This question relates to story ideas that, when the series was canceled, we were not able to get to with the character of Rosalita. But we never worked out all the details. the postmortem writer-answer is: Harlowe knew Miguel, but didn't work on the ranch til later, starting sometime in the period of Tremors 3. Where does he live? Well... some remote RV or cabin pretty far from Perfection. Eventually we'd hoped to do a show where it's revealed Rosalita isn't exactly who she says she is, and maybe Miguel didn't really leave her the ranch! Harlowe would have figured into that episode in some way.
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Recently I’ve been looking through the old and unavailable pages of this website via Web Archive and I stumbled upon this sentence: “For more on the world of Burt Gummer be sure to visit Burt-gummer(dot)info”. I tried to visit this site through the Web Archive but for some reason, it won’t display any content. What was Burt-gummer(dot)info about?
We experimented with a lot of things during the early days of the Stampede site. We have to admit we don’t remember what this link was, or if or when it was active. The idea, of course, would have been to give fans another route to more info about beloved Burt. But as Stampede scaled back, the link no doubt got left behind, too. Fortunately, fans themselves have taken up the cause and a search for Burt Gummer gets lots of hits these days!
Famed movie poster artist Drew Struzan recently posted [early 2021] posters he did for Tremors (that were not used). Have you seen them? Can you provide any details?
Ron Underwood and S. S. Wilson were both very surprised to see these — and liked them a lot! No, we had never seen them. As far as we remember, when we were called to a marketing meeting at Universal, we were only shown the Jaws-rip-off poster that became the one the studio used; as well as a few in-joke posters that were done just for fun, but also not used.
Being the writer/director of Tremors 2: Aftershocks, do you have any earlier cuts of the movie (like a workprint) saved on VHS which may feature deleted lines or either of the two deleted scenes?
Sadly I did not end up with much. Just too busy directing and editing to think about collecting. Ironically I seem to have have only versions that were later edited for television, so they have even less of the original movie, let alone any outtakes.
In the scene when Burt first arrives in his truck, how come his dog tags change from inside his shirt to outside so many times?
This is called a “continuity error.” It results from the fact that we only had only one, (sometimes two) cameras, so we shot scenes multiple times. First we shot the whole scene with the camera seeing everybody. And we then shot it over and over again, each time with with the camera looking at a different character. Later, the editor took all the different versions and cut short pieces together into one coherent scene. We were shooting on film, so there was no way to go back and check every detail (film had to be taken to a laboratory, developed and printed, so you couldn’t see what you’d shot until at least the next day). Until video and digital you just had to try to remember the details. In this case, none of us noticed that Michael had the dog tags out of his shirt for some takes and inside for others. So the editor had no choice but to live with the slip-up, and just use the short pieces with the best performances. Continuity errors are actually pretty common. These days there are many web sites devoted to finding and cataloging these “mistakes” in every possible movie. So… you caught us!
During the first 4 movies & the series (which are the only Tremors worth watching as the new ones, without your guys involvement, are horrible), did you ever kill off a character and then in a later movie or episode wish that you hadn’t?
Not really. We thought about each “death” a lot. And if you think about it, not that many main characters die in the first four Tremors movies and series. The hardest one was the decision to have Miguel die in Tremors 3. Amusingly, Tony Genaro, who plays Miguel was totally on board with the idea and loved the emotional quality it would have even though it meant he couldn’t come back!
What is your favorite Tremors movie? I like all of them myself but if I had to pick it would obviously be Tremors 1. But all of them have so much great stuff in them it is really hard to pick.
We are glad to hear that it is hard to choose among the ones we worked on. Tremors 1 does have a special place for all of us because it was first, we had a bigger budget, has our full original cast, and seems to stand the test of time well. But they are all our “babies” and we don’t want to choose!
I love Tremors and its my favorite monster movie especially because it was filmed near where I lived. When are you going to come back and visit Lone Pine? With all the natural arches in the Alabama hills why didn’t you show at least one of them in Tremors 1?
Most of us at Stampede have been back to Lone Pine twice, once for an anniversary of the movie in 2002, and again for the 30th anniversary in 2020. As for the arches, we or our location manager may have been aware of them at the time, but many decisions went into picking our locations. Each one had to be easy to drive to (with all our many vehicles), had to be as close as possible to other locations, etc. And since the script didn’t actually call for an arch, nobody would have been actively looking for one.
When Pedro gets attacked, why did he actually stop in the first place? You don’t see anything run across in front of the truck (the headlights don’t become obscured).
Our logic is that the shriekers attacked his truck from BEHIND. And Pedro, even if he had a graboid sensor in his truck, had no warning he was in danger since shriekers wouldn’t trigger it. His first impulse, feeling something hit the rear of his truck, would be to stop and investigate. Once he did that, it was too late. He barely made out of the cab and onto the truck bed.
Will there be a soundtrack release for Tremors 2-4 or is that something only Universal is in charge of?
You have correctly guessed that Universal is in charge, and to our knowledge has never released those sound tracks. We imagine you are aware that there are unofficial versions floating around online.
During the test screenings of the original film, do you remember if the opening title was shown as Tremors, Dead Silence, or Beneath Perfection? If the title was shown as Dead Silence or Beneath Perfection, are there any surviving photos of that title listed?
Ron Underwood confirms that all the test screenings were done without any titles.
Was the map that Val tears off the wall at Walter’s store based on a real location; if so where was it?
