dig today.
We don't get paid today. Now,damn it, Valentine, you never
plan ahead. You never take thelong view. I mean, here it is
Monday, and I'm already thinkingof Wednesday. It is Monday,
right?
Ryan Dreimiller (06:29):
Well, and then, you know, they were
trying to do, it was trash day,and expelling the trash
everywhere, right? They've gotthis, like, rigged up, kind of
patched together, septic truck,and they're now one of their
jobs is pumping the septic, andthat proceeds to, surprisingly
shoot septic sludge all over.
Shanny Luft (06:48):
Yeah, and I don't know a lot about cleaning septic
tanks, but I feel like JobNumber one, the main thing is,
yes, exactly. You want to makesure those things are tight. You
want to wrap them in duct tape,if you have to.
Ryan Dreimiller (06:59):
I've got some stories about the first house we
rented when the septic tankbacked up into the house and,
Shanny Luft (07:08):
yeah, it's not experience for everybody.
Ryan Dreimiller (07:10):
Yeah, what can do a focused episode on how to
maintain your septic systemproperly?
Hey,
Shanny Luft (07:16):
you're listening to septic tank, the podcast for
people with septic systems!Yeah, Kevin Bacon's character is
described as a jack of alltrades. But then, like, 30
minutes of the movie, I waslike, is he? Is he a jack of any
trades? Because it's not much ofa jack.
Ryan Dreimiller (07:34):
Other scenes I really kind of enjoyed these
worms weren't just like dumbworms that would come up. They'd
have to figure out ways to getaway from them. And I just found
it really enjoyable. Like thescene where the scientists,
they're stuck on this rock, andshe, she thinks of this idea to
get them out of there. She'slike, we just need the pole
vault to the next rock, becauseif you touch the ground, the
worm comes up and eat you. Andso it's a series of them just
(07:56):
pole vaulting over the rocks.
That was kind of fun. And thenthe way that they're navigating
the worms taking down thebuildings and like, it's, I
thought it was interesting fromthe perspective of a lot of
these survival movies peoplejust like, it's every man for
himself, but they sort of cometogether as this collective
community to problem solve.
(08:18):
Yeah, that's good point. Youknow how to take the on these
worms and they work together totry to outsmart them. Then
there's a whole series of sceneswhere they're trying to outsmart
the worm who keeps gettingsmarter and smarter. Towards the
final conclusion of the movie,
Shanny Luft (08:31):
I checked the point in the movie in which the people
in the movie realized that theworm sense vibration. It was 40
minutes in, and I thought I wasfeeling like restless around 20
minutes in because I was likethe warm sense vibration we've
all seen Dune, we know, readFrank Herbert, yes, come on, God
damn it. It's from the 50s, forGod's sake. And so when they
finally discovered I was like,Jesus, let's take forever for
(08:54):
them to discover these sensevibrations.
Audio Clip (08:56):
I mean, husband know, we're still
here. It's got no eyes, right?
Sure as hell can't smell usunderground. I say it's been
listening. Of course.
It senses seismic vibration. Itcan hear every move we make,
especially on this rock. It's aperfect conductor.
That means we're stuck. Thatpisses me off.
Shanny Luft (09:14):
The movie is like 90 minutes. It's
not like a super long movie, butI did feel like it took them a
while to kind of figure it out,I wanted them to, like, get to
the action a little faster. Theweird thing about it is, holy
cow, did you see how manysequels they made of this movie?
Like, for a movie that
Ryan Dreimiller (09:29):
was it, like, six or something. Yeah, they
direct a video, but yeah, andsome more TV shows. Right,
Shanny Luft (09:35):
Tremors, two tremors, three tremors, four
right.
tremors, five tremors, a coldday in hell came out in 2018 and
then tremors, Shrieker Islandcame out in 2020 and then there
was a television series,tremors, the series in 2003 then
they tried to do a second seriesin 2018 but it didn't. It got
pulled. I thought, how belovedare tremors, that there's so
(09:56):
much audience demand for tremorsmovies this really, I. Didn't
see none of these other things.
I didn't even know they existed.
Ryan Dreimiller (10:02):
What do you got for scenes?
Oh, you're quietness.
Shanny Luft (10:07):
I struggled.
Ryan Dreimiller (10:07):
I feel like this is a little foreshadowing
of the stabby rating.
Shanny Luft (10:11):
Okay, yes, yeah, exactly. All right. I
was watching with Kim, and sheasked, like, somewhere around
that scene, the pole vaultingscene, is this really a horror
movie? Because it was PG 13.
Think supposed to get an Rrating, but then they cut out a
lot of the salty language sothey could get a PG 13. And I
thought they could have leanedinto the heart here of the worm
is between the rocks. It waslike a, like a 13 year old
(10:31):
version of a horror movie,right? It had some scary scenes,
but you don't see too much.
Ryan Dreimiller (10:35):
It was pretty light on horror. And
also it was just thinking aboutthe movie in total. There's
maybe like one scene that shotat night, the rest of it's like
broad daylight, like, you know,even the setting and the way
it's being filmed isn'tnecessarily scary. Like there's
something that's intrinsicallyscarier when it's at night time
or you can't quite see and Iknow it's underground, but that
really doesn't play out in thismovie.
Shanny Luft (10:54):
It feel like the movie couldn't decide if it
wanted to be a horror movie orkind of like a adventure movie.
And they definitely lean towardsadventure and less horror. But
you asked me about my favoritescenes, and it's like one of the
most beloved quotes the movie isthe character Bert. Did you
recognize that actor you played?
Burt? He? He's been in like amillion things, but yeah,
Michael Gross, yeah. He's thedad from family ties. Oh, for
(11:17):
real, yes, yeah. When they shotthis movie, like family ties,
Family Ties ended like 89 so itwas like, right after family
ties, this movie came out, soMichael Gross was my favorite
character. He was he played,like the How would you describe
him? He's kind of a survivalist.
Yeah, yeah, survivalist,prepper, conspiracy theorist.
There's that one scene where theworm, the giant worm, smashes
into his basement, and in hisbasement. He's got this insane
(11:40):
arsenal of guns, cannons, rocketlaunchers, and he yells,
Audio Clip (11:47):
broke into their own goddamn rec room,
didn't you? You bastard?
He
Shanny Luft (11:52):
and his wife are just unloading this worm 1000s
of rounds of ammunition.
Ryan Dreimiller (11:57):
And his wife is played by, I was like,
This actress seems so familiar,McIntyre, the singer, right?
They're both just unloading likeevery single weapon that they've
got on the show.
It's very funny,
Shanny Luft (12:09):
yeah, so Michael Gross, he had all my favorite
lines the movie. There's onepoint in which Michael Gross
gives Earl a fuse, and Earlsays, what kind of fuse is that?
And Bert says, it's a cannonfuse. And Earl says, What the
hell to use that for? And Bertsays, my cannon ! So sadly, you
didn't get to see his cannon inthe movie, but I thought his
character was the best. Ithought Michael Gross relished,
(12:32):
like, getting to play somebodyother than America's dad. It was
a lot of fun to see him in thatrole. So he's my favorite
character. And then he had,like, all my favorite parts in
the movie,
Ryan Dreimiller (12:41):
yeah? And in that scene too, they spent a lot
of time on his uh elephant gunthat he's got in his collection,
which is what he keeps shootingthe worm with.
