Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) – What Happened to This Horror Movie?

A script that sat on a shelf for ten years. A creative team that was told their opinions were not welcome. A location change from Australia to South Africa. Tremors 5: Bloodlines did not have a smooth, peaceful journey to the screen, but it did give us the chance to watch survivalist Burt Gummer fight Graboids again. And today, we’re going to find out What Happened to This Horror Movie.

The production company Stampede Entertainment was formed by S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Nancy Roberts, and Ron Underwood, the team that was behind the classic 1990 monster movie Tremors, which was a Universal release. And when Universal decided they wanted direct-to-video Tremors sequels and a TV show, they turned to Stampede to provide them. As the new century began, Universal was keeping Stampede quite busy. Tremors 3 was released in 2001. Thirteen episodes of the TV series aired on Syfy in 2003. Tremors 4 was released in 2004. And Universal was feeling so good about the franchise, they had Stampede start developing Tremors 5 while they were still working on the fourth movie. By the time Tremors 4 came out, Wilson and Maddock were already writing the script for Part 5, based on a story they had crafted with Roberts. There was even talk that this one might have a bigger budget and get a theatrical release, like the original film.

Tremors told the story of subterranean, prehistoric creatures called Graboids attacking the isolated town of Perfection, Nevada. Tremors 2 was about surviving characters, including survivalist Burt Gummer, played by Michael Gross, agreeing to deal with a Graboid problem in another location. The original idea was to set the sequel in Australia, but it ended up being changed to Mexico. For Tremors 5, Stampede decided to circle back to the Australia idea, sending Burt on a monster hunt in the Outback. Each sequel added something new to the Graboid life cycle until we had seen every step of it. If Graboids are around long enough, they will metamorphose, splitting open, with two-legged, heat-seeking creatures called Shriekers emerging from their bodies. Given enough time, Shriekers will then metamorphose into Ass Blasters, two-legged creatures that mix flammable chemicals in their rear ends so they can blast themselves into the air. Ass Blasters lay Graboid eggs. And Tremors 4 had shown us what baby Graboids look like. For his Outback adventure, Burt would be dealing with Ass Blasters, baby Graboids… and an Australian species of Graboid that would be bigger, weirder, and look somewhat different.

Unfortunately, the franchise hit a roadblock. Despite decent ratings, the TV show was cancelled after one season. Universal released Tremors 4 with almost zero promotion at a time when the DVD market was crumbling. So it was a financial disappointment. They decided to hold off on making Tremors 5… And so began a long waiting period. Fans knew Tremors 5 had been in the works. They knew Wilson and Maddock had written a script. But Universal wasn’t interested in moving forward with it. As years went by, the chances of the sequel being made looked less likely. Stampede tried to keep hope alive. Every time there was a regime change at Universal, there was a chance the new executives might greenlight more Tremors. Interest in Tremors 5 spiked at Universal in 2008, then died down again. Stampede tried to make a deal to have an independent producer raise the budget, but talks with the studio fell apart. The sequel appeared to be doomed. Then, the situation took an unexpected turn. Stampede had a right of first refusal in their Tremors 5 contract. Meaning that if Universal wanted to make it, they had to offer it to Stampede first. If Stampede declined to be involved, they could take it to someone else. Right when that first refusal clause lapsed in 2014, Universal decided they were finally going to make the movie. Without Stampede.

As Wilson told One Heat Minute, when Stampede heard that Tremors 5 got the greenlight, “Nancy asked Universal whether they wanted Brent or I to direct. They told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored. It didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low budget movies. But the sequels we made were all low budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what the real reason was.” Universal said they could give the Stampede team executive producer credits, but they’d have little say in any creative decisions. In that case, they chose not to put their names on the movie at all.

The previous films were all directed by either Wilson, Maddock, or Underwood. With Stampede shut out, the director of Tremors 5 had to be someone completely new to the series. Universal chose Don Michael Paul, a go-to director for direct-to-video action movies and creature features.

