I've long enjoyed the Tremors series, which sadly have been relegated to direct-to-video since the first sequel. That said, despite low budgets, the sequels have always been fun creature-based action comedy suspense romps. Until this seventh edition. The fun has been largely sucked right out of Shrieker Island.
The first four films were created by writers of the originals S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock and were pretty entertaining while in the hands of the people who were the series' creators. There was then a ten year break and then a new director and new writers were brought in for the 5th, 6th, and 7th installments. The 5th and 6th were co-written by John Whelpley, who was the last remaining connection to the originals as he was responsible for the teleplay of the 3rd Tremors. However, with Shrieker Island, Whelpley is gone and the lone creative connection to the original creators was completely severed. It shows.
Shrieker Island has no tension and no interesting situations for the characters to creatively get out of - something at least my memory tells me the other movies all had. It's just sloppy writing by people who don't seem to have much knowledge of the history of these movies, including how the monsters are supposed to behave. In more than one scene, Burt tells the characters to be quiet and then everyone proceeds to continue chatting and in some cases walking around, with no consequences.
The lack of suspense might be forgivable if the movie had the comedy elements of its predecessors, but alas, Jamie Kennedy is not onboard for this one. He and Michael Gross had great on-screen rapport in the 5th and 6th movies, but no one in this movie measures up.
I would have given it three stars out of ten just for having Burt as the lead again, and Gross gives it his best, but then at the end the titles unnecessarily give a "screw you" to all fans of Burt's anti-government attitude. Plus, Burt barely even gets one line to trash on bureaucracy early on, and that's it.
Bad guy "Bill" played by Richard Brake is a bright spot doesn't have much interesting to do with his character. There's a lady with a bow and arrow who looks a lot like a similar bow-wielding character from the 5th movie in Africa. I thought when she first showed up that they were foreshadowing that her skills with the bow would come in handy later, but nope, not at all.
I've seen them all, but except for the first two, I've only seen the rest of them once. However, I'd be willing to watch them all again, except this one.
Let's hope this is the end of the series, but if not, maybe with the last few movies globetrotting from Africa, to the Arctic, to tropical islands, the eighth movie will be Tremors In Space. Might as well go maximum stupid at this point.
The first four films were created by writers of the originals S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock and were pretty entertaining while in the hands of the people who were the series' creators. There was then a ten year break and then a new director and new writers were brought in for the 5th, 6th, and 7th installments. The 5th and 6th were co-written by John Whelpley, who was the last remaining connection to the originals as he was responsible for the teleplay of the 3rd Tremors. However, with Shrieker Island, Whelpley is gone and the lone creative connection to the original creators was completely severed. It shows.
Shrieker Island has no tension and no interesting situations for the characters to creatively get out of - something at least my memory tells me the other movies all had. It's just sloppy writing by people who don't seem to have much knowledge of the history of these movies, including how the monsters are supposed to behave. In more than one scene, Burt tells the characters to be quiet and then everyone proceeds to continue chatting and in some cases walking around, with no consequences.
The lack of suspense might be forgivable if the movie had the comedy elements of its predecessors, but alas, Jamie Kennedy is not onboard for this one. He and Michael Gross had great on-screen rapport in the 5th and 6th movies, but no one in this movie measures up.
I would have given it three stars out of ten just for having Burt as the lead again, and Gross gives it his best, but then at the end the titles unnecessarily give a "screw you" to all fans of Burt's anti-government attitude. Plus, Burt barely even gets one line to trash on bureaucracy early on, and that's it.
Bad guy "Bill" played by Richard Brake is a bright spot doesn't have much interesting to do with his character. There's a lady with a bow and arrow who looks a lot like a similar bow-wielding character from the 5th movie in Africa. I thought when she first showed up that they were foreshadowing that her skills with the bow would come in handy later, but nope, not at all.
I've seen them all, but except for the first two, I've only seen the rest of them once. However, I'd be willing to watch them all again, except this one.
Let's hope this is the end of the series, but if not, maybe with the last few movies globetrotting from Africa, to the Arctic, to tropical islands, the eighth movie will be Tremors In Space. Might as well go maximum stupid at this point.