Shanny Luft (12:49):
Yeah.
I feel like the movie, uh,definitely took its uh gun play
seriously,
Ryan Dreimiller (12:52):
yes.
Shanny Luft (12:53):
Um, so do you have any other favorite scenes?
Ryan Dreimiller (12:55):
I think we kind of
covered them, like the it wasn'tnecessarily a scene, but, like,
I mentioned before that, theworm practical effects. They
were actually really good, likeno CGI. It was amalgamated
dynamics. I think was the visualeffects company that did those.
I think Stan Winston was part ofthem originally. So very
seasoned special effects guy.
But I thought that was all cool.
Shanny Luft (13:15):
So how many people died because of the worms?
Ryan Dreimiller (13:17):
Mostly in the beginning. Like,
there was that couple that getsit, the construction workers,
right? Shows up from out oftown. So there's a, there's a
handful of deaths.
Shanny Luft (13:26):
Yeah, it's, but it's not people you've
ever seen. But, like, theyintroduce a character, so, and
then in the next scene, thatcharacter dies. So no one you
really care about,
Ryan Dreimiller (13:34):
the core group, right, right? It's kind
of them working together to getout of there, right?
Shanny Luft (13:39):
Oh, you know what? That one Asian
guy dies, Victor Wong, ah,
Ryan Dreimiller (13:43):
some racist shit, right?
Shanny Luft (13:44):
Yeah, actually, yeah. I know it is questionable
that, yeah, there's one Asianguy in this movie, and he gets
wiped out. And you actually seeit. You get to, you see the worm
come up and, like, grab him inhis mouth and chew him up, pull
him underground, yeah, yeah. Sothat's like classic 80s. The
minority is is going to geteaten. Where I thought this
(14:06):
movie kind of avoided a cliche.
Was Finn Carter. She is the theattractive graduate student in
geology, and at one point sheher pant her jeans get caught up
in the barbed wire, and shecan't and the worm is coming,
and the worm is like eating thebarbed wire, and she's stuck,
and she's all and the barb iswrapping around her pants. And
so the solution that she andKevin Bacon come up with is she
(14:29):
has to take her pants off inorder to get away. And I was
surprised that the movie didn'tmake this more of a sexual
thing. They didn't like cut toit a lot. They didn't have a lot
of gratuitous scenes of herrunning around in underwear. The
camera purposefully showed herlike, above her waist in like,
the next two scenes, even if shehave any pants on. And I
thought, well, the movie isactually like, trying to avoid
(14:49):
the stereotype of, here's someflesh for you guys.
Ryan Dreimiller (14:54):
That was only the recut version
Shanny. When they got slapped atthe original R rating, they were
like, We got to get this out.
Like. What can we do? Cut outsome excellent
Shanny Luft (15:05):
I definitely could have used bigger worms. I
don't know. And you don't knowanything about the sequels. Do
we ever get dune size worms?
Ryan Dreimiller (15:10):
Think we're gonna have
to do some digging in a, youknow, really investigate, like,
you know, it kind of happened inGodzilla and King Kong, where I
feel like Godzilla was like, acertain size, and then certain
movies, like, had him beinglike, you know, he's touching
the atmosphere like, so, youknow, maybe that, maybe that's,
uh, that's what happens later inthese we'll have to watch. What
was the what was the last one?
It was, um, 2018 or something. Ilike the name of the other one.
(15:33):
It was like, Uh oh, wait. ShakerIsland, yeah.
Shanny Luft (15:38):
That was 2020 Yeah.
That was 30 years after theoriginal came out,
Ryan Dreimiller (15:42):
and Michael Gross was in that one. I saw
some scenes of him, like runningaway from an explosion. I was
like, there's an older manrunning right now. Looks a
little stiff, like as a god damnit. Anything for paycheck.
Shanny Luft (15:54):
Yeah, Bacon doesn't come back for any
of these. So he's just in theoriginal, I think. So he was on
the show, right?
Ryan Dreimiller (16:00):
Yeah, if we shift gears to film war,
like, apparently, if you readabout this, like, Kevin Bacon
was not safe to be in thismovie. He I think, only took it
because he really needed apaycheck. He had a new wife and
a kid, so he needed a payday. Ithought this movie was going to
ruin his career, especially whenit sort of bombed at the box
office. Yes, it wasn't a bomb,but it was not a critical hit,
right? But it sounds like he'scome back around on it all these
(16:23):
years later, he's come toappreciate the tremors and says
it's one of his favorites. So,
Shanny Luft (16:29):
yeah, I saw an interview with him recently
where he said he was like,depressed when this movie came
out, and he was blaming all ofhis personal problems on
tremors. So good for him comingaround to, uh, appreciate his
early films and what, I guess,Kevin Bacon wasn't like a huge
star in 1990 right? He'd alreadydone
Ryan Dreimiller (16:44):
Footloose, and so, I mean, he was kind of, I
mean, I remember him or feelinglike he was a huge actor when I
saw this back in the day, butyou're right, that was probably
his biggest film to that point.
And then he did a, here'sanother one right after this.
That was kind
Shanny Luft (16:58):
of, he does JFK in 1991 he does A Few Good Men in
1992 Apollo 13 at 1995 I'mlooking at his Wikipedia. I was
surprised how like beloved thismovie is more so than like
critters or other movies we'veseen. I feel like people because
we talked about the fact thatsome other movies that that we
liked or we thought had likesome promise in them, like
killer clowns, they struggle tothen go on and create additional
(17:21):
movies. Tremors has been alivefor 35 years. Tremors, yeah,
yeah. So I don't know. It doesmake me tempted to see some of
these other ones, but the factthat straight to rental makes me
wonder if the original is maybethe good one.
Ryan Dreimiller (17:36):
I think we bookend that. We go
right to Shrieker Island andthen see what happens, come
back,
Shanny Luft (17:41):
and then we just assume, we just draw, we
have two points, and we justdraw a line
Ryan Dreimiller (17:45):
plot the graph.
Shanny Luft (17:46):
Yeah, let's see if Shrieker Island could get more
than one stabby.
Ryan Dreimiller (17:50):
I just like saying Shrieker
island. So good job. Well,should we shift gears to stabby
rating here? Then right?
Shanny Luft (17:58):
Who wants to go first
Ryan Dreimiller (17:59):
All right, this one definitely had seen before.
So we always talk about howthat's an influence on watching
films. Once you revisit them asa 50 year old, definitely a B
movie. It's can't be fun. I dothink it's a valid point that
this doesn't really read or feellike a horror movie. It does
feel like sort of horror moviesfrom back in the day, which,
when I saw them as a kid, theyweren't necessarily scary. It
(18:20):
was about the creatures and justkind of it was like a fun romp.
