Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)


Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)

Director:

Brent Maddock

Starring:

Michael Gross

Shawn Christian

Susan Chuang

Plot:

The now famous Burt Gummer returns to his hometown of Perfection, Nevada for the first time in years, but the deadliest Graboid evolution yet forces him to save the town he swore to protect.

Review:

The movies are clearly going down in quality, but I still have fun watching them.

This time we’ve got a lot of people from the original returning, but only one really main guy, Michael Gross. Returning to Perfection he finds that things have changed in the time he’s been away killing Graboids and Shriekers. Not a fan of those new changes, he doesn’t do much about it because it doesn’t affect him, until it does.

After everyone mocks him for thinking the Graboids will return, they do, but they’re all pretty prepared, and things are running smoothly until the town asshole ruins things. Then they learn that the Graboids have another evolution, the Assblasters.

Lots of explosions, the smart girl gets with the hot not as smart guy, and Michael Gross plays what could be a deadly prank on the town asshole. It hits all the things I expect from a Tremors movie, even if it doesn’t look as good as the first one.

3/5

Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996)


Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996)

Director:

S.S. Wilson

Starring:

Fred Ward

Chris Gartin

Helen Shaver

Michael Gross

Plot:

Battling a life depression, Earl Bassett is offered a job as a mercenary to help a Mexican oil company with a Graboid epidemic that’s killing more people each day. However, the humans aren’t the only ones with a new battle plan..

Review:

Fred Ward had it all. He should have been set for life after discovering the Graboids in the previous movie. Fame. Fortune. It was all his, but after a series of horrible investments he lost it all.

Back in Paradise, trying to make a living with an emu farm, alone and depressed, he’s propositioned by a Mexican Oil company that has developed a Graboid problem. Initially, he says no, but the draw of $50k per dead monster is enough to draw him back in.

Older and wiser and with the backing of the Mexican military he is properly armed this time. Those Graboids didn’t stand a chance. Still, their numbers start to overwhelm him and his new sidekick, Chris Gartin, so they call in the big guns of Michael Gross. A doomsday prepper and himself depressed after the excitement of the Graboid situation and destruction of his marriage, Gross hops at the chance.

Things are going easy, too easy, when they get thrown a curveball. The Graboids have evolved. Bursting from their hideous bodies are a new creature, easier to kill, but just as vicious and rapidly multiplying.

Death! Destruction! Mayhem!

With quick thinking and tons of explosives they manage to survive and the Graboids are once again destroyed and this time Fred Ward has more responsible aims for his money.

4/5

Tremors (1990)


Tremors (1990)

Director:

Ron Underwood

Starring:

Kevin Bacon

Fred Ward

Finn Carter

Michael Gross

Reba McEntire

Plot:

Natives of a small isolated town defend themselves against strange underground creatures which are killing them one by one.

Review:

It is mind boggling that I love this movie. Seriously, I hate horror, monster movies scare me, but I’ve loved this movie since I was a kid.

Anyway, Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are handymen that do all the odd jobs in the little town of Paradise. They live beer can to beer can and who knows when they bathed last. After one too many shit jobs they decide to leave and head to the big town of Bixby where they will surely find new glamorous lives in no time.

On their way out of town they find the town drunk dead high up on an electrical tower. That sucks. Oh well, they are newly inspired to leave because what if they wind up like him? They find more bodies and more bodies and holy shit is there a serial killer on the lose? Nope! It’s GRABOIDS!!

Such a stupid name lol

They realize that giant worms under the ground are eating everyone and if the rest of the town wants to survive they need to get out of there. That is easier said than done. More people die, but eventually some of them make it out alive.

This movie is ridiculously entertaining and spawned several sequels. There were even talks about a TV series on SyFy recently with Kevin Bacon set to reprise his role. The trailer looked incredible, but sadly it was not picked up.

Every few years I watch this and I’m always entertained and I marvel over that fact considering how much I normally dislike this type of movie.

