Tremors 3: Return to Perfection

 The Tremors movies were always low-budget, but this second sequel was the first one to go straight to video (Aftershocks was intended to be DtV as well, but positive reactions on test screenings convinced Universal to give it a theatrical run.

 And... well, this is where the magic fails. Maybe you can blame the script by newcomer John Whelpley, but the story is by the original Tremors team (S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock plus Nancy Roberts, who helped with Tremors 2). Maddock also directs.

 Gun nut Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) is left to headline after the departures of Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, and he is as likeable as ever, even if he's much better as a supporting character than a protagonist. And to be completely honest, I didn't hate the deuteragonists either: Shawn Christian as a grifter who takes out tourists on safaris to see "graboids" (or a shitty facsimile thereof), and a business-headed shop owner played by Susan Chuang.

 But the story, which has a new batch of graboids/shriekers terrify the community of Perfection again, feels very tired and by-the-numbers. So does the introduction of yet a new stage of graboid development - it turns out shriekers, if left alone, turn into a sleeker version of a shrieker that can fly by... lighting its farts on fire, basically. These ass-blasters (official name!) look terrible and their method of locomotion never makes sense (they don't look like they could glide for a second); The whole thing reeks of desperation on the part of the creative team.

They got Dark Horse to do a decent cover... shame no one thought about running a spell checker.

 Squint, and you can see some traces of the trademark Tremors wit - but you have to squint a lot, and none of it is really memorable. Add to that crappier production values (although technically on a higher budget; at one point we're treated to a rack of comics called "Shreikers") and more reliance on bargain-bin CGI even for the standard first-stage graboids... yeah, this was a major disappointment.

 This is as far as I got originally with this series. It hasn't gotten any better with a rewatch and, to be honest I'm not exactly making me want to persevere with the series; Especially as the relationship between the Tremors team and Universal, which never seems to have been good (Aftershocks' production was apparently nightmarish, which makes it even more amazing that it turned out so well) got markedly worse after this.