Bullet Points: Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell
One of the keys to enjoying the newer entries into the Tremors franchise is watching it as soon as physically possible before one of your friends who caught it on opening night spoils it for you. I’m just kidding…most of these newer Tremors movies hang around on the SyFy movie rotation for years before even I get a few minutes to sit down and watch. One of the good things about life is that there are always opportunities to correct the problems of the past. I thought I would do that today by checking out the newest graboid addition to Netflix in Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell. Let’s do this!
Synopsis: Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) and his estranged son Travis (Jamie Kennedy) head up to the Canadian Arctic to battle some recently thawed Graboids and protect some researchers on the edge of the world.
- Sounds like Perfection: The movie finds us back in the town of Perfection. Burt is back and so is his son Travis but the main action in the movie quickly moves its way north of the border to the Canadian Arctic. The film actually opens with a graboid attack on a group of researchers and it immediately gave me a little hope that this movie might not totally stink.
- Scientists aren’t the brightest: Like most movies, the ones in Tremors: ACDH are almost complete nitwits. They make stupid remarks at the most inopportune times and often find themselves running from a charging graboid with only seconds before they’re devoured. You learn, at some point in your movie watching life, that filmmakers either don’t know any scientists, or just don’t care enough to write a character who isn’t a complete dumbass. This movie doesn’t make ALL the scientists out to be complete idiots but most of them are.
- That Grabs are good: From the onset of the film, the CGI graboids look pretty good. Most of the work done in the practical world is with the fake blood being thrown all over the actors and them reacting to the smells coming from the nasty beings. The film reintroduces the underground graboids and the “ass blasters” but quickly forgets the “AB’s” even exists and the rest of the movie deals with the underground monsters that swallow these morons whole and rarely make their appearances on screen.
- Burt and Travis Show: They are the biggest stars in this movie and carry it as best they can. There isn’t much to the story, to be honest. A group of people are in an area and surrounded by some creatures. Then we learn that Burt has some health issues and it drives the movie from then on. It’s actually a blessing for the film because it turns it from a “survive this situation” kind so movie to “we gotta find a way to correct the problem” kind of movie. It means the scientists and experts on graboids have to actually come up with a way to solve the issue rather than just rehash the same situations that happened in the first couple of movies.
- DARPA and the gov’t gang: We get it, Burt hates the government. We learn that he has some tax issues in the beginning of the movie and then he’s confronted with the fact that DARPA is doing some scientific research in the same area as the graboid intrusions.
- My balls are in the Guinness Book of balls: Fighting these underground/above ground/flying creatures is a sure way to get your blood pressure up. I thought for sure that Burt’s heath issues would be something more natural but they turn into something more graboid in nature. It means that we don’t get the 100% Burt that we’re used to and Jamie Kennedy has to step up to the plate and take charge of the graboid resistance. It isn’t a bad thing. I rather like Kennedy and the movie doesn’t waste too much time in giving him interesting things to say or do.
Get to some high ground and take in these bonus Bullet Points:
- If you’ve ever wanted to see Michael Gross’ asscrack then this is the movie for you.
- Burt Gummer doesn’t wear the Atlanta Hawks hat that he’s worn I most of the other Tremors movies. He’s instead wearing a Chicago Cubs hat. They had recently won the World Series and either Burt jumped on the bandwagon or he’s been a closeted Cubbies fan all this time.
- There have been some wonderful achievements in the area of Graboid medical science in the last 4 hours.
- Jamie Kennedy getting the girl puts the fiction in science fiction.
The Verdict: Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell is exactly the kind of movie that I want to see on Netflix. It isn’t what I would consider a “good movie”, but because it’s in the Tremors universe and stars Michael Gross it is at least interesting. If you’ve enjoyed any of the sequels and especially the one with Jamie Kennedy, then you’ll definitely want to check this one out. The movie has plenty of good lines, dumb characters, decent throwbacks, and fun graboid explosions to make a Tremors fan happy. Check it out when you get a chance.
