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‘Tremors’ Is Just as Much About the Characters as It Is the Monsters

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‘Tremors’ Is Just as Much About the Characters as It Is the Monsters

Tremors is the weirdly good, horror-comedy directed by Ron Underwood that kicked off the 90s sweet n’ scary storytelling era. The film follows a group of people in the Nevada desert fleeing huge, people-eating sand monsters. It made a profit at the box office and was up that year, in 1990, against the heavyweight Born on Fourth of July. What made the film successful at the time, and worth a rewatch, is the cunning strength and diversity of its ensemble cast. The characters carry you through the monster shenanigans with wit and camaraderie and make Tremors an unforgettable viewing experience.

The main characters are made up of a bunch of different personality types, from comedic and campy to controlling and serious. Together, they are a hodgepodge of personalities. The group is made up of two freelance, outdoorsy handymen, Val McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward), a visiting, Ph.D. seismology student named Rhonda (Finn Carter), and a local couple, Heather (Reba McEntire) and Burt Gummer (Michael Gross). Val and Earl set the mood for Tremors with their banter, as they clash over cigarettes and who will make breakfast and start their odd jobs for the day (while tying barbed wire: “This is a job for intelligent men.” “Show me one, I’ll ask him.”)

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They meet Rhonda, whose authenticity contrasts Val and Earls’ sarcasm. She’s on the ground in the desert observing earthquake activity. The seismographs don’t make sense to Rhonda because, as they will soon understand, the sand monsters are disrupting the desert’s insides. To Val’s dismay, the newcomer in town doesn’t have legs that go straight in the air, blonde hair, or green eyes. Next, Heather and Burt are introduced, cute with each other, tough on the outside, and teetering on the edge of minor conspiracy theories.

RELATED: Kevin Bacon on ‘I Love Dick’, ‘Tremors’, and Becoming a TV Actor

Val and Earl play buddy roles, Rhonda plays the smart, dedicated young woman, and Heather and Burt play the feisty, older couple. As Val, Earl, and Rhonda put their unique powers together – Val and Earl know the lay of the land from a worker perspective and Rhonda knows it from a geological one – they figure out the monsters sense vibrations and that’s how they know when and where to strike. This is where the importance of the group dynamic kicks in – they all have something different to offer.

Heather and Burt move to the beat of their own drum and therefore don’t take Val and Earls’ warning about the monsters seriously. Val and Earl, who act as the film’s comic relief, are the ones working alongside Rhonda, who understands the nature and danger of the monsters the best, trying to tell the couple to get onto their roof. Heather and Burt take out rifles and stay put, determined to kill the monster; they do, eventually, but realize their power. There is an equality that takes over the group when Heather and Burt join the rest of the gang on a nearby building’s rooftop. They figure out they can gain an advantage over the monsters by piling onto a truck nearby. While Rhonda and the rest of the team distract the monsters with noise, Val apprehends the truck and they all board safely.

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With all this chaos and mania, it was only a matter of time before the group started to take their anger and fear out on each other. That moment happens when they face their test of killing the last monster, who has become smarter than the rest and rejects the dynamite they’ve thrown to the others. They blame each other for being stranded, but eventually, they realize they’ve gotten this far, killing all but one monster, because they stuck together. None of them would have lasted a second against these monsters on their own. With this realization only strengthening their defense, they devise another distraction plot and the final monster falls to its death over a cliff.

In the end, it turns out that someone with a Ph.D. (Rhonda) and someone who works with their hands (Val) might have more in common than their titles suggest. When they finally kiss, the film reminds us that romance can be found in all sorts of pairings. The scene plays out sweetly, revealing Val’s insecurity that Rhonda could be with someone like him after he quickly dismisses any romantic potential between them at the beginning because of how she looks. He comes to understand how important personal values are through journeying together to survive and Rhonda now sees beyond Val’s cocky demeanor and that he wants a genuine connection with others.


Without the group’s mix of cognitive and emotional intelligence, Tremors could easily be a formulaic monster film building towards human victory; instead, we’re laughing and attentive, not knowing what to expect from the team’s next steps but always here for it.

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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