 I'm actually checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2004 film, actually straight to video film, Tremors 4, The Legend Begins. Now this one actually had a smaller budget than Tremors 3, which had $6 million, this had $5 million, and it was done three years later, so it's kind of like it was more than a million dollar decrease in a sense. Now I know you may be saying to yourself, wow, you're really committing doing all these Tremors films, and yes, I'm going all the way, this is number four, I will be watching five and six, and apparently we're getting a number seven in October, so let's find out how that goes. I'm going all the way with this. So this one, Tremors 4, was directed by SS Wilson, who also directed Tremors 2 Aftershocks, which is a good one, that one's pretty fun. I feel like this film, Tremors 4, is where you really see another step down, it's starting to get not so hot. Tremors 3 had some problems, a decent amount of problems, but it was also still pretty entertaining and a good time. This is the first one where there were larger stretches of film where I felt like I'm not really enjoying myself at all, can we hurry this up? So yeah, but I'll talk about that a little bit more. So directed by SS Wilson, who was also involved in writing the scripts very early on. Written by Wilson himself, Brent Maddock, who was also one of the writers, those two worked together. Nancy Roberts, who also wrote scripts for Tremors 3 and the Tremors TV show. And Scott Buck, who wrote episodes for a bunch of TV shows, including The Inhumans, Rome, which was on HBO, which was a fantastic show. Dexter, which was also a fantastic show on Showtime. And Iron Fist, which was complete garbage on Netflix. So a mixed bag. Michael Gross returns as Bert Gummer and we get Billy Drago in this. I'm a fan of Billy Drago. He hasn't been in a ton of stuff I've seen, but I like the way he acts. He always has interesting, like creepy, weird, evil looking characters. And he's like that in this, but you can tell he actually has fun with the role in this one as a black hand Kelly, the hired gun, which I think he might be my favorite part of the movie other than Michael Gross as Hiram Gummer. Bert Gummer's grandfather, I think. Yeah, it's, um, yeah, those are the two best parts of it. Billy Gummer, or I'm so like Billy Drago and Michael Gross. Billy Drago has been in things such as Pale Rider, Vamp, The Untouchables, Children of the Corn Genesis, and my favorite role of his imprint, The Masters of Horror Episode by Takashi Mike, imprint. Really good. If you haven't seen it, watch it. Like I said, this was direct to video and the budget was five million. So pretty low budget there. And it looks like it. I mean, when I was watching it, I was thinking to myself, the production value of this and the way it's playing out seems like a made for TV episode of the show Hercules starring Kevin Sorbo. That's what it reminded me of because I remember catching that show every now and then when I was much younger on TV. This was a PG-13 film. I think it was the third one that was PG. But this one's back to PG-13. It came out to mixed reviews with people citing aspects as better than Tremors III and other aspects as worse than Tremors III. I would just say overall worse than Tremors III because I can't find anything that was better than Tremors III because you have Michael Gross in III and IV. So what would be better? Well, I guess they liked Billy Drago. I don't know. Maybe I like his addition, but he doesn't stick around long enough. I would have liked him to be there throughout the entire film instead of getting eaten by a graduate, although that is a good scene where he basically gets swallowed whole by a graduate. That is a good scene, especially he's like shooting his pistol downward while he's getting eaten. I like that. He went out in a good way. This is a really interesting little tidbit of knowledge for this. There was a browser based video game that was released during when this film was released called Dirt Dragons where you hunt Graboids. Apparently you can still find it if you really search the internet. I need to look for that. And it's called Dirt Dragons because obviously in this film instead of calling them Graboids, they call them Dirt Dragons. Graboids wasn't actually a name until the first movie which was taking place in the 90s, late 80s or early 90s. In this film they definitely captured the 1800s feel with the costuming and starting things out by showing people working very hard, doing backbreaking labor in these mines. Obviously the mines are one of the big focuses of this, although not a lot takes place in the mines other than the kind of opening shots. But the mines are the most important thing because they are the life source for the town of rejection which obviously becomes perfection in the end of it and will lead us to what we know as the first Traumers film basically. At this point you only need the noise of a Graboid getting someone to really know that's what's going on. I think they were heavily relying on that or especially early on in the film. It seemed like they didn't want to show you the Graboids too early on but making the noises, you know, people who've seen plenty of the films are just like, ah, that person just got nailed by a Graboid. And it wasn't a bad thing. You want to see them but at the same time, especially super early on, you're like, okay, I get it. But they didn't go too long before they actually started showing the Graboids but they started showing the littler versions of them and I liked the aspect of the fact that they could kind of fly through the air real quick. That was kind of fun. Although