 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 1996 film Tremors 2 Aftershock. So yes, I did the first one that reviews already out So if you didn't see it yet, check it out on my channel. This is the second Tremors movie It actually almost didn't happen and that's probably part of the reason why it's six years after the first one but we'll talk about that a little bit and Just so you know, I think I might be going through and doing all the Tremors films. There's a total of six I don't think I'm gonna be able to get my hands on the TV show that was also done But I think I'm gonna try and do all six films. So if you're interested, I'm gonna have that going on I'm gonna put them in a playlist on my channel as well. So Anyway, this was directed by SS Wilson who was one of the writers in the first film So the first film is Brent Matic and SS Wilson who wrote the script for that now They've been involved with every Tremors film into, you know, varying degrees SS Wilson directed Tremors 2. He also went on eventually to direct Tremors 4 And I believe Brent Matic actually directed Tremors 3, which I will be watching tonight when I'm reviewing this Doing this video right now. So we'll see how that is that reviews coming So like I said SS Wilson, Brent Matic wrote the script for this one as they did with the first one They've had other writing credits such as Short Circuit Short Circuit 2, Batteries Not Included, the Tremors TV show and you know involvement with all the Tremors movies Returning actors for Tremors 2 were Fred Ward as Earl and you might know him from Escape from Alcatraz The movie Carney, Road Trip, Joe Dirt That's just the name of few he has plenty others and Michael Gross as Bert Who ends up being I think in like all the films except the final one, but I think it's Tremors Cold Day in Hell Sometimes they come back. He was in that movie and then the Tremors movies and the TV show as well A lot of people love Bert. He's obviously an ongoing character for this There was a four million dollar budget for this film now That's crazy considering that the first film had an 11 million dollar budget and universal. I think it was universal studios Whoever the studio was I think it was universal was prepared to do 16 million dollars I believe for Tremors 2 now that was contingent upon them getting Kevin Bacon and Reba McIntyre to come back So they had you know star power But they weren't able to get them Reba McIntyre apparently was out on a musical tour and she just couldn't commit Kevin Bacon actually turned it down to be an Apollo 13 Can't blame them there, you know career choices. Definitely can't blame them on that one. So Once that happened. Oh, actually it was gonna be a 17 million dollar budget. I'm sorry not 16 looking back on my notes here So in 1993 they actually wanted to be working on it to be doing it So then things kind of stepped back because they're like well, we can't get Kevin Bacon We can't get Reba McIntyre. So we're not not so sure we're gonna do this. It'd be too costly. So They were just gonna scrap it, but people came together the writers Wilson and Maddox were like, let's try and make this happen All these people involved with the film who or who want to be involved with the film including the effects company Cut their rates to try and get the cost down So they were able to kind of work something out with the studio including SS Wilson saying I will direct it Not only will I direct it. I'll direct it for free. So you don't have to pay a director So that's a big savings right there. So with all that going on They finally landed on we will give you a four million dollar budget and this is gonna be a straight to video or deal And one of the main reasons they decided to do that is they like the strength of the actual script So the film actually got made but as you heard from the story basically it almost didn't happen Which is kind of sad because this actually is a good follow-up to the first one in my opinion Um Since the first one was more of a success on They they went with direct to video because the first one actually didn't do all that great in the theaters It did way better when it went to video. So they were like, well, why don't we just do a straight to video for this one? Maybe that'll just work better. So they originally were gonna shoot the second one in Australia But that was more costly. So they changed and decided to shoot it in Mexico So they had to make a few little changes to the script because of that and it they shot over a period of 27 days Just so you know and they had to cut out some of the higher priced Scenes such as a scene of Burt commandeering a tank and characters fighting grabboids with Civil War era muskets I'm not really sure they needed those things. So that's fine that they were cut out Having the shriekers in this film actually became a cost challenge for the effects company Although they were able to use a refurbished graboid from the first film Which actually helped with cutting down the cost and then they did CG for for the shriekers when they move It's actual practical effects when you kind of see him dead or you see him just sitting there a lot of times But when they're moving it's CG and I'll be honest. I don't think the CG for for 1996 I don't think the CG looked that bad on the shriekers when they're moving. So I Was kind of impressed watching that was like, oh, it doesn't look terrible They waste no time getting to the grabboids in this film