So if you come on up from thatlens, it plays well as a nod to
that shot of creature featuresfrom the 50s. I did like the
kind of people working togetherto solve it, vibe and theme. It
honestly felt like sort of, Ithought that about this like a
video game, like, where you'vegot to you're in this situation,
you got to solve it. You've Whatdo you find? Oh, there's a stick
(18:42):
in the ground, your pole vaultthing, right? You're being
attacked underground. Where'd hego on the roof? Like, you had
that kind of, like, I don'tknow, tumor Raider. Kind of,
like, you gotta solve the puzzlething. So, but in terms of,
like, translating as a modernfilm, like, how does it come off
and read, it's not aparticularly hilarious comedy.
Like, it's got some funny stuff.
It's fun to watch. It feels likea bit of a relic of the past. So
(19:02):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna land thisone at three steps. What? Wow,
good time. I'd watch it again.
It wasn't a cream of the crop,but good, good, clean, family
fun.
Shanny Luft (19:16):
Yeah, that's understandable to me. I'm going
to stabbies with this two steps.
Yeah, I actually found it kindof disappointing. I thought
there were long stretches thatwere just kind of boring where,
because, like I said, it tookthem so long, like, halfway
through the movie before theyunderstand that, like, the sand
worms react. I mean, the movieis called tremors. It takes them
half the movie to understandthat the sand worms are reacting
to sound. And so I was like,restless watching the movie, and
(19:41):
then I did, like, the fact, likeyou said, that there's this
sense of, we're like, we're allin it together. I mean, the town
only has 14 people. It feelslike 13 of them are all there
trying to solve the problem. Butthey're not all distinct enough
for me. It's not like, I didn'tfeel like everybody equally
helped out. It's basically KevinBacon. And and the geologist.
And then, inexplicably, at theend of the movie, Kevin Bacon
(20:03):
and the geologists, like, theystart making out with each
other. And there's, I felt likeno indication prior to that that
they had any romantic interestin each other. That's the that's
where I started to think thestudio was like, we've studied
the numbers and like, we can get3 million more dollars if that
there's a lonely ghost
Ryan Dreimiller (20:22):
rewritten. And it actually did. They screened
it, and the people were like,kiss, kiss. And so they recut it
with them having that kiss theend, which, right? Yeah, they
didn't build,
Shanny Luft (20:31):
which comes out of nowhere. And it's
like these people, there's noindication that they liked each
other. And so I felt likemultiple scenes were like that,
where it was like, they justthrew it together. So I was
surprised. I remember it beinglike a tighter and more
entertaining movie, and the factthat there were all these
sequels and spin offs, Ithought, well, the first one,
like established this universe,but boy, they were little, tiny
sand worms, and they didn't seemthat dangerous. I was not overly
(20:53):
impressed with them so or thetownsfolk, but by far, I would
definitely go back to watch onewith Michael crosses, psychopath
character, and he, he comesback. So, so I'm up for seeing
some tremors sequels. Excellent.
All right. Okay, Trivia Time.
Yeah, let's do it. Ryan, wouldyou like to play a game? I would
love to play a game. So we weretalking about the fact that the
(21:15):
we were trying to compare these,these sand worms, to something,
and what we came to was they'relike, the size of cars or the
size of busses. So all of mytrivia questions, there's four
of them today, are all aboutcars and car movies from the 70s
and 80s. Okay, how do you feelabout that? You feel confident.
You feel pretty good.
Ryan Dreimiller (21:33):
Is it horror movies or it's just
movies in general?
Shanny Luft (21:36):
Just movies in general. Okay, I will
mention one horror car movie,but there's not a lot of horror
movies in which cars feature,although there is one famous one
from the 80s that I will bringup.
Ryan Dreimiller (21:45):
Yes. All right, let's do it
Shanny Luft (21:46):
ready. All right, here we go. So question number
one, you remember the movieFerris Bueller? Stay off. Why?
Yes. All right. So the questionis, what type of car does
Cameron's dad drive in FerrisBueller's Day Off, and you got
four choices You're looking, Isee you smugly nodding with
confidence, but I'm going togive you these choices anyway,
so our listeners have a chance.
Yeah. So your options areLamborghini Countache, Porsche,
(22:08):
911 Lotus Esprit, or Ferrari.
Ryan Dreimiller (22:15):
Ferrari,
Shanny Luft (22:17):
yes, he drove the Ferrari nicely done,
Ryan Dreimiller (22:20):
and he destroyed it by trying to take
the miles off the odometer byrunning backwards.
Shanny Luft (22:26):
I learned from that movie, that's not it. You can't
you can't do that. Running a carin reverse doesn't make the
mileage go backwards.
Ryan Dreimiller (22:33):
It was a good thought, until it
launched out the window into theright the embankment. Oh, we
should just clarify. That wasthe 250 GT, the spider.
Shanny Luft (22:40):
The Spider, right. That's a cool car.
Ryan Dreimiller (22:42):
It was cool.
Shanny Luft (22:43):
Question number two, another car movie.
Question, What car did BurtReynolds drive in Smokey and the
Bandit? Was it a Chevy Camaro,Ford Mustang, Pontiac Trans Am,
or dodge challenger?
Ryan Dreimiller (22:57):
Pontiac Trans Am.
Shanny Luft (22:59):
It was, in fact, a trans am very good. I
tried to fool you with theCamaro.
Ryan Dreimiller (23:03):
Well, I had a Camaro shotting, so I was very
tuned into the nuances of theFirebird, Thunderbird versus the
Pontiac Trans Am versus Camaro.
Shanny Luft (23:12):
Yeah. All right, here's the next question. This
is not about a movie, but justabout a car innovation from the
70s and 80s. And my question foryou is, what was the first car
innovation added in the 1970sready? So four car innovations?
Which one came first? Numberone, cassette tape, stereos.
Number two, anti lock brakes.
Number three, air bags andnumber four, flux capacitors. Of
(23:36):
those four things that we allhave in cars today because that
tapes anti lock brakes, air bagsand flux capacitors. Which one
was first
Ryan Dreimiller (23:47):
And the time frame was the 70s to the
80s? Yes, okay, well, thank Godyou throw in flux capacitor
second, like, just mark that offthe list. Yeah. And then air
bags, I think that came on thescene with the Chrysler Baron
might have been the first car tohave those. So that was like, I
feel like early 80s, maybe. Soit takes me to abs and cassette
(24:07):
tapes. And given the fact that Idon't remember hearing anything
about ABS for many years, I'mgonna go with cassette tapes.
Shanny Luft (24:15):
I really enjoyed the logic. Your logic was a
little rusty on how you crossedout some of these things.
However, you got to the correctanswer yes, because the first
car with a cassette tape was1970 Damn. I was really
surprised by that. Anti lockbrake started in 71 which also I
thought was way earlier. That'searlier, yeah. And then air
(24:36):
bags. The first commercial carswith air bags were in 73 all
these things were so muchearlier than I remembered.
Ryan Dreimiller (24:43):
Somebody's messing with our timeline. Like,
these aren't real. This is notreal information you're
providing me now
Shanny Luft (24:48):
I woke up. Well, the thing is, not every I mean,
yeah, these car features is,they're introduced in, like,
luxury cars, and then theyslowly work their way down,
right? So you can have a selfdriving Lexus. But it's going to
be a long time before the yousee a self driving onto GLC.
