DVD Review: Tremors 4 : the Legend Begins

This movie is a prequel to all of the other Tremors movies. The only actor that is in this movie that was in the others is Michael Gross and he isn't Burt Gummer here. He plays Burt's great-grandfather, Hiram Gummer. At first this seemed a little strange for our family but after you've watched the movie five or six times, you get used to it!

It seems that Perfection Valley started out as Rejection Valley and the town was thriving due to the nearby silver mine owned by the Gummer family. But one day, miners in the mine heard screams and some of them just disappeared or worse, there were a few pieces of them left behind! The mine had to stop operating because no one would go into them anymore. So, the people began leaving town except for just a few who didn't want to leave their homes.

The stagecoach comes to town and out comes Burt Gummer! No, it was Hiram Gummer, a prissy Eastern fellow who didn't know how to use a gun and who had lost all the family money except for the silver mine in Rejection Valley. Hiram had come to town to find out why his mine, his last source of income, had quit producing money.

Hiram hires a guide to take him to the mine to look things over and while they camped out that night, everyone was sucked into the ground except for Hiram and one other man because they jumped onto rocky ground, not dirt. There were "creatures" that jumped through the air and burrowed into the ground that ate the men. This is the beginning of the graboid mythology. We find out that they hatched out of large eggs that were warmed by a hot spring when the mine re-routed the water. They come out of the eggs small but grow rapidly as they feed. The creatures are not referred to as graboids in this movie but as "dirt dragons." There are also no shriekers or ass-blasters in this movie.

Hiram hires a gunfighter to kill the dirt dragons before any of them realize just how big the creatures have become. And then we must say good bye to the gunfighter, who is shooting his gun all the way down, as the giant 'graboid" swallows him.

Hiram and the few remaining townsfolk must band together to save their town and the mine. Hiram becomes less prissy, learns how to use a gun, and works together with the townsfolk to save the town. There are several creatures left that need to be killed and the townsfolk kill them in the middle of town with a combination of big guns and bigger guns, a sword, and a train. Once all the creatures are dead, the mine re-opens, and Rejection is re-named Perfection.

I didn't find this movie quite as good as the other movies but it is a good movie and I did enjoy it. The kids also enjoyed it but then we are a graboid-loving family! Once again, as in the other Tremors movies, there really are no horrible gross-out scenes. And the DVD does come with extra information that we found interesting such as the making of the actual graboid creatures and how they make them do what they do in the movies.