Which is a very good thing and the oil drums getting tossed aside as you get a good visual of the creature Kind of closing in on this guy in the oil field. I think it's a good setup for the story It immediately says grabboids are back again and this company this oil company has a big problem So what are they gonna do? They're gonna go to Earl Earl the guy who's become a big name because of his grabboids Because he's even done commercials We see they they allude to when he's talking to Grady and you first meet him that he was in a Reebok commercial I think with Val About running away from grabboids basically and they use Reebok for that So I thought that was kind of funny It gave you the story the backstory that you know, they don't actually show you in the film They just you know talk about it a little bit that they had some celebrity because of it They had you know a windfall of money But then Earl has fallen on hard times because he decided to start an ostrich raising Business and he spent all his money on two ostrich that won't mate So poof money gone plus he bought some things for his house Including a grabboid arcade game, which looked really cool by the way the art on the side is just pretty awesome And I like the idea of this oil company coming after Earl I think that's a good concept for a follow-up film And I think it ended up working because initially going into it. I was like, how are they gonna make this feel fresh? Like what are they gonna do? Do do do do Earl clearly needs the money They established that pretty well. I do think the music in this is kind of hokey I don't think the scores all that great. You know, maybe part of that had to do with who they could pay You know, what level of pay they could get for someone to make it It's it's too upbeat and hokey and yeah, it just doesn't work very well Especially in comparison to the first film the first film was more like fun action type stuff that sounded good When they asked for a grab Grabboid to be taken alive in this the oil company I actually thought there was gonna be some sort of interesting like secret motive But that actually never materialized so I'm kind of glad that that ended up being the case because I Felt like I had figured something out and I like it better when I don't actually know what's going on in the film So that was good So Rhonda We know the scientist from the first film was a love interest for Val and now Earl gets his shot because he has Riley as his love interest and obviously they're like around the same age I did think it was a funny moment where you know He checks her butt out as she's bending over and then he turns around and bends over and then she checks checks his butt out That was a good way to show the the mutual interest as opposed to like, you know talking about it was it was funny Still still good dialogue in this they didn't lose their writing Wilson and Matic they didn't really good dialogue on the first one this one I don't think it's as good dialogue wise and as as good of a script But it's not that far off and the dialogue is still good There's plenty of funny moments and that's the charm of tremors obviously is that there's a good comedy Rolled into the whole thing and it persists throughout and it works the comedy lands. It doesn't feel stupid or disruptive to the film It was a nice touch for them to bring umbrellas When they were going out and driving around the little remote control cars with dynamite and blowing up the Graboids Which that's just fun and like having kind of a montage of them just like blowing them sky high But the touch of bringing the umbrellas Earl and Grady too as the chunks are coming down just put that umbrella up It's it's a cool visual and it's funny. It's another one of those comedic moments that actually works You're just racking up money in your mind with this when you see that explosion montage of the Graboids getting it Just all those explosions from the ground You see a few of them and then you're just like how much money is that because you remember? 50,000 per dead one. That's crazy But then you got the hundred thousand if you get them alive, which is totally worth it The Graboids stopping right before the cliff when they're pulling the truck at that one point You know when the ones underground and it grabs the chain That's on the back of the truck truck and they're getting you know pulled along It's it comes up to where there's a cliff, but it stops short of that Now I felt like that was kind of a signaling of These Graboids aren't exactly the same as in the first film. They're smarter now. There's something more to them They're a little bit more evolved, which I think they say evolved at some point about them in this film and That's kind of to show what happened at the end of the first film with Val You know leading the one off that cliff. It's not gonna happen again. That won't work So I kind of like that signaling that they gave I Like how Burt's just watching videos of cannons when he gets called up by Earl It's kind of like that's his porn in a sense And the mounted Graboid head in the basement is Amazing not only does it look really cool, but it's kind of funny because you don't expect it And then they just kind of like pan over and there's a massive Graboid head just mounted on his wall I love it. That's very Burt Burt's charged up and ready to go in this And it gives him something to live for and you get that idea like you understand when he's being talked