Ryan Dreimiller (25:05):
Well, based on this information, the
first driving, self driving carcame out in 83 so it just took a
while to get to where we are now
Shanny Luft (25:13):
get to the rest of us, 1970 if that
I did it up, but I'm always opento having audience members
correct the data. All right. Onemore. Back to movies. Now. You
remember the Stephen King novel,Christine?
Ryan Dreimiller (25:25):
Yes, I am fuzzy the rest of these. I
felt confident about this one.
I'm feeling but do you remember?
Did you ever read the book?
Remember if I did or not? Idon't think I did. Maybe Maximum
Overdrive. I don't know aboutChristine,
Shanny Luft (25:36):
right. I definitely didn't read the book. And I
think I only saw scenes from themovie. But my question is, in
the 1983 film, Christine, by theway, do you know who directed
it? It's a director that we'vetalked about shit. I feel like
we talked about this. I don'tremember. Yeah, it was John
Carpenter, really? Yeah, yeah,that was another question I
crossed off the list. Yeah. I'mputting a lot of thought into
these questions. All right, letme get back to it. Okay, in the
(25:57):
1983 movie Christine, how is thedemonic car killed at the end of
the movie. And I'm specifyingthe movie because it's a little
different in the movie versusthe book. So here are your four
options for how Christine, thedemonic car is killed. You got
to pick one. A, blown up bydynamite. B, crushed by a
bulldozer. C, driven off acliff, kind of inspired by
(26:20):
tremors there, or D torn apartby high powered magnets? Which
of those four ways blown up bydynamite, crushed by a
bulldozer, driven off a cliff,torn apart by magnets? Did they
kill the demon car andChristine? What do you think?
Ryan Dreimiller (26:34):
It's gonna be a wild guess, because I really
don't know. But um, given thatit's the 80s, dynamite is
usually involved. So that'sfeeling good, but crushed by a
bulldozer feels like what Iremember about it. So I'm gonna
go with the crush by thebulldozer.
Shanny Luft (26:50):
You are correct? Crushed by a
bulldozer. Well done, sir.
Ryan Dreimiller (26:55):
Some like fuzzy memory somewhere. I
don't know.
Shanny Luft (27:00):
Wait, did you get all four correct this time? I
forgot to keep track. Did I amunstoppable force of car trivia
again. Good for you, sir. Welldone with car trivia. Thank you.
Thank you. Feels good. Feelsgood to be a winner. That wraps
up another trip down memorylane. Hopefully you enjoyed
revisiting tremors as much as wedid.
Ryan Dreimiller (27:17):
Don't forget to follow us on our
socials, tick tock, Facebook,Instagram and subscribe however
you listen to your podcast, soyou never miss an episode. And
if you do love the show, leaveus a review. It helps other
people find out about thepodcast.
Shanny Luft (27:28):
Yeah, you leave us five star reviews. We'd really
appreciate it, because it willhelp others discover your
favorite podcast about 80shorror and trivia. And we want
to hear from you. You've got afavorite memory from the 70s or
80s, a classic horror movie youwant us to dissect. Drop us a
line at slashback cinema.com.
Because your suggestions keepthe conversation alive.
Ryan Dreimiller (27:47):
Thanks for tuning in the Slashback cinema.
We'll see you next week.
Shanny, welcome back to Slashback Cinema, the
(00:07):
podcast that digs up theweirdest, wildest and wormiest
horror classics from the GoldenAge of VHS. I'm Shanny
Ryan Dreimiller (00:14):
and I'm Ryan.
This week, we're going fullCreature Feature with tremors.
It's like a 1950s monster moviegot drunk, passed out in the
desert and then woke up as 1990stremors. We're
Shanny Luft (00:24):
talking giant underground desert death worms,
survivalist fever dreams andKevin Bacon trading in his
dancing shoes for dynamite.
Ryan Dreimiller (00:31):
Get on the roof and grab your elephant
gun. It's Graboid hunting time.
Shanny Luft (00:35):
Graboid, yeah. Did you know that they
were I always called them, look,sand worms. Did you know there
were graboids?
Ryan Dreimiller (00:39):
I didn't remember that I just thought
they were like worms or like,sort of, I always thought of
them as sand worms, like, fromdune or whatever.
Shanny Luft (00:47):
I feel like we're going from
little monsters to big monsters.
Ryan Dreimiller (00:50):
Yeah, this is, I would say, more
traditional, definitely athrowback to the 50s era where
everything seemed to get dosedwith a good amount of radiation,
and they grew it to be giantmonster size.
Shanny Luft (01:02):
Giant ants, giant crabs. Yeah, giant worms. This
movie, also, I noticed there'sno explanation for, I think in
tremors two, they go more intothe background of, "So why
exactly are there giant, giantworms that are underground?"
This movie doesn't even likereally explain that.
Ryan Dreimiller (01:16):
I was thinking about that too,
because in our Hellraiserdiscussion you had, we had
talked about how sometimesyou're just right into it
without the lore backstory.
Then, yeah, as you get furtherinto the series, they unpack the
you know, where do they live?
Why are they so evil, right?
Yeah, this one sort of justskips that whole part. And it's
like, for whatever reason, theworms are here, like, yeah, and
(01:38):
no backstory. Why is ithappening now, right? This is
what's going down.
Shanny Luft (01:41):
Do you remember this movie? Did you see it in
1990 ?
Ryan Dreimiller (01:43):
Yeah, probably would have been 17. I saw this
one, and I couldn't remember ifI saw it with you, or who I
watched it with, but this one isdefinitely stuck in my brain and
in my mind, was a really bigmovie in my in my head, and
significant to me growing up,but then you realize that what,
it costs like, 10 million andmade 16 million. So it was,
(02:05):
right, this was not a breakoutsmash hit.
Shanny Luft (02:08):
Yes, I remember everything about this
movie being bigger. I rememberthe worms being bigger. Even the
biggest worm is not as big. It'snot even a size of, like, an 18
wheeler. Yeah, it's like, it'sbus size. I thought they were
going to be gigantic,dune-sized, but they weren't
really that at all. So Iremember, like, bigger action,
bigger explosions, bigger sets.
It's actually like a prettymodest movie.
Ryan Dreimiller (02:29):
It's very kind of contained in kind of the set
and scenery, although it didhave, I mean, it's got this very
expansive landscape. I think itwas filmed in Nevada, or
supposed to be in that area,right? But right. It's a very
the space that the movie shotin. It's definitely small scale,
right? You're really talking forinteriors. It's like the bomb
shelter and then the generalstore. The rest of it's just in
(02:51):
the desert.
Shanny Luft (02:52):
They built this fake town for the
movie. What was the name of thattown?
Ryan Dreimiller (02:55):
Perfection,
Shanny Luft (02:56):
perfection. And it says the beginning of the movie,
what's the number of citizens inthe town? It was like 14 people
in perfection.
