Yes, they do. They were completely computer generated except for a few shots. We did our best to get them to look identical but there’s something slightly different about them. The upside is they have a lot more movement than the eight foot tall full scale guys.

We did get some complaints from parents about this name. From our perspective, given the R-rated films many kids see all the time, we didn’t think it was so bad. But in hind-site it probably wasn’t the best choice. Our apologies to those the name offended. On the set we just called them Abs (“aay bees”) and we sort of forgot what it stood for over the course of shooting.

Often people ask why a particular cast member has not returned for Tremors 2 or 3.  There are several reasons.  Sometimes actors don’t want to repeat a character they’ve played before.  Sometime schedules don’t work (they’re already doing another movie when we have to be shooting ours).

For example, Kevin Bacon was asked to be in TREMORS II, but he was about to do Apollo 13, and is really enjoying playing a wide variety of different characters. He didn’t feel at the time that he wanted to come back and repeat the Val McKee character.

Sometimes, since we’re the writers, we can’t think fun things for the earlier characters to do and we feel like inventing new ones.  That’s part of what happened on Tremors 3.  Since many of the townsfolk are back, we felt we needed some new characters to add to the mix.

Here’s one that surprised us:  some fans wrote that they were disappointed we didn’t announce when and where we were shooting Tremors 3.  They would like to have come to watch us shoot. Well, first of all, we didn’t think of it.  Maybe in the future we should have a contest or something where the winners get to come to the set.  But the main reason is, while we love all you fans, we’re trying to surprise you!  We didn’t want people to see what the next phase of the Graboid life cycle was, or see what tricks Burt might have up his sleeve!  So we were actually pretty secretive all during the shoot.

Here’s what we think: the Graboid in the first movie had to swallow the dynamite before realizing it was the bad stuff. Burt, with his RC cars and remote detonator, is too quick for them, hitting the button before they realize they’ve been “hooked.”

Burt is a perfectionist!  He feels you can always improve your game, so he was taping the kills to learn more about Graboids and how best to take them out.

Uh, okay, remember what Kate said about exponential growth? We actually have no idea.  There was like, a whole lot of them inside that storage building that Earl blew up, and they were all eating and making more Shriekers the whole time.  So, like, a zillion?

Yes,  they did.  At least they tried to.  The refinery owners weren’t too happy about it, and weren’t happy that the refinery got blown up, but they ultimately made a deal that covered both Graboids and an undecided number of shriekers.  Earl and Grady made out pretty well in the end.

Well… we gotta say, it’s amazing that fans are still coming up with new questions!  Apparently there is need to invent, er, divulge new Shrieker behavioral secrets!  Our belief is that Shrieker tongue-searching is a fall-back food finding technique.  If they have sensed no warm-blooded prey for a certain amount of time, they resort to tongue searching for less palatable cold blooded, or just cold, food.  They can’t use the technique non-stop, however, because they’d trip over their tongues trying to walk and, with their mouths open too much they’d quickly become dehydrated from slime evaporation.

No, they felt he’d performed the duties asked of him and the loss of the truck was well worth getting rid of the Graboids and Shriekers.

Okay, we gotta be honest, this one stumped us.  As far as we know nothing was intentionally written in the dirt in this scene.  Can other fans help us out?  Anybody else see any mysterious writing in the ostrich pen sequence?

March 2019 update.  A fan has responded with the detailed analysis below!  Thanks!

Regarding the “writing” in the dirt behind Earl in Tremors 2, I just now watched that scene several times on blu-ray and the only “patterns” I can see behind Earl in the pen are the sparse, naturally random growth patterns of the grass and some of the fence’s shadows in the dirt, along with the inevitable patterns of Earl and the ostriches’ movements within the pen.

Burt initially went along with Rhonda’s request to donate all the Graboid remains to science.  A few days later, he regretted his decision.  At considerable expense and effort, he reclaimed the head of the most-damaged Graboid, the one that fell to the bottom of the cliffs.  Its head was relatively undamaged, and he had a taxidermist mount it, also at considerable expense.

No.  Burt and Heather were very careful, since they had grave doubts about the value of bringing children into a world under constant threat of disaster (and that was before they knew about Graboids).