to on the phone Initially that he's feeling really down he's watching his porn his cannons firing and He needs something to perk him up and the action of getting back into it and fighting Graboids is what he needs He gets to bring his entire arsenal with him pretty much he got a bunch of stuff from the Mexican government, I guess I believe he says and Yeah, he's just gonna blow things up and shoot things and that's when he's happiest in life. He needed that after Heather left him Furthering the discovery about the Graboids is good in this especially finding out They urge oldest are wait what they are the oldest life form for I'm sorry. I mistyped on this Yeah, the idea behind them they give more biology to it They evolve a little bit more during the film and I like that like they're pushing the science on these Creatures forward and that's fun because you're discovering things too many times. They have the same stuff going on with the films It's like, okay, here's the creature. It's the same static things It's always been is in the first one and you're just gonna see it kill more people and that's all there is to it It's more fun if you're learning more if you're peeling back more of these layers And not only that but you know getting the shriekers on this instance where you basically find out that the Graboid is only the first phase it's like the larvae in a sense and then these shriekers are that next level like they bust out of it and Now they're there's something else. They're much more and they're harder to handle and they have to be handled in a different way Bert blowing Graboids up with C4 is classic Bert. That's just another great Bert moment that I loved Again they effectively employ the ability for Graboids to learn in this which makes it harder to Take them on and I like that The pacing of this movie is definitely not as good as the first one It has more downtime to it Which I assume is due to a drastically lower budget because they got to kind of fill some of that time with you know Dialogue and some other you know downtime type stuff stuff. That's not expensive But for the most part, I think the pacing is fine seeing as it's a low-budget sequel And it actually looks a lot better than you would assume based on the budget Bert recording everything he's doing is perfect For Burt being over the top. He's becoming very vain with this and he's like look at how badass I am. I'm gonna you know Record all this for posterity. Maybe he's just gonna watch it himself. I don't know The shriekers in this look good and it's nice to have someone's Someone introduced to keeping some more introduced to keeping things fresh and the good guys needing to learn more about some New creatures basically like I said so many, you know films They just use the exact same thing this they're like something new we're gonna give you something new It's not the same old same old. I wrote down. Ah, the obligatory Everyone just knows how to hotwire a car scene when that happens in grady's just like I'm gonna hotwire this car And you just start doing it. That's just the thing that you notice back from, you know 80s 90s Era for film everyone just magically knew how to hotwire a car and it makes no sense and it's weird But it's something that people just wrote in the scripts like all the time When you get a good look at them in the light the shriekers are actually almost kind of cute in my opinion I don't know if people feel me on that you can put a comment down there. Do you think they're ugly? I think they're a little cute. Is that a weird thing to say? But well, I mean, I'm into horror and I like creature features. So maybe that's why they don't look horrific to me At least not in comparison to the Graboids the Graboids look like Really gross and I guess maybe it's an in comparison thing the shriekers just look real cute in a way The infrared ability is a new really interesting twist on this and the exploration Sorry the explanation of them going after electronics because of the warmth of them is very interesting When you first see them like going after the motors of cars and then going after like that power station You're like what like that's not food. That's weird. Are they actually not that smart and they're kind of dumb But then you realize oh, they're going after the heat. That's how they sense things But then that what that does is it opens up another path for the heroes of the film to go down to solve their problem The twist with the hermaphrodites so they can keep breeding and add a fast-paced Is a good thing that they introduce that kind of ups the tension of it because then it's you know If you see just one Graboid if you see just one shrieker Actually, it's just the Graboids at that point if you see just one Graboid That means that there could pretty soon be a lot more You don't need to know that there are two that can mate. They'll just keep propagating and The CG portions like I said, they don't look that bad. I was very surprised by that At times when you get even closer It's like the further they are away when they're doing the CG the better it looks there were a few where it's a Little bit closer and you're like starting to look a little starting to look not so great But you know the explosion of this of the shrieker from Burt's giant gun is awesome That effect looked great when his giant gun just hits it and it's just like And just the viscera like the orange viscera just flying and then plopping down It's