Ryan Dreimiller (03:03):
Yeah, I thought I live in a small town
where I think our population is1800 No, yeah, that was the
right, that was the next level14.
Shanny Luft (03:10):
Maybe when your budget is $6,000,000 in 1990,
you're only attacking 14 people.
Yeah, that's as many people aswe can afford.
Ryan Dreimiller (03:17):
And I think they scaled back the
amount of worms too. I knowwe're sort of jumping ahead, but
like, there's definitely budgetfactors in play here.
Shanny Luft (03:24):
So you want to do a little, uh, summary.
Ryan Dreimiller (03:25):
Sure, it's set in this western town in the
desert, and you've got our twomain characters, Val and Earl,
and they, they've had it withthis town that working these
crappy jobs, and they're,they're fixing to pack it up and
get out of town. Events wouldhave their fates taking a
different turn when they comeupon this one individual who's
died, and then there's a seriesof unfortunate deaths, and
(03:47):
basically they find themselvestrapped into this town as
there's a rock slide, and thenthe story unfolds. And basically
there are these undergroundgiant worms that are terrorizing
the townsfolk, and they need tocome together and figure out a
way to defeat this monstrousinvasion. And it goes from
Shanny Luft (04:03):
the beginning part of the movie, they were attacked
there. Inby these little worms that were
surprisingly close to what I'dsay is guy's arm inside of a
puppet. And that is exactly whatthey looked like. And I thought
there were little worms, andthen there were going to be big
worms, but like, the twist ofthe movie is those little worms
are like the mouth. I don't knowhow to describe it. They're like
inside of the big worm. It'slike the big worm has little
(04:24):
worms inside of it, almost likean alien. When it opens its
mouth and a little mouth comesout.
Ryan Dreimiller (04:29):
It definitely felt sort of inspired by sea
creatures, that those littleworms, sort of like moray eels
or something like the creatureeffects were really cool and
well done. You could tell theyspent a bunch of time figuring
out what the anatomy was andright how they would move. And
yeah, how those little becausethey had, I don't know, half a
dozen of those little moray eel.
They were the ones kind of likefeeling things out and grabbing
(04:52):
things, and then the mouth wouldcome and chomp people down, or
cars, or whatever.
Shanny Luft (04:55):
It's funny, there's this scientist in
the movie named Finn, and sheis. A, I think, a geologist,
who's doing, like, seismographwork in perfection. And she's
the one who, even though she's ageologist, she's also like an
expert on, like, worm biology.
So when they kill one of them,she explains, look at these
little nodes on the side. Thisis how it goes. This is how in
sand. And I thought, yeah, Idon't really need an
(05:17):
explanation. Like you didn'tneed to convince me that the
sand worms in the movie can movethrough the sand. I just assume
they just wiggle their way, justlike actual worms. But the movie
actually takes the time to showyou we did our homework. We know
how a sand worm would getthrough underground like that.
So did you remember this wholemovie? Because it came out 35
years ago?
Ryan Dreimiller (05:36):
Yeah, I know I saw it, and it probably saw it
more than once, but in terms ofremembering everything. No, you
know, little fuzzy these days.
My friend,
Shanny Luft (05:43):
did you have like, favorite moments
from this movie that youremembered, or anything that
surprised you?
Ryan Dreimiller (05:48):
I would say they're, they're probably two
pieces. One is kind of therelationship between Val and
Earl. They're basically thesetwo kind of, like, you know,
handymen that do these randomodd jobs, and they're in the
desert, and it opens up withthem kind of clearly they don't
run the tennis ship, and they'rejust kind of their interaction.
It was just really enjoyable tokind of watch their banter and
(06:09):
how they play off of each other,
Audio Clip (06:13):
their linoleum today and do the garbage tomorrow.
do Nestor is not home tomorrow.
Now, look, we don't dig today.
We don't get paid today. Now,damn it, Valentine, you never
plan ahead. You never take thelong view. I mean, here it is
Monday, and I'm already thinkingof Wednesday. It is Monday,
right?
Ryan Dreimiller (06:29):
Well, and then, you know, they were
trying to do, it was trash day,and expelling the trash
everywhere, right? They've gotthis, like, rigged up, kind of
patched together, septic truck,and they're now one of their
jobs is pumping the septic, andthat proceeds to, surprisingly
shoot septic sludge all over.
Shanny Luft (06:48):
Yeah, and I don't know a lot about cleaning septic
tanks, but I feel like JobNumber one, the main thing is,
yes, exactly. You want to makesure those things are tight. You
want to wrap them in duct tape,if you have to.
Ryan Dreimiller (06:59):
I've got some stories about the first house we
rented when the septic tankbacked up into the house and,
Shanny Luft (07:08):
yeah, it's not experience for everybody.
Ryan Dreimiller (07:10):
Yeah, what can do a focused episode on how to
maintain your septic systemproperly?
Hey,
Shanny Luft (07:16):
you're listening to septic tank, the podcast for
people with septic systems!Yeah, Kevin Bacon's character is
described as a jack of alltrades. But then, like, 30
minutes of the movie, I waslike, is he? Is he a jack of any
trades? Because it's not much ofa jack.
Ryan Dreimiller (07:34):
Other scenes I really kind of enjoyed these
worms weren't just like dumbworms that would come up. They'd
have to figure out ways to getaway from them. And I just found
it really enjoyable. Like thescene where the scientists,
they're stuck on this rock, andshe, she thinks of this idea to
get them out of there. She'slike, we just need the pole
vault to the next rock, becauseif you touch the ground, the
worm comes up and eat you. Andso it's a series of them just
(07:56):
pole vaulting over the rocks.
That was kind of fun. And thenthe way that they're navigating
the worms taking down thebuildings and like, it's, I
thought it was interesting fromthe perspective of a lot of
these survival movies peoplejust like, it's every man for
himself, but they sort of cometogether as this collective
community to problem solve.
(08:18):
Yeah, that's good point. Youknow how to take the on these
worms and they work together totry to outsmart them. Then
there's a whole series of sceneswhere they're trying to outsmart
the worm who keeps gettingsmarter and smarter. Towards the
final conclusion of the movie,
Shanny Luft (08:31):
I checked the point in the movie in which the people
in the movie realized that theworm sense vibration. It was 40
minutes in, and I thought I wasfeeling like restless around 20
minutes in because I was likethe warm sense vibration we've
all seen Dune, we know, readFrank Herbert, yes, come on, God
damn it. It's from the 50s, forGod's sake. And so when they
finally discovered I was like,Jesus, let's take forever for
(08:54):
them to discover these sensevibrations.
Audio Clip (08:56):
I mean, husband know, we're still
here. It's got no eyes, right?
Sure as hell can't smell usunderground. I say it's been
listening. Of course.
It senses seismic vibration. Itcan hear every move we make,
especially on this rock. It's aperfect conductor.
That means we're stuck. Thatpisses me off.
Shanny Luft (09:14):
The movie is like 90 minutes. It's
not like a super long movie, butI did feel like it took them a
while to kind of figure it out,I wanted them to, like, get to
the action a little faster. Theweird thing about it is, holy
cow, did you see how manysequels they made of this movie?
