I haven’t done a Monster of the Week in some time - I’ve just been so busy watching Steven Seagal, his Martial Art prowess, his peach colored sunglasses, and his special “Seagal Sense” on Lawman to spend as much time as I should be spending here…with you. Ma bad. So for this week's Monster, I am going with a little something special, a creature that almost harkened back to the creature features of the old days, but did so with a sly sense of humor and a double dash of fun and set in a modern age.
This week’s Monster of the Week goes to…
The Graboid(s)!
These subterranean invertebrate first appeared in the 1990 giant monster movie classic, Tremors and the Graboids were created by that films director Ron Underwood and the writing team of Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson. Graboids are based off the Mongolian Death Worm and they are incredibly large creatures that are attracted by noise, or better yet, vibrations. They can grow up to about 30 feet at full adult state and have an almost beck like mouth that contains three smaller mouths that extend beyond the Graboids bite and even seem to have a mind of their own. Only weakness that a Graboid has is it cannot pass through solid rock or concrete as it is an underground creature. However, these Graboids are monsters that have brains to go along with their beauty and are able to come up with creative and destructive ways of drawing their pray out for a little snack.
There were a few different versions of these creatures as the series went along, but I only need to focus on the O.G. Graboid as that is where it all started. So sorry, no ass-blasters! The Graboid appeared in four Tremors films altogether and also in a very shirt lived Tremors television series that kinda got the shaft in how it was all handled. Tremors is a fantastic little horror/comedy that mixed in classic B-Movie sensibilities, with a fistful of black comedy, an original creature, and it worked to…Perfection.
Nice pick. The Tremors films are just so much gosh darn fun, but nobody ever seems to really think much of them. My favorite representation has to be in the Super NES game Zombies ATe My Neighbors, which features a whole round where you have to fight gigantic tri-mouth style worms. It's fabulous.
ReplyDeleteYou can't beat the Graboids! Tremors is one of those movies that everyone assumes was a hit because it's so well-loved and spawned a franchise but it tanked in theaters. I saw it on a Saturday matinee with a half-full house and it got a great response. I watched it again not too long ago and it still holds up.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen any of the sequels, any good?
ReplyDeleteBTW, is it me or is Steven Segal law man over dramatized? Its like 'Hey check out that dude, I think he has a gun. Let's randomly stop him. :stops him, frisks him: Oh we found nothing. But you can never be too careful on these here mean, vicious streets. blah blah blah....'
My favorite part of Segal's show is the opening narration: My name is Steven Segal. Thass right, Steven Segal. I do a pretty mean impression of it (the trick is to pretend you've just got back from the dentist's office and don't yet have full control over closing your mouth).
ReplyDeleteI remember enjoying the first sequel, which keeps Fred Ward and Michael Gross but loses all the mainstream stars (because Kevin Bacon and Reba McEntire apparently had other things to do. yeah right). Haven't seen the other two(?) but would also be curious for other thoughts on them.
Tremors used to scare the absolute shit out of me when I was little. My family turned it on once when we were in a hotel room on our way to disney world and I hid under the coevrs the entire time.
ReplyDeleteAnd also Zelda and the Phantom Hourglass has Graboids and I fucking hate their guts! sorry for being a potty mouth but I really hate them.
Emily: Tremors is hardly ever brought up and the first film is so great and the sequels are pretty fun. I remember that game, but I never played it - though a Tremors game would be a great idea!
ReplyDeleteJeff: I always kinda assumed that it was a popular movie, but maybe that's because me friends and I all loved it so much. I wonder how it was received as a whole from the horror crowd when it came out.
I haven't seen it in a while, but I remember it still being great last time I saw it...it's one of those films that should age very well on all levels.
POT: I never was the last one, but the 2nd and 3rd film were pretty fun from what I remember. I would love to get the whole series in a nice box set someday.
As for Lawman...you know something serious is going down when all time stops and "Seagal Vision" goes into full force. That is when he spots something that is not right and he is able to do that from all his years spent training as a Martial artist and his time spent on the force. If you don't see "Seagal Sense," then more than likely there is nothing bad going down!
Emily: HA! "Thass right!" is so true! I love his weird Cajun voice and hearing him talk to the "criminals" is just amazing. Did you know he is a master shooter?
Like I said to POT, I enjoyed the first two sequels, but never saw the fourth film or the TV series for that matter. They were all entertaining enough from my memories of them, but I would love to revisit them all again sometime.
Andre: Tremors is kinda like Jaws on land if you think about it....you are never really safe anywhere unless it's concrete...or you're a Keaton family member with a dope gun collection.
And don't worry about being a potty mouth! If there s any one thing that can cause me to swear up a storm, it's a video game!
Agreed, I love the first two films, god I must have worn the VHSs out from our video hut back home. They are such a unique and distinct villain, always a great call for this feature!
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