comedic and it's fun and it looks good Riley being the centerfold model from the picture in Earl's house from 1974. It's actually a really dumb moment in my opinion. I feel like that's too over the top It's because he had talked then about that picture and like things you'll never obtain in life And then oh he obtains this woman in life, and it's just it's just dumb It was a bad idea, but I don't have that many bad Criticisms of this film. It's not in like an amazing film and partially because of the budget, but you know Earl and Grady debating which which of them goes in the building to get the bombs is actually a callback to the same situation That happened in the first film with Earl and Val where they were trying to figure out who was gonna run out and risk their life To try and save everyone And they wanted it to be them because they have that whole self-sacrifice thing so it plays out once again with Earl and Grady because obviously Grady has taken the place of Val in this situation because Kevin Bacon didn't want to do it the CO2 idea to mask Earl's heat signature in this film that actually wasn't that great of an idea like when he get he douses himself in the the I think it's the spray from from the Fire extinguisher and that's supposed to like mask his body heat so that they the Shriegers can't see him when he's trying To sneak into that building I don't think that really would have worked and especially not because it would have worn off Faster than it actually does in the film This is just another one of those things where it's like, you know written that way for convenience of the story in the script and Actually get from point A to point B So that's another one of my little criticisms that that doesn't actually make sense It wouldn't really be like that. It just was a little too convenient The Shrieker body parts falling after a delay in this after the big explosion happens with that building And they're in that like little trench It's like oh yay the explosion happened. They're all dead And then there's a few seconds go by and then all of a sudden the body parts start falling on them That's a nice comedic moment. I like that quite a bit They certainly solved the issue, but they leveled the whole refinery I thought that was another thing that that That I enjoyed about this after that delayed falling of body parts They then reveal that in the background it's just this giant crater So I mean they took care of the problem that the oil company asked them to take care of but They probably lost a lost a lot of money the oil company that is because They're gonna have to rebuild a lot. They lost a lot But the job got done. I think this this film points out human arrogance when dealing with more primitive creatures Being smarter doesn't mean you don't need as much information as possible basically With this film in particular Earl goes into it thinking I've got this covered I've taken on Graboids before you know, how tough can this be? They're not that smart But then you find out new things about it. They've evolved. They're changing They're actually smarter than he was giving him credit for even though he already knew that they were kind of smart and that just kind of presents this theme of Typically humanity taking for granted us being smarter creatures So that when they come up against more primitive beings or just animals in general that they have to take care of just thinking Well, I got this hand. I don't need to be that careful. I don't need all that much information to take care of this because I'm just naturally smart I'm naturally better. So in this instance Earl and Grady for that matter and Burt end up learning that really really fast as oh You know, we we knew what we were doing before time has passed We thought we would know what we were doing and it would be exactly the same But that's not the case and we just learned a hard lesson But in the end they take care of it and we're gonna move on to the third film at that point And the third film is tremors 3 back to perfection where they're gonna go back to the town of perfection Which is where they were in the first film. So I'm interested to check that out I think the only person returning from the second one is Michael Gross as Burt Gummer, but Really, isn't that all you need? I would say yes, but I'm gonna find out for sure. So I Can I obviously cannot rate this star wise as High or higher than the first one because obviously the first one is a lot better than this one But this one's still a good follow-up. So out of five stars with half stars in play I'm gonna give tremors to aftershocks a three-star rating, which is not bad considering. So Yeah, I'd recommend it definitely especially if you like tremors one. Yeah, check this out But thanks everyone for checking this out put some comments down here I want to know your thoughts on tremors as well and Yeah, I appreciate that do me a quick favor though Hit that subscribe if you like any videos I do because I'm not making money on this or anything And that's your way to kind of encourage me pay me back. It literally takes you a second So if you could do that for me, that'd be great If you want to know whenever I'm putting up new videos or doing live streams You make sure you hit the notification bell as well And if you've already subscribed just hit that thumbs up to let me know you're still watching I appreciate that but thanks for checking this out regardless and until next time keep it brutal