No, it was created by the prop department to match how we described Perfection Valley in the movie. So it’s unlikely they used any other real locations or names on it.
S.S. Wilson doubles for Burt Gummer in both Tremors 1 in the shot of the bulldozer approaching the cliff and a deleted scene in Tremors 2: Aftershocks where Burt blasts all of the Shriekers off of his truck. Does S.S. Wilson double as Burt in any shots in Tremors 3: Back To Perfection?
No, the situation didn’t come up. While S. S. Wilson directed 2nd unit on Tremors 3, we never needed a full Burt double for the 2nd unit shots.
I’ve really been enjoying the Tremors: Lost Tapes Episode(s) online. Do you have VHS tapes showing behind the scenes of TREMORS 2 to show us someday?
Sadly no. S. S. Wilson’s Dad shot most of the VHS on Tremors 1. He wasn’t available to hang out as much when we got around to making Tremors 2. And, since Wilson was directing, he had no chance to shoot anything either.
What is the house code of Burt Gummer in Tremors 3?
What specific questions! I’m afraid no one now knows, if anyone ever did. Michael Gross probably just made something up. He may even have just tapped something different for each take of that shot at the door, since we knew we’d see it only once in the final movie. What I love about the shot is Michael making sure to hide the keypad, because that’s what Burt would totally do!
In the bonus features for the new Arrow release of Tremors, there is a photo of Brent Maddock dressed as a State Trooper. But I did not see a deleted scene showing what this could be from. Was something filmed where the writers played police officers?
Yes. It never made it into the deleted scenes, but there was a shot where Brent Maddock and S. S. Wilson drove into Perfection in a police car. Also in that scene, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff played the third set of phone line workers (the first two teams having been killed by graboids). But during editing, Ron Underwood felt the end of the movie was just taking too long, so we all got cut out! A few stills of us in costume are all that’s left.
Will there be tremors 8?
Come on gang, we don’t know. Universal studios tells us nothing about their plans for Tremors after firing us off of T5.
Why didn’t Heather (Reba McEntire) star in any of the other Tremors movies?
She chose not to. We asked her to come back for Tremors 2 but she declined, so we had to write her out of the script. Since her character was gone from T2, we left it that way for T3.
Why did Michael Gross was not in all 13 episodes of the Tremors tv series?
As with many perplexing things about Tremors, the answer is: Universal Studios. They wanted to start Tremors 4 on a particular date and they absolutely refused to let us wait the few weeks we needed to finish the series. They did not care that it meant Michael would be unable to be in the last episodes. The decision also meant that director SS Wilson had to abandon work on the series to start work on T4.
Why is the Perfection town surrounded by so much greenery in the series? It looked pretty arid in the original films.
You are correct, of course. On the low budget sequels and series, we couldn’t afford to go back to the original desert location near Lone Pine, California, so it was always a struggle to make “cheaper” locations look similar. The series was shot in Mexico, actually not far from the coast town of Rosarito, so there wasn’t much hope of making it look like the Mojave.
What is the song at the beginning of Tremors 2?
We assume you mean under the titles at the very beginning before the unlucky oil worker appears. That is a lovely original tune by our composer Jay Ferguson.
Were ass blasters patterned after ducks? I have Muscovy ducks that shake and squeak just like the ABs.
We learn more interesting things from our FAQ questions! And maybe we’ll keep our distance from Muscovy ducks! That said, the ABs were designed to look like they could reasonably “hatch” from shriekers, but be leaner and capable of gliding. That shaking movement came from the inventive animators and HimAnI Productions. We don’t think they were thinking of ducks.
You had other writers, John Whelpley & Scott Buck, brought in to write the scripts to Tremors 3 & 4. Who wrote the original script for Tremors 5: “Gummer Down Under!” Did you and Brent Maddock write this script or was it another writer?
Maddock and Wilson wrote the full original script for “Gummer Down Under.” Effectively none of it was used in the final production. They wrote the stories for Tremors 3 and Tremors 4, but since they were directing and racing into pre-production, didn’t have time to do the screenplays.
What is the exact name of the color of Val & Earl’s 1963 Jeep Gladiator Thriftside Pick-Up? Obviously, it can be described as “light blue”, but I was hoping you could provide additional details.
We are long out of touch with the people who provided the vehicles for Tremors, so can’t be much help. I will add that the trucks (there were two used on the movie) were custom painted by the transpo dept and they quite possibly didn’t use a standard auto paint since it only had to last for the length of our shoot ( a couple of months). If other Tremors Gladiator fans (and there seem to be many) have info to the contrary, please let us know and we’ll update this FAQ.
BTW, until getting this question we never knew there were two Gladiator models: the Thriftside we had and the (not as cool) Smoothside.
This may be a stupid question, but given that in Tremors – The Series, El Blanco is seen to repeatedly burrow under Chang’s Market, how come the building hasn’t collapsed yet?
There are no stupid questions! Couple of things we hope explain our logic. One: the early TV directors on the series made the store shake WAY too much (shaking the camera violently) in the scenes where El Blanco is passing by. We couldn’t afford to re-shoot anything so had to live with these early mistakes. Two: when a graboid moves through the ground, it doesn’t leave a tunnel. It kind of “swims,” and the dirt fills back in behind it. So El Blanco isn’t leaving a network of tunnels ready to collapse under the store. He’s just shaking it a bit!