It says “Company,” and it is indeed intentional, since the whole town of Perfection was built from the ground up just for the movie. Production designer Ivo Cristante put a great deal of thought into what the history of Perfection could have been. Once he decided it was probably a mining town, he thought it would be fun to indicate that the store was originally owned by the mining company. We modified that idea in Tremors 4, when we indicated that Walter Chang’s ancestors founded the store, but they could still have called it the company store at some point in the intervening years.
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On IMDB it says there is an end credit scene showing the dirt move, indicating that there’s one more alive. Is this true? Or maybe it’s only on vhs?
We don’t think there was ever such a scene even shot, because we hate movies that end like that! We’ve always felt it’s much more satisfying to end on a definitive note. You can always make a sequel no matter how “final” your ending.
What does Pedro say when he first meets Earl and Grady? The subtitles skip over some it it!
Here is my attempt to translate. If fans speaking better Spanish are out there, please feel free to correct me.
Pedro first asks “Are you the American monster hunters?”
As Grady looks in his Spanish-English phrase book, Pedro rushes on, saying something like, “They are under the ground and they are eating everybody!”
Then, as Pedro is about to leave, he says, in effect, “Good luck and hope the monsters don’t eat you!”
I’m sure you’re disappointed in “Tremors” moving on without Stampede, and not having ownership of the franchise anymore, but are any of you bitter about any of this?
Disappointed, frustrated, yes, but not bitter. You shouldn’t be in screenwriting if you can’t accept that studios own your work outright and are going to do whatever they want with it. Just gotta move on to the next.
Will their be super evolution of Ass Blaster as a result of genetic engineering to become a military weapon, thus becoming a new form? It would transform into a new stage gaining arms instead of wings, a longer neck, a bird-like mouth with tongue for gripping, vision as good as a human’s, but still with the heat sensor organ on its head, and with more intelligence and the ability to make moral decisions. It would also have the ability to detect vibration through its talons when touching the ground. But then it all goes wrong as it becomes a native of Perfection Valley, living with El Blanco as a friend.
Okay, wow. This seems like less of a question and more of an idea for a whole new direction for ABs and Tremors franchise. Sadly, we at Stampede aren’t working on Tremors any longer, so — uh, maybe?
After Earl was sprayed by the fire extinguisher, so the Shriekers couldn’t “see” him, why didn’t he then take the fire extinguisher into the barn with him? Then, when his cold covering started to wear off, he could have re-sprayed himself.
Hey, those fire extinguishers have pretty limited capacity. It was used up!
Will their be chance for El Blanco to be seen in the next film or series? He would be over 15yrs old, but perhaps the Graboid lifespan could reach over 30 or 40 years?
Yes, we feel that Graboids probably have a very long lifespan and that El Blanco could easily be around for future installments of Tremors.
For 20 years now I have been trying to find a copy of Burt’s vest when they leave the house in the trailer. I even tried to contact Abigail Murray through her agent to ask the same question. What brand is it?
Sorry to report that, as of this late date, no one we’re still in contact with remembers. During production, these decisions get made quickly, often choosing from dozens of options. It’s possible nobody even paid attention to what brand it was at the time we were shooting. It just got picked because it looked right to the director, costumer, and Michael Gross.
What made you guys create Tyler Reed?
Our memory is that when we got the go ahead to do the series, Shawn Christian was working on another show or movie and wasn’t available. We don’t like to have different actors playing the same character, so we created the new character of Tyler. That said, because Nancy and Jodie were such established parts from Tremors1 and Tremors 3 — and we couldn’t get Charlotte Stewart or Susan Chuang back to play them — we did have to go with new actors for those parts: Marcia Strassman and Lela Lee.
Will there ever be additions or expansions to your Dirt Dragons game? Has the thought of a making a new mini game occurred?
First of all, thanks so much for the comment! SS Wilson played Dirt Dragons for hours when it first premiered on the Stampede site. Sadly, our webmaster informs us that the version of flash that the game was written in is quite old in computer terms. The game would have to be re-written from the ground up to be compatible new operating systems. So, no, Dirt Dragons is not getting a facelift or any DLC. The added issue is that Universal owns all rights to Tremors and they have decided not to work with us on the franchise in the future.
What kind of cameras did you use on the first movie?
REAL cameras! MOVIE cameras! Shooting big heavy rolls of 35mm motion picture film! Mostly they were by Arriflex.
Did you plan for Fred Ward to be in Tremors 3?
We were open to it, but Fred was not. Some actors are not interested in playing the same character over and over.
How come the 1st film felt more cowboyish than the others?
