Yes, the Tremors film series continued after the semi-classic 1990 original with Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. What, you didn’t know that?
Well, it’s true. The saga of the “graboids”—the underground, tunneling, carnivorous worms that serve as the antagonists of the original film—has now stretched through no less than four sequels and a short-lived television series, as the monsters morphed into various new forms. And now, a SIXTH installment is on the way, and we’ve got a title: Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell.
Returning is the legendary Michael Gross, character actor extraordinaire, who has played the role of graboid hunter Burt Gummer ever since the original. It’s almost easy to forget at this point that in the first film he was playing second fiddle to his wife Heather, played by Reba McEntire of all people, before she was killed off and he became the de facto lead character of the series thanks to his over-the-top characterization. Subsequent years have seen the releases of Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001), Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) and Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015), which was itself a sequel to the short-lived Tremors: The Series, which aired in 2003. Pretty much all of them have starred Gross in some way. Meanwhile, A Cold Day in Hell also has a synopsis, which is as follows:
“Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) and his son Travis Welker (Jamie Kennedy) find themselves up to their ears in Graboids and Ass-Blasters when they head to Canada to investigate a series of deadly giant-worm attacks. Arriving at a remote research facility in the artic tundra, Burt begins to suspect that Graboids are secretly being weaponized, but before he can prove his theory, he is sidelined by Graboid venom. With just 48 hours to live, the only hope is to create an antidote from fresh venom — but to do that, someone will have to figure out how to milk a Graboid!”
Sounds absolutely thrilling. Newcomers to the series will include Tanya van Graan (Death Race: Inferno), Rob van Vuuren (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) and Greg Kriek (Momentum). What, was Lance Henriksen not available?
Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, director by Don Michael Paul, is set for some kind of release (one presumes direct-to-VOD) in May of 2018. Like other installments of the series, it’s rated PG-13 for “creature violence, gore, crude humor, and language.”