LIAM EASLEY, TRUMPET ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DIRECTOR
The “Tremors” franchise graduated from being five movies too long to being six movies too long on Oct. 20, 2020. Some might disagree and say that it’s now seven movies too long, but I’ll give the original 1990 film some wiggle room (pun intended).
That being said, welcome “Tremors: Shrieker Island,” the seventh film of the famous creature feature franchise. This installment featured a small, volcanic island owned by some rich guy who decided he wanted to import graboids (the worms) onto the island to hunt them with his friends. As for a plot summary, it’s about big, scary worms that eat people. What more is there to say?
Jon Heder somehow found his way into this film, making the serious moments unbearably stupid as all I heard was the mouth-breathing voice of Napoleon Dynamite. Even with Heder, whose acting ability is always limited to the “comic relief” guy, the acting in this movie was very weak.
There were a lot of moments where “Shrieker Island” mimicked the original “Predator” while referring to the film through dialogue. The shriekers (baby graboids?) hunted with infrared light, whose portrayed vision was identical to the Predator’s. There was a scene where everyone relentlessly fired their guns into the jungle and hit nothing, and they even covered themselves in mud to scatter the shrieker’s heat vision (as they wore light bulbs on their foreheads).
At some point, it became clear that if you really want to watch “Shrieker Island,” do yourself a favor and watch “Predator” instead. The 1987 film was much more intense and thrilling than this unoriginal film where Napoleon Dynamite ran around with a flamethrower while rich people reenacted a classic sci-fi monster movie in the middle of the South Pacific. If this film took so much from one movie, then skip the recap and watch whatever it took from.
Basically, there’s no way anyone could start this movie expecting it to be good, so I’m not going to rail on it too hard. Based on a scale that is designed for films that give the audience insultingly low expectations, this movie was still entertaining and good for a laugh, as a monster film should be. It’s no masterpiece, but anyone who watches this will get exactly what they expected, and that must count for something.
Knight Wire 
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