Good question.  In most cases, yes, but not too well.  Glass tends to limit the transmission of infrared light.  Some insulating glass is designed to block almost all infrared light.  While we could see right through it, to a Shrieker that sort of glass might look like a mirror.  Wish we had thought of that when we were making T-2.  We could have had Earl, Grady, and Kate carrying glass doors, and the Shriekers couldn’t have seen them!  Of course it would have required a lot of dialogue from Kate explaining the science behind it.

Update to this question:  Here’s alternate answer from a fan who says:

Are you ready for the true scientific answer? Well here goes. A friend of mine keeps pet rattlesnakes in his house (in double locked containment, of course}. As you know, rattlesnakes and other pit vipers can see warm objects in total darkness. Before entering the reptile room, you must turn on the overhead light or else the snakes will vigorously rattle their tails until the lights are on and they can see you clearly. Snakes can not hear because they have no ears (unlike Graboids), but they can sense heat through the tempered glass in the window of their terrarium.

(SSW admits he has not tested the glass scenario with rattlesnakes, nor is he likely to.)

Many animals have coloring that seems to serve no purpose.  What we often find, however, is that science just hasn’t figured out what the purpose is.  For example, some have theorized that these colorful patches on Shriekers might have more blood near the skin surface in order to emit more heat than the rest of the body, and that might communicate something to another Shrieker like, “Stay away from my food,” or “Look out, I’m about to throw up a new baby.”  Unfortunately, Shriekers are hard to study because they are the shortest-lived of the three Graboid life forms.  Some years ago, the few that the government had in captivity escaped in Perfection Valley and multiplied, much to the consternation of the locals, who barely managed to destroy them.

Ummm, we see where you’re coming from, we think, but the answer is no.  Shriekers do not appear inside an adult Graboid until right before they’re “born.”  Science would love to be able to study a living Graboid in which Shriekers have started to grow, but so far that opportunity hasn’t come up.  Thus far it appears that El Blanco, the albino Graboid now living in Perfection Valley will never reproduce.

Since we were focused on introducing Shriekers to the Tremors world, we didn’t feel we should spend time and money recreating all the things Graboids did in Tremors 1.  Also, since we had had trouble getting good full scale burst-ups in T-1, (remember how slow the Graboid comes up next to Earl before the run to the cliff?) we were excited about showing our full sized 8 foot Graboids bursting out of the ground with real energy (as when one eats the oil worker in the opening, and later, when one makes a grab for Grady by the pickup).  So we put our effects dollars into those moments, rather than refurbishing and using the tentacles with all their cables, which required many puppeteers.

At they time they were killed. none of the Graboids in Tremors 1 had yet started the metamorphic process which leads to Shriekers forming inside its body.  So there was no sign of Shriekers in the T-1 Graboids studied by Rhonda and other scientists, and no hint that this is how they reproduce.

We think it’s always fun and interesting to have characters come back, but unfortunately, there are no plans for future Tremors at all, with or without Grady.

Yes, Earl was taking a chance. But all the cold surrounding his face helped disguise it. Also, the Shriekers had food all around them and were all happily eating. As a result, they weren’t paying as close attention as if they’d been in full hunting mode.

A Graboid is nearly dead at this point. The tentacles’ primary purpose of for pulling prey into the mouth. Since the animal is no longer eating, it doesn’t need to use them any more. All its remaining energy is going to support the growing Shriekers inside it.

Yes, they were. They had to give a discount price, since:

1. there were so many Shriekers and,
2. the refinery they were supposedly “protecting” was destroyed. But Earl, Grady, and Burt came out quite handsomely in the end.

No, the pouches aid in the animals’ breathing. If you watch closely in T-2, you can sometimes see them pulsating. Baby Shriekers grow from eggs lining the stomach walls of the adult, feeding directly on digestive products there. When an adult eats enough, one of the eggs suddenly starts to grow, forcing its way into the stomach cavity and up the throat. Yech.

It’s not clear why only one egg is “triggered” at a time.

Yes, they do. But not nearly as much. Scientists think the reason may be that Shriekers are designed to alert each other when they find food. ABs are more solitary animals, primarily looking for a good place to lay their single egg, so the theory is there’s not as much need for them to signal each other about food sources.

He wisely beat it out of there before things got bad.