Tremors: Shrieker Island Falls Short of its Predecessors.

 

The eighth installment of the Tremors franchise (Image courtesy of Amazon.com)

We've been fans of the Tremors franchise since the first movie in 1990 starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward and we've been following it ever since, yes, even the series. However, Tremors: Shrieker Island just feels like they've finally beat that horse to a pulp. 

There was so much potential for the graboids franchise, with the introduction of new creatures, plots and characters, but this movie just feels like they played it safe while at the same time tried to introduce something new which were two totally conflicting strategies (in our opinion). 

Tremors: Shrieker Island tells the story of two groups of people on two separate islands somewhere in Thailand. One is a biotech magnate running a trophy hunting business for the rich while the other is a wildlife conservation group researching the local fauna. 

I'm not sure, because it wasn't explained properly in the movie, but I think the wildlife conservation group works for the biotech magnate. I think, and this could've been a better explanation, that the biotech magnate set up the wildlife conservation on the island as a front for his trophy hunting business.

Rich tycoons would enlist this biotech's services to hunt rare animals, and in this case; graboids. The hunters, through genetic engineering, have managed to hatch and bioengineer graboids to become bigger and better hunters, making the game a lot more dangerous and interesting. As all good monster movies progress, they're way over their heads and the graboids become unmanageable. 

"Cause baby you're a firework" (Image courtesy of We Got This Covered)

The movie stars Michael Gross returning as Burt Gummer, Bill Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), Jackie Cruz (Orange is the New Black), Richard Brake (Doom), Cassie Clare (Bulletproof 2) and Caroline Langrishe (Bonobo). The acting is decent considering that all these actors are extremely seasoned, and they did try their best to make the movie enjoyable, but I think the problem was the direction, production and the script. No matter how well the actors perform, if the first three fall short, it's going to be a miserable experience. 

"Like the fourth of July" (Image courtesy of geekvibesnation.com)

Throughout the movie, there were rumors that the director wanted to make it seem like an entirely new movie, separate from the pace, plot and feel of its predecessors, but at the end of the day, it still had a Tremors franchise feel all over it. Not to mention that the script was mediocre, the editing was choppy and the shots were just shameful. We expected more from this movie and were considerably disappointed in what we experienced. 

The premise of genetically modified graboids isn't even original, it's been done in the series. At one point. The movie wanted it to stray from the typical B-rated movie feel, but production and direction just made it fall so deep into the B-grade range that the only way this movie separated itself from the entire franchise is that it was so bad, I don't think we can even consider this a Tremors movie. To be honest, throughout the franchise, there have been some terrible movies made, but this one takes the cake. 

Finally, a familiar face. (Image courtesy of dreadcentral.com)

With a slew of capable actors and Michael Gross settling back into his role as Burt Gummer, we expected much more from this movie. There are a lot of cons and not enough pros, but we do have to commend the new designs for the shriekers and the Queen Bitch (yes, that's what she's called). Other than that, there's nothing truly positive that we can highlight. 

All in all, we give Tremors: Shrieker Island 👻👻 ghost emojis out of five. We would've given it one, but they had Jackie Cruz, so, yea.