not a lot of the kill scenes or deaths were all that good. The only good deaths and kill scenes came at the very end of the film where it was them killing the Graboids which I think there was a total of like four big Graboids throughout the film. But yeah, those were the most satisfying. Like the big Graboid kills at the end because when you get the splatter of that orange, the orange Graboid guts going everywhere, very satisfying when that happens. But the fact that we had so few of those moments and you had to wait so long for it really kind of sucked. The other thing that actually kind of sucked about this is I really think they should have cut down the first hour of the film heavily. I mean it's an hour and 40 minute film and for the low quality of it and being direct to video and low budget, they really should have saved some of that money and put it towards maybe more Graboid kills or better looking Graboid kills or better looking people kills. Because an hour and 40 minutes is not the runtime need for Tremors 4 when it's going direct to video. I mean the runtime on that should be maximum an hour and a half. But for what story was there and what was going on, I would argue maybe an hour and 20 minutes really would be more appropriate. They really should have cut down the first hour because the first hour drags pretty bad. There's not a whole lot of fun or interesting stuff happening. The last 40 minutes actually is decent, kind of good. There's stuff to enjoy there. It's more engaging. So you know, Chance Market was there in the beginning. I like that aspect of showing that. And there are like some good nods to the fans of previous Tremors films. So that's nice, like showing that Chance Market was there from the very beginning. That's a cool nice thing. The whole playing off of the fact that Hyrum Gummer was Burt Gummer's grandfather, but the funny aspect of him, you know, not even owning a gun that he said, which he says in it. And then when he does use a gun, he just uses like this little P shooter. Basically, it was just like, oh, I thought you said just use whatever gun you feel comfortable with. This is what I feel comfortable with. That's kind of like a nice little joke because, you know, people knowing Burt Gummer, who's all about the biggest best gun, which we do get later on. And you see that kind of grow in Hyrum as the time goes on. It's kind of like an evolution of Hyrum to Burt. And he basically is like Burt at the very end when he has that giant punt gun and he's doing all he can with firearms and stuff. Oh, especially the very, very end when he's got that, you know, rotating the gigantic mounted Gatlin gun that he's just having fun with, which I think was a cool way to end the film. There's a strong point made in this about profits over lives. That's something that's very true to real life. Obviously, we're going through some of that right now where people are just like in this, you know, Gummer shows up and he's like, look, I need people back in those minds. Yeah, but people are dying. Yeah, but I want my money and we need to be making money. You know, there's some of that going on with the whole COVID-19 thing. Pretty messed up, but it's a point in this film and it's something that does happen, obviously, and it's a whole greed over people's lives because money talks, money is everything. Although in the end, Hiram Gummer sees that it's really more about the people and it's more about this town of rejection than it is about his money. And he has a nice change of heart. He evolves as a person and he becomes a better, much better person at the end of the film because he stops focusing on himself and his riches and he starts focusing on the very nice people who welcomed him with open arms into rejection, Nevada, which is funny to say. Welcome to him with open arms into rejection. It's just kind of funny. The music is bad in this. The music is very bad because it's got like this western bent to it but it's very much like, like I was saying before, like it made for TV show like Hercules back in the 90s. Like, not good. Michael Gross does a good job with a British accent and he's a real D-bag in the beginning and I like that most in the beginning of the film. That's fun and funny. He plays that role very well all the way throughout but I think I like the more as a D-bag than the nicer guy at the end because it's just kind of funnier. Just a preference. Hiram saying he doesn't own any firearms is funny. Yeah, I already talked about that. It's funny how prissy they paint him as being early on, which actually back in those times, you know, in 2004, that was kind of a stereotype that was put into a lot of film and shows about like, oh, the prissy British person. So stereotype. You can tell they're trying to stretch the human interactions out as much as possible to try to minimize Graboid screen time in this. Yes, with how much it felt like they were stretching things and how slow things were, paste wise and how much dialogue there was that really didn't need to be there, you could tell they were just trying to stretch the runtime with dialogue and human interaction because that's cheap. So I don't know why they felt like they needed to pad the runtime though. It's just they really should have cut that down. They do learn things about the Graboids way too fast on this, way too fast. You know, maybe they should have focused more on that aspect of it of them actually trying to figure things out about the Graboids instead of just being like, oh, they must only be able to hear things. Like how they came to that so fast was insane, very unbelievable. And there were a bunch of other things like that that they ended