Great question. We hadn’t really noticed it, but it’s quite true. It’s due to how we thought of Val and Earl as we developed the characters through several drafts of the script– as kind of ranch hands plus small-town handymen. It’s also due to Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward working with director Ron Underwood, and wanting to play the characters with a strong Southwest feel. In the later movies, as we moved on to new characters and had to adapt the stories more into the modern world, the cowboy feel kind of got left behind behind.
Out of all the victims in the first film which one do you think got it the worst?
It’s interesting to us that fans like to rank things so much. But we’ll offer our opinion. Old Edgar died of thirst up on the tower, but didn’t suffer the horror of being eaten. The road crew guys seemed to get killed pretty quickly. The doctor and his wife had it pretty bad, both being slowly pulled underground, so they are definitely up near the top. We don’t really know what happened to the telephone guys, so it could have been the worst of all, but probably not. Nestor got pulled under very fast and we think went unconscious fairly quickly. Our vote would be poor Walter Chang — grabbed, stabbed in the back with tentacle horns, and slowly pulled through the floor with a leg bent backward. Yeah, now I’ve totally creeped myself out.
Would you consider, and did you intend, the Tremors franchise to be your magnum opus; or did it just end up becoming something more throughout the years?
It became something more — all because of the fans. Tremors 1 was considered a failure until fans made it a huge success in the then-new video market. It took years for Tremors 2 to develop such a following that the studio wanted Tremors 3. Even then, they told us Tremors 3 would definitely be the last one. But the fans kept renting/buying, so the studio decided to go for 4 and the series at almost the same time. Tremors has a life of its own, thanks to all of you.
In reference to one answer you provided, why did Blumhouse refuse to meet you for possible consulting? I would have thought they would have been more open since recently they brought John Carpenter to consult on a new Halloween film.
They did not give a reason. Just said no.
Unorthodox question: has the thought of Johnny 5 coming across Graboids ever crossed your minds?
We are embarrassed to admit, no! It never has. And it’s a great idea!
“Life form! Subterranean! Tracking me acoustically! Danger! No disassemble!”
The answer to this is most likely no, but is Stampede Entertainment involved in the production of the new T.V. series based on Tremors?
You are correct. The answer is no. The people developing the series refused to meet with or discuss it with us.
What was the purpose behind the film?
We think this might be a trick philosophy or political question. But we don’t deal much in philosophy, or politics, so our answer is that the purpose was to tell a fun, off-beat, exciting story as best we could.
When Walter was being eaten by the Graboid that came through the floor, why didn’t Earl help him with that axe he had?
This is a good question. Indeed it is true that Earl found an axe earlier when trying to help Rhonda. But when the motor in the soft drink cooler turned on, we think he left the axe by the table he was sitting at across the room. He had no time to get off the cooler, over to the table and back before Walter got pulled down.
Do you think the Perfectionists had a funeral for El Blanco?
Wait, what?! Did El Blanco die?? No. No, he didn’t die, at least not in the Tremors episodes we at Stampede have worked on.
How different would the movie be if there were 8 Graboids instead a of 4?
Forgive me, there are lots of funny answers to this question. We are writers, after all.
The entire town of Perfection would have been eaten, and it would have been a very dark, depressing horror movie.
We would have had to add people to the town to get eaten so Val and Earl, and maybe Rhonda, would still survive.
Burt would have had to come up with a mini-nuclear bombs instead of his ordinary ones.
We would have had to come up with four more cool ways to kill a Graboid.
The movie would have been twice as long! But twice as expensive and we wouldn’t have been able to make it!
But seriously, we are amazed at the new questions fans keep coming up with all these years later. Thanks!
In Tremors 5 that Australian guy made the Graboid spit him back up after “tickling the belly” with a shotgun. Why didn’t Burt do the same in Tremors 3. After all, he had a Desert Eagle on him when he was swallowed.
We did not work on Tremors 5. The people who did changed or ignored all the rules we tried to be true to when we were working on the series.
Why didn’t you incorporate the 2016 Tour de France as a prequel to Perfection Valley terror? You could have had the Graboids take out some of the Yellow jersey leaders, then head west to America for more delectable cuisine. Pogo sticks just don’t compare to bicyclists going downhill at 55mph. Plus bridging the Space-Time continuum would increase audience participation by incorporating the Sci-Fi types.
Uh —- what? I think this one went over our heads.
Near the end of the series, Burt was on the hunt for the secret government lab where Mixmaster was created. We were left with Burt finding the road to the lab that Cletus had mentioned. Were there any plans to show Burt finding the lab or to go into more detail about it?
Yes! Though we didn’t have it all worked out yet, we wanted to tell more about the history of the lab, have more fun with what Mixmaster might do, maybe find skeletons of failed Mixmaster experiments, maybe find vials of still-viable versions of it. Lots of ideas. Didn’t get to do them.