Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996)

Burt is in a precarious situation

***½ / *****

My daughter was excited about watching the entire Tremors franchise, and some of the films I haven't watched in a while. I mentioned in my Letterboxd review that this was the first time I've watched Aftershocks since 1996. I was fed up with my brother, tired of his shit, and left home at 18 to get an apartment. As a teenager, when the woman renting the apartment to me mentioned HBO had never been turned off, I was giddy so say the least. And Aftershocks was regularly on HBO at the time. I mentioned in a previous review for the first Tremors on my Letterboxd account that it was a mainstay throughout my teenage years of the 90s, always on in some format or available to me. This sequel, though, is actually quite a lot of fun if unnecessary. With Bacon and McEntire otherwise occupied (the former in another film production and the latter on a music tour), the sequel feels "less than" but has plenty going for it.

The last time I watched this was May of 1996. So it's been a minute. Ward still has that gruff, open-eyed, rugged jeans, cowboy hat hick charm and Gross' returning "weapons enthusiast" equipped with plenty of arsenal from the Mexican army return from the previous film and know exactly what kind of absurd sequel this Tremors film was. 

I get my big KABOOM moment where a lot of bomb is loaded in a truck within a warehouse that leaves a giant ground crater at what was once the grounds of an oil refinery, along with Ward and the small cast accompanying him (including Gartin with his high wattage energy and enthusiasm, Shaver who rocks a pair of jeans and belt buckle herself as a bright and charismatic geologist, and Gross, whose Burt Gummer is coming off a broken marriage and needing a "proper distraction") get to blow up a bunch of subterranean graboids before the franchise introduces the viewer to bipedal above-ground graboids reading heat signatures as guidance towards victims (even motors or other machinery giving off heat, not just humans, are left in ripped-apart disarray) while also capable of giving birth to offspring after enough food consumption.

California locations stand in for Mexico, but the puppetry for the monsters (along with some noticeable special effects) was just a breath of fresh air. And this movie didn't have that big a budget, so what was used was impressive all things considered. Bacon, McEntire, and Finn Taylor's absences were certainly felt, but that doesn't mean Gartin and Shaver are detriments to the film. In fact Shaver and Ward work so well together, the sense of humor remains intact as does the playful tone, and Gartin as Ward's buddy this go-around is just too damned likable to disregard even if Bacon has more starpower. And Burt gets to use this high-powered rifle with this ridiculously long and pointed bullet that beheads a graboid while passing through concrete wall, barrels and a vehicle meant to be their getaway!