up learning about the Graboids. And it was like these instantaneous things, like they seem to do one thing and they're like, oh, obviously it's this with these creatures. Obviously they're like this as well. And I was like, that's ridiculous. Hiram showing the child Fu how to ride his bike is a way of showing his softening as a character. That's actually like the first kind of nice thing that he actually does, especially after being a total jerk to Fu when he asked him if he wanted that last piece of cake and said, go fetch this booze for me, my aperitif. And then I will, you know, give you this and then he eats it while he's gone. This is his first nice moment. This is his first moment of showing. He's connecting with the town's folk. He's letting up on being a total D bag for a little bit. And it is a nice moment where he teaches them to ride the bike and not read it. Oh, geez. Hiram's monetary fate being entwined with that of the town is actually a good we're in this together premise at the beginning, which then serves to kind of bring him into the fold more and really force him to work with these people and become a team. And then that's how, you know, you really end up forming an actual town there, which is cool. I like Billy Drago. I like Billy Drago's black hand, Kelly. Like I said before, he's just stuck around longer. That would have been nice. I like all the grab boy tongues popping up and Hiram using a super small gun on him. That scene in general, though, was actually pretty good. That was during the slower portion of the film, but when they were trying to sleep and then all of a sudden all the the grab boy tongues tongues start coming up and they're shooting them. That's where it marked a moment where it's like, OK, we're going to we're going to start to get somewhere. But then it slowed down a little bit more after that. And then it picked back up. So we got there eventually. I like the shot of the grab boy going across the chasm under the bridge when they were running away and they were like, Oh, is it following us because it was going under the ground? And it's like a longer shot of like a bridge over this, you know, little divide that doesn't have any water or anything in it. And you see the grab boy come out of the one side of the earth and then fly fly over the chasm and into the other side of earth. That looked really cool. That was the best shot of that movie. I like that. It was one thing to leave the town when the grab boys were outside of it. But when people are in danger, Hiram shows he really cares even gave up a lot of finance. He even gave up a lot financially to go back and make a stand with the people because all of a sudden it's not about him. It's not about his money. It is about them because he feels like one of them because they welcomed him in. And that's kind of what happens. And then in the end, they're going to forge this new town of perfection together. That first significant splatter of grab boy goo is extremely satisfying. And then even better is the final one exploding like a smash pumpkin. Yeah, that final one was the most satisfying with the orange guts just flying everywhere. That's what I live for in the tremors movies. Those orange guts flying. That's my favorite thing about any of these films. The changing of the name of the town from rejection to perfection is something that we all saw coming. But I think it's kind of a nice little moment because then you're like, oh, this is how we get to tremors. Yeah, Hiram gleefully playing with the Gatling gun at the end is a really nice transition to Bert into tremors. And it's a good way to end this film in the past. Yeah, and then my last thought, I can't stress it enough with how low budget and slow it was and how little story there was there. It should have been cut down. There's no reason it should have been an hour and 40 minutes run time. New reason. So this is our biggest step down in the series, obviously is my least favorite of the series. I am hopeful though for the fifth one, because in my pre previewing research, I was reading that it mostly got positive reviews from fans of the franchise. So hopefully it's a rebound for them. Even though the film is 11 years after this one, I guess people were really sour on this on the fourth tremors. But anyway, with five stars possible, half stars in play, I'm going to give this a one and a half star. It's not very good. I wouldn't recommend it except for the really, really die hard tremors fans who just feel like they're completists and they just need to see it all. And like I said, you know, the first hour is not that good. So I don't know, maybe you just kind of want to fast forward through things a lot until you get to the last 40 minutes and then just watch it because then it's kind of decent. But yeah. So anyway, thanks for checking this out. Real quick, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button. If you like any of the reviews that I've done, any videos on this channel literally, sorry, takes you a second, but it means a lot for my channel. So I really appreciate that. That's your way to pay me back. Also, if you've already subscribed, just give me a thumbs up to let me know you're still watching. And if you want to know whenever my videos are going up or when I'm doing live streams, because I do those, hit that notification bell when you subscribe. But thank you everyone for checking this out. Oh, also put some comments down here. I want to know if other people have watched this film. It's kind of a time suck, but you know. And look for the number five, tremors five review, it's coming up. But thanks for checking this out and until next time, keep it brutal.