The 2004 script needed some revisions, and the setting had to be moved from Australia to South Africa, one of the top destinations for low budget productions. Someone who had previous Tremors experience was brought on to handle the rewrites: John Whelpley, who had worked on the script for Tremors 3. Whelpley changed things up, but the finished script for Tremors 5 was still close enough to what Wilson, Maddock, and Roberts had written that all retain credit. They opted for pseudonyms: Woodrow Truesmith, which was the name of a character from the 1944 film Hail the Conquering Hero; M.A. Deuce, which is a gun; and C.J. Strebor. Note that Strebor is Roberts spelled backwards.

The basic story remains the same. Ass Blasters and Graboids have shown up in a new country, now South Africa instead of Australia. Burt Gummer is recruited to handle the problem, since he has a lot of experience with these creatures. But when he arrives for the hunt, he finds that he has been provided with insufficient weapons. And his employers, who haven’t been completely honest with him, want him to capture an Ass Blaster alive. Since Burt is still the lead character, it meant fans would expect him to be played by Michael Gross, who had been in all of the previous movies and the TV series. He was even in the prequel, where he played one of Burt’s ancestors. Would he agree to make the movie without Stampede? He did, but he admitted to Famous Monsters of Filmland that it was an awkward situation. “I felt there had been a divorce in the family and I was the child in the middle. Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again.” Gross then found himself in the position of trying to protect the franchise. He said, “Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree on. I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without the original writers there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’”

Whelpley’s rewrite changed the supporting cast, removing a character that was meant to be a love interest for Burt and giving him a sidekick named Travis B. Welker, who is eventually revealed to be Burt’s son he never knew existed. The result of a one night stand back in the ‘70s. Jamie Kennedy was cast as this character, who proves to be quite helpful, even though his constant quips can get irritating… But pretty much everything annoys Burt in this movie. He’s in a very grumpy mood most of the time.

Also removed were the baby Graboids, replaced by a strange new evolutionary twist. The tentacles Graboids use to pull things into their mouths can now detach and go hunting for prey on their own. The tentacles are basically just Graboid tongues, so it’s weird to see them become separate creatures. But the Graboids and Ass Blasters in this movie are very different. They’ve been re-designed from the ground up – and these changes didn’t go over well with some fans. The Ass Blasters look over designed and nothing like they did before. The Graboids, said to be larger and more dangerous than the others we’ve seen, are presented in an over-the-top way, always launching themselves out of the ground and catching air. The changes are unnecessary, and it’s not likely that the original Tremors would have endured if it had Graboids like these in it. But it’s part of how Universal wanted to make this sequel different.

Of course, the folks at Stampede weren’t too pleased with all of this. Universal invited S.S. Wilson to a private screening of the finished film. His reaction: “I couldn’t have been more horrified. By halfway through, it was clear that it wasn’t anything we would want to do. I kept hoping it would get better, but it just got steadily worse. There was just a whole list of things that I felt were wrong with it. It’s got some of the worst monster movie clichès, the types of things we’d laugh at as kids. There were terrible homages to Jurassic Park. It’s quite a long list.”

The Stampede team absolutely should have been involved with the making of Tremors 5. They are this series. The style and tone of the movies and the TV show were a reflection of their sensibilities to this point. That is a big part of why the fans have loved the franchise so much. Tremors 5 is still tied to them, it is a revised version of their words, but it’s different from what a Stampede movie would have felt like. Without their guidance, a lot of questionable decisions were made. The new versions of the monsters are underwhelming. The movie has an odd preoccupation with bodily fluids, featuring urine in five different moments. Burt is unusually unpleasant. And it feels darker and rougher than its predecessors, at times almost to an off-putting degree. But it was still nice to see the movie get made. It’s always fun to watch Michael Gross battle these monsters. And it finally closed the Tremors 5 chapter of the franchise after a decade of waiting.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines was given a physical media and streaming release and proved to be a success. Fans were glad to see the franchise return after so many years. Its success paved the way for two more sequels that were made without the involvement of Stampede. Michael Gross came back. Burt Gummer continued fighting Graboids, Shriekers, and Ass Blasters. More questionable decisions were made. But there was still fun to be had. And the silver lining here is that, as of 2024, the U.S. copyright to Tremors is in the hands of Stampede Entertainment. They lost control of their series for a while, but now their monsters have come back home.

A couple of the previous episodes of the show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) – What Happened to This Horror Movie? appeared first on JoBlo.