Tremors

Tremors is one of those things that’s better than it can be filmed, because it’s so brilliant there’s no way to keep a straight face at it, and besides, the very limitations placed upon it by circumstances add just the right note of desperation.

In the American Southwest, giant worms arise from the ground and... there, you see. It’s a jackhammer opening up pavement that sets the vermin off.

A work of genius, naturally, very well-acted and very funny. Archie’s Weird Mysteries paid homage to it verbatim a decade later with typically profound insight. Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm at one end, Joe Chappelle’s Phantoms the other.

City Slickers

The model to be sure is Rydell’s The Cowboys, this is a variant with a bunch of New York shlemiels, why not? And besides, there are some good laughs, some good comedians, and Jack Palance.

Add to its other faults whatever scraps of dullness can be found by a very diligent effort in Boorman’s Deliverance or Ritchie’s The Survivors and you’re left with a bit of homework to do, after which you recognize a great film homage to the West.