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Film/TV

MoPOP to Bring Motherhumping Graboids to a Screen Near You Next Friday

by Matt Baume • Jul 8, 2020 at 4:45 pm

Tremors: a vital linking node in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon multiverse.

If there’s any silver lining to be found in quarantine life, it’s MoPOP’s excellent watch-along screening series, It’s Coming from Inside the House, which next Friday (July 17) will feature the masterpiece Tremors, along with a super special guest.

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It’s easy to join: You’ll just need to have Tremors cued up in one window, whether on Netflix, or Amazon, or (for true fans) on VHS. In another window, you’ll need to call up MoPOP’s livestream with special guest Kelly Sue DeConnick