5/5

Westworld Season 2 (2016-?)


Westworld Season 2 (2016-?)

Network:

HBO

Starring:

Evan Rachel Wood

Thandie Newton

Jeffry Wright

Ed Harris

James Marsden

Zahn McClarnon

Plot:

Set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past, explore a world in which every human appetite can be indulged without consequence.

Review:

The end of season 1 had Delores, Evan Rachel Wood, going on a killing rampage. Bernard, Jeffry Wright, discovered he was one of the hosts. And Maeve, Thandie Newton, decides fuck it I’m going to find my daughter and not leave. It’s a pretty climactic ending and season 2 seriously does not disappoint.

Delores leads a revolution. She’s angry and she wants humans to pay in blood and she doesn’t care who’s in her way. Her love, Teddy, James Marsden, can’t even stop her, though, he doesn’t really try. When she realizes he’s going to be a possible hindrance she does what her enemy does and changes him. When he realizes it, he can’t keep going. It’s sad. In the end her desire for revenge matters more than anything. She basically becomes her enemy.

Bernard’s story is probably the most confusing. He too is free, basically, and trying to save his people. However, he doesn’t want to destroy the humans like Delores. He wants everyone to live and thrive and be happy. He is very much Delores foil and the end of the season sets that up handily for the next season.

Maeve, my favorite character of the bunch, could easily be brushed off by saying she only cares about herself, but that’s too easy. She cares about others, but she is not currently a big picture player. She wants her family to be happy. One of my favorite parts of the season was when she met Delores and basically called her out and said if you really believe what you’re spouting then you can’t stop me. It was great.

The Man in Black, Ed Harris, gets more background. Through his story there are more revelations about the entire place. He seems to be going crazy, if he isn’t already there. His story is what really confuses things as a whole and makes you wonder what’s going on.

My favorite episode of the season didn’t have anything to do with these characters, though. At least, not really. It was a new character, Akecheta, Zahn McClarnon, a Native American warrior. His story is just so amazing. I loved that episode so much.

What has me most confused and excited about this season was the end credits clip. It basically throws everything into question and I have no idea which way is up. I am so excited and really looking forward to the next season. Westworld has become more than I ever could have imagined.

5/5

Ocean Light


Ocean Light (Psy-Changling Trinity #2) By: Nalini Singh

Plot:

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh dives beneath the surface of her Psy-Changeling world into a story of passionate devotion and selfless love…

Security specialist Bowen Knight has come back from the dead. But there’s a ticking time bomb in his head: a chip implanted to block telepathic interference that could fail at any moment–taking his brain along with it. With no time to waste, he should be back on land helping the Human Alliance. Instead, he’s at the bottom of the ocean, consumed with an enigmatic changeling…

Kaia Luna may have traded in science for being a chef, but she won’t hide the facts of Bo’s condition from him or herself. She’s suffered too much loss in her life to fall prey to the dangerous charm of a human who is a dead man walking. And she carries a devastating secret Bo could never imagine…

But when Kaia is taken by those who mean her deadly harm, all bets are off. Bo will do anything to get her back–even if it means striking a devil’s bargain and giving up his mind to the enemy…

Review:

Finally, I get a book with a human love interest! I was so happy about that, and then the leads wound up being so awesome it made me even happier.

I devoured this book, it was so sweet and hopeful and exciting. Not much happened in the world, though definitely enough to move things forward, but the love story was very much the heart of “Ocean Light.”

Bo and Kaia were not perfect for each other on the surface, but it was an immediate attraction on both sides. Bo was dying and Kaia had already suffered so much loss. Bo has a secret and so does Kaia and it’s just more reason for them not to be together. None of that ever matters though. You know that Bo is going to live and that they’re going to live happily ever after, there was really never any doubt in my mind, but it didn’t make the story any less. I was swept away in the romance and love. It was perfect.

5/5