Like, for a movie that
Ryan Dreimiller (09:29):
was it, like, six or something. Yeah, they
direct a video, but yeah, andsome more TV shows. Right,
Shanny Luft (09:35):
Tremors, two tremors, three tremors, four
right.
tremors, five tremors, a coldday in hell came out in 2018 and
then tremors, Shrieker Islandcame out in 2020 and then there
was a television series,tremors, the series in 2003 then
they tried to do a second seriesin 2018 but it didn't. It got
pulled. I thought, how belovedare tremors, that there's so
(09:56):
much audience demand for tremorsmovies this really, I. Didn't
see none of these other things.
I didn't even know they existed.
Ryan Dreimiller (10:02):
What do you got for scenes?
Oh, you're quietness.
Shanny Luft (10:07):
I struggled.
Ryan Dreimiller (10:07):
I feel like this is a little foreshadowing
of the stabby rating.
Shanny Luft (10:11):
Okay, yes, yeah, exactly. All right. I
was watching with Kim, and sheasked, like, somewhere around
that scene, the pole vaultingscene, is this really a horror
movie? Because it was PG 13.
Think supposed to get an Rrating, but then they cut out a
lot of the salty language sothey could get a PG 13. And I
thought they could have leanedinto the heart here of the worm
is between the rocks. It waslike a, like a 13 year old
(10:31):
version of a horror movie,right? It had some scary scenes,
but you don't see too much.
Ryan Dreimiller (10:35):
It was pretty light on horror. And
also it was just thinking aboutthe movie in total. There's
maybe like one scene that shotat night, the rest of it's like
broad daylight, like, you know,even the setting and the way
it's being filmed isn'tnecessarily scary. Like there's
something that's intrinsicallyscarier when it's at night time
or you can't quite see and Iknow it's underground, but that
really doesn't play out in thismovie.
Shanny Luft (10:54):
It feel like the movie couldn't decide if it
wanted to be a horror movie orkind of like a adventure movie.
And they definitely lean towardsadventure and less horror. But
you asked me about my favoritescenes, and it's like one of the
most beloved quotes the movie isthe character Bert. Did you
recognize that actor you played?
Burt? He? He's been in like amillion things, but yeah,
Michael Gross, yeah. He's thedad from family ties. Oh, for
(11:17):
real, yes, yeah. When they shotthis movie, like family ties,
Family Ties ended like 89 so itwas like, right after family
ties, this movie came out, soMichael Gross was my favorite
character. He was he played,like the How would you describe
him? He's kind of a survivalist.
Yeah, yeah, survivalist,prepper, conspiracy theorist.
There's that one scene where theworm, the giant worm, smashes
into his basement, and in hisbasement. He's got this insane
(11:40):
arsenal of guns, cannons, rocketlaunchers, and he yells,
Audio Clip (11:47):
broke into their own goddamn rec room,
didn't you? You bastard?
He
Shanny Luft (11:52):
and his wife are just unloading this worm 1000s
of rounds of ammunition.
Ryan Dreimiller (11:57):
And his wife is played by, I was like,
This actress seems so familiar,McIntyre, the singer, right?
They're both just unloading likeevery single weapon that they've
got on the show.
It's very funny,
Shanny Luft (12:09):
yeah, so Michael Gross, he had all my favorite
lines the movie. There's onepoint in which Michael Gross
gives Earl a fuse, and Earlsays, what kind of fuse is that?
And Bert says, it's a cannonfuse. And Earl says, What the
hell to use that for? And Bertsays, my cannon ! So sadly, you
didn't get to see his cannon inthe movie, but I thought his
character was the best. Ithought Michael Gross relished,
(12:32):
like, getting to play somebodyother than America's dad. It was
a lot of fun to see him in thatrole. So he's my favorite
character. And then he had,like, all my favorite parts in
the movie,
Ryan Dreimiller (12:41):
yeah? And in that scene too, they spent a lot
of time on his uh elephant gunthat he's got in his collection,
which is what he keeps shootingthe worm with.
Shanny Luft (12:49):
Yeah.
I feel like the movie, uh,definitely took its uh gun play
seriously,
Ryan Dreimiller (12:52):
yes.
Shanny Luft (12:53):
Um, so do you have any other favorite scenes?
Ryan Dreimiller (12:55):
I think we kind of
covered them, like the it wasn'tnecessarily a scene, but, like,
I mentioned before that, theworm practical effects. They
were actually really good, likeno CGI. It was amalgamated
dynamics. I think was the visualeffects company that did those.
I think Stan Winston was part ofthem originally. So very
seasoned special effects guy.
But I thought that was all cool.
Shanny Luft (13:15):
So how many people died because of the worms?
Ryan Dreimiller (13:17):
Mostly in the beginning. Like,
there was that couple that getsit, the construction workers,
right? Shows up from out oftown. So there's a, there's a
handful of deaths.
Shanny Luft (13:26):
Yeah, it's, but it's not people you've
ever seen. But, like, theyintroduce a character, so, and
then in the next scene, thatcharacter dies. So no one you
really care about,
Ryan Dreimiller (13:34):
the core group, right, right? It's kind
of them working together to getout of there, right?
Shanny Luft (13:39):
Oh, you know what? That one Asian
guy dies, Victor Wong, ah,
Ryan Dreimiller (13:43):
some racist shit, right?
Shanny Luft (13:44):
Yeah, actually, yeah. I know it is questionable
that, yeah, there's one Asianguy in this movie, and he gets
wiped out. And you actually seeit. You get to, you see the worm
come up and, like, grab him inhis mouth and chew him up, pull
him underground, yeah, yeah. Sothat's like classic 80s. The
minority is is going to geteaten. Where I thought this
(14:06):
movie kind of avoided a cliche.
Was Finn Carter. She is the theattractive graduate student in
geology, and at one point sheher pant her jeans get caught up
in the barbed wire, and shecan't and the worm is coming,
and the worm is like eating thebarbed wire, and she's stuck,
and she's all and the barb iswrapping around her pants. And
so the solution that she andKevin Bacon come up with is she
(14:29):
has to take her pants off inorder to get away. And I was
surprised that the movie didn'tmake this more of a sexual
thing. They didn't like cut toit a lot. They didn't have a lot
of gratuitous scenes of herrunning around in underwear. The
camera purposefully showed herlike, above her waist in like,
the next two scenes, even if shehave any pants on. And I
thought, well, the movie isactually like, trying to avoid
(14:49):
the stereotype of, here's someflesh for you guys.
Ryan Dreimiller (14:54):
That was only the recut version
Shanny. When they got slapped atthe original R rating, they were
like, We got to get this out.
Like. What can we do? Cut outsome excellent
Shanny Luft (15:05):
I definitely could have used bigger worms. I
don't know. And you don't knowanything about the sequels. Do
we ever get dune size worms?
Ryan Dreimiller (15:10):
Think we're gonna have
to do some digging in a, youknow, really investigate, like,
you know, it kind of happened inGodzilla and King Kong, where I
feel like Godzilla was like, acertain size, and then certain
movies, like, had him beinglike, you know, he's touching
the atmosphere like, so, youknow, maybe that, maybe that's,
uh, that's what happens later inthese we'll have to watch. What
was the what was the last one?
