Tremors 5: Bloodlines

The original Tremors was one of those movies I live for: Something that came out of nowhere, with no expectations except the feeling that a film about giant mutant killer earthworms known as “graboids” was hardly likely to be any good, and ended up blowing me away. But it was funny, and had actual scary moments, characters you actually liked and who used their heads, and graboids that actually looked pretty good. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward and all the supporting cast are great.

That film spawned four Direct-to-Video sequels and a short-lived TV series. What seems to have happened is that Michael Gross, who was Reba McIntyre’s survivalist husband in the original, has made sort of a career of playing that character. I didn’t see any of the others and so, once again, had few hopes for this one. I can’t say it was as welcome a surprise as the first one was, but it’s a lot better than any movie with a 5 in the title has any right to be. I won’t recommend it, but some night when you might like a little light entertainment that won’t completely insult your intelligence, you could certainly do worse than this.