It was, um, 2018 or something. Ilike the name of the other one.
(15:33):
It was like, Uh oh, wait. ShakerIsland, yeah.
Shanny Luft (15:38):
That was 2020 Yeah.
That was 30 years after theoriginal came out,
Ryan Dreimiller (15:42):
and Michael Gross was in that one. I saw
some scenes of him, like runningaway from an explosion. I was
like, there's an older manrunning right now. Looks a
little stiff, like as a god damnit. Anything for paycheck.
Shanny Luft (15:54):
Yeah, Bacon doesn't come back for any
of these. So he's just in theoriginal, I think. So he was on
the show, right?
Ryan Dreimiller (16:00):
Yeah, if we shift gears to film war,
like, apparently, if you readabout this, like, Kevin Bacon
was not safe to be in thismovie. He I think, only took it
because he really needed apaycheck. He had a new wife and
a kid, so he needed a payday. Ithought this movie was going to
ruin his career, especially whenit sort of bombed at the box
office. Yes, it wasn't a bomb,but it was not a critical hit,
right? But it sounds like he'scome back around on it all these
(16:23):
years later, he's come toappreciate the tremors and says
it's one of his favorites. So,
Shanny Luft (16:29):
yeah, I saw an interview with him recently
where he said he was like,depressed when this movie came
out, and he was blaming all ofhis personal problems on
tremors. So good for him comingaround to, uh, appreciate his
early films and what, I guess,Kevin Bacon wasn't like a huge
star in 1990 right? He'd alreadydone
Ryan Dreimiller (16:44):
Footloose, and so, I mean, he was kind of, I
mean, I remember him or feelinglike he was a huge actor when I
saw this back in the day, butyou're right, that was probably
his biggest film to that point.
And then he did a, here'sanother one right after this.
That was kind
Shanny Luft (16:58):
of, he does JFK in 1991 he does A Few Good Men in
1992 Apollo 13 at 1995 I'mlooking at his Wikipedia. I was
surprised how like beloved thismovie is more so than like
critters or other movies we'veseen. I feel like people because
we talked about the fact thatsome other movies that that we
liked or we thought had likesome promise in them, like
killer clowns, they struggle tothen go on and create additional
(17:21):
movies. Tremors has been alivefor 35 years. Tremors, yeah,
yeah. So I don't know. It doesmake me tempted to see some of
these other ones, but the factthat straight to rental makes me
wonder if the original is maybethe good one.
Ryan Dreimiller (17:36):
I think we bookend that. We go
right to Shrieker Island andthen see what happens, come
back,
Shanny Luft (17:41):
and then we just assume, we just draw, we
have two points, and we justdraw a line
Ryan Dreimiller (17:45):
plot the graph.
Shanny Luft (17:46):
Yeah, let's see if Shrieker Island could get more
than one stabby.
Ryan Dreimiller (17:50):
I just like saying Shrieker
island. So good job. Well,should we shift gears to stabby
rating here? Then right?
Shanny Luft (17:58):
Who wants to go first
Ryan Dreimiller (17:59):
All right, this one definitely had seen before.
So we always talk about howthat's an influence on watching
films. Once you revisit them asa 50 year old, definitely a B
movie. It's can't be fun. I dothink it's a valid point that
this doesn't really read or feellike a horror movie. It does
feel like sort of horror moviesfrom back in the day, which,
when I saw them as a kid, theyweren't necessarily scary. It
(18:20):
was about the creatures and justkind of it was like a fun romp.
So if you come on up from thatlens, it plays well as a nod to
that shot of creature featuresfrom the 50s. I did like the
kind of people working togetherto solve it, vibe and theme. It
honestly felt like sort of, Ithought that about this like a
video game, like, where you'vegot to you're in this situation,
you got to solve it. You've Whatdo you find? Oh, there's a stick
(18:42):
in the ground, your pole vaultthing, right? You're being
attacked underground. Where'd hego on the roof? Like, you had
that kind of, like, I don'tknow, tumor Raider. Kind of,
like, you gotta solve the puzzlething. So, but in terms of,
like, translating as a modernfilm, like, how does it come off
and read, it's not aparticularly hilarious comedy.
Like, it's got some funny stuff.
It's fun to watch. It feels likea bit of a relic of the past. So
(19:02):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna land thisone at three steps. What? Wow,
good time. I'd watch it again.
It wasn't a cream of the crop,but good, good, clean, family
fun.
Shanny Luft (19:16):
Yeah, that's understandable to me. I'm going
to stabbies with this two steps.
Yeah, I actually found it kindof disappointing. I thought
there were long stretches thatwere just kind of boring where,
because, like I said, it tookthem so long, like, halfway
through the movie before theyunderstand that, like, the sand
worms react. I mean, the movieis called tremors. It takes them
half the movie to understandthat the sand worms are reacting
to sound. And so I was like,restless watching the movie, and
(19:41):
then I did, like, the fact, likeyou said, that there's this
sense of, we're like, we're allin it together. I mean, the town
only has 14 people. It feelslike 13 of them are all there
trying to solve the problem. Butthey're not all distinct enough
for me. It's not like, I didn'tfeel like everybody equally
helped out. It's basically KevinBacon. And and the geologist.
And then, inexplicably, at theend of the movie, Kevin Bacon
(20:03):
and the geologists, like, theystart making out with each
other. And there's, I felt likeno indication prior to that that
they had any romantic interestin each other. That's the that's
where I started to think thestudio was like, we've studied
the numbers and like, we can get3 million more dollars if that
there's a lonely ghost
Ryan Dreimiller (20:22):
rewritten. And it actually did. They screened
it, and the people were like,kiss, kiss. And so they recut it
with them having that kiss theend, which, right? Yeah, they
didn't build,
Shanny Luft (20:31):
which comes out of nowhere. And it's
like these people, there's noindication that they liked each
other. And so I felt likemultiple scenes were like that,
where it was like, they justthrew it together. So I was
surprised. I remember it beinglike a tighter and more
entertaining movie, and the factthat there were all these
sequels and spin offs, Ithought, well, the first one,
like established this universe,but boy, they were little, tiny
sand worms, and they didn't seemthat dangerous. I was not overly
(20:53):
impressed with them so or thetownsfolk, but by far, I would
definitely go back to watch onewith Michael crosses, psychopath
character, and he, he comesback. So, so I'm up for seeing
some tremors sequels. Excellent.
All right. Okay, Trivia Time.
Yeah, let's do it. Ryan, wouldyou like to play a game? I would
love to play a game. So we weretalking about the fact that the
(21:15):
we were trying to compare these,these sand worms, to something,
and what we came to was they'relike, the size of cars or the
size of busses. So all of mytrivia questions, there's four
of them today, are all aboutcars and car movies from the 70s
and 80s. Okay, how do you feelabout that? You feel confident.
You feel pretty good.
Ryan Dreimiller (21:33):
Is it horror movies or it's just
movies in general?
Shanny Luft (21:36):
Just movies in general. Okay, I will
mention one horror car movie,but there's not a lot of horror
movies in which cars feature,although there is one famous one
from the 80s that I will bringup.
Ryan Dreimiller (21:45):
Yes. All right, let's do it
Shanny Luft (21:46):
ready. All right, here we go. So question number
one, you remember the movieFerris Bueller? Stay off. Why?
Yes. All right. So the questionis, what type of car does
Cameron's dad drive in FerrisBueller's Day Off, and you got
four choices You're looking, Isee you smugly nodding with
confidence, but I'm going togive you these choices anyway,
so our listeners have a chance.
Yeah. So your options areLamborghini Countache, Porsche,
(22:08):
911 Lotus Esprit, or Ferrari.
Ryan Dreimiller (22:15):
Ferrari,
Shanny Luft (22:17):
yes, he drove the Ferrari nicely done,
Ryan Dreimiller (22:20):
and he destroyed it by trying to take
the miles off the odometer byrunning backwards.
Shanny Luft (22:26):
I learned from that movie, that's not it. You can't
you can't do that. Running a carin reverse doesn't make the
mileage go backwards.
Ryan Dreimiller (22:33):
It was a good thought, until it
launched out the window into theright the embankment. Oh, we
should just clarify. That wasthe 250 GT, the spider.
Shanny Luft (22:40):
The Spider, right. That's a cool car.
Ryan Dreimiller (22:42):
It was cool.
Shanny Luft (22:43):
Question number two, another car movie.
Question, What car did BurtReynolds drive in Smokey and the
Bandit? Was it a Chevy Camaro,Ford Mustang, Pontiac Trans Am,
or dodge challenger?
Ryan Dreimiller (22:57):
Pontiac Trans Am.
Shanny Luft (22:59):
It was, in fact, a trans am very good. I
tried to fool you with theCamaro.
Ryan Dreimiller (23:03):
Well, I had a Camaro shotting, so I was very
tuned into the nuances of theFirebird, Thunderbird versus the
Pontiac Trans Am versus Camaro.
Shanny Luft (23:12):
Yeah. All right, here's the next question. This
is not about a movie, but justabout a car innovation from the
70s and 80s. And my question foryou is, what was the first car
innovation added in the 1970sready? So four car innovations?
Which one came first? Numberone, cassette tape, stereos.
Number two, anti lock brakes.
Number three, air bags andnumber four, flux capacitors. Of
(23:36):
those four things that we allhave in cars today because that
tapes anti lock brakes, air bagsand flux capacitors. Which one
was first
Ryan Dreimiller (23:47):
And the time frame was the 70s to the
80s? Yes, okay, well, thank Godyou throw in flux capacitor
second, like, just mark that offthe list. Yeah. And then air
bags, I think that came on thescene with the Chrysler Baron
might have been the first car tohave those. So that was like, I
feel like early 80s, maybe. Soit takes me to abs and cassette
(24:07):
tapes. And given the fact that Idon't remember hearing anything
about ABS for many years, I'mgonna go with cassette tapes.
Shanny Luft (24:15):
I really enjoyed the logic. Your logic was a
little rusty on how you crossedout some of these things.
However, you got to the correctanswer yes, because the first
car with a cassette tape was1970 Damn. I was really
surprised by that. Anti lockbrake started in 71 which also I
thought was way earlier. That'searlier, yeah. And then air
(24:36):
bags. The first commercial carswith air bags were in 73 all
these things were so muchearlier than I remembered.
Ryan Dreimiller (24:43):
Somebody's messing with our timeline. Like,
these aren't real. This is notreal information you're
providing me now
Shanny Luft (24:48):
I woke up. Well, the thing is, not every I mean,
yeah, these car features is,they're introduced in, like,
luxury cars, and then theyslowly work their way down,
right? So you can have a selfdriving Lexus. But it's going to
be a long time before the yousee a self driving onto GLC.
Ryan Dreimiller (25:05):
Well, based on this information, the
first driving, self driving carcame out in 83 so it just took a
while to get to where we are now
Shanny Luft (25:13):
get to the rest of us, 1970 if that
I did it up, but I'm always opento having audience members
correct the data. All right. Onemore. Back to movies. Now. You
remember the Stephen King novel,Christine?
Ryan Dreimiller (25:25):
Yes, I am fuzzy the rest of these. I
felt confident about this one.
I'm feeling but do you remember?
Did you ever read the book?
Remember if I did or not? Idon't think I did. Maybe Maximum
Overdrive. I don't know aboutChristine,
Shanny Luft (25:36):
right. I definitely didn't read the book. And I
think I only saw scenes from themovie. But my question is, in
the 1983 film, Christine, by theway, do you know who directed
it? It's a director that we'vetalked about shit. I feel like
we talked about this. I don'tremember. Yeah, it was John
Carpenter, really? Yeah, yeah,that was another question I
crossed off the list. Yeah. I'mputting a lot of thought into
these questions. All right, letme get back to it. Okay, in the
(25:57):
1983 movie Christine, how is thedemonic car killed at the end of
the movie. And I'm specifyingthe movie because it's a little
different in the movie versusthe book. So here are your four
options for how Christine, thedemonic car is killed. You got
to pick one. A, blown up bydynamite. B, crushed by a
bulldozer. C, driven off acliff, kind of inspired by
(26:20):
tremors there, or D torn apartby high powered magnets? Which
of those four ways blown up bydynamite, crushed by a
bulldozer, driven off a cliff,torn apart by magnets? Did they
kill the demon car andChristine? What do you think?
Ryan Dreimiller (26:34):
It's gonna be a wild guess, because I really
don't know. But um, given thatit's the 80s, dynamite is
usually involved. So that'sfeeling good, but crushed by a
bulldozer feels like what Iremember about it. So I'm gonna
go with the crush by thebulldozer.
Shanny Luft (26:50):
You are correct? Crushed by a
bulldozer. Well done, sir.
Ryan Dreimiller (26:55):
Some like fuzzy memory somewhere. I
don't know.
Shanny Luft (27:00):
Wait, did you get all four correct this time? I
forgot to keep track. Did I amunstoppable force of car trivia
again. Good for you, sir. Welldone with car trivia. Thank you.
Thank you. Feels good. Feelsgood to be a winner. That wraps
up another trip down memorylane. Hopefully you enjoyed
revisiting tremors as much as wedid.
Ryan Dreimiller (27:17):
Don't forget to follow us on our
socials, tick tock, Facebook,Instagram and subscribe however
you listen to your podcast, soyou never miss an episode. And
if you do love the show, leaveus a review. It helps other
people find out about thepodcast.
Shanny Luft (27:28):
Yeah, you leave us five star reviews. We'd really
appreciate it, because it willhelp others discover your
favorite podcast about 80shorror and trivia. And we want
to hear from you. You've got afavorite memory from the 70s or
80s, a classic horror movie youwant us to dissect. Drop us a
line at slashback cinema.com.
Because your suggestions keepthe conversation alive.
Ryan Dreimiller (27:47):
Thanks for tuning in the Slashback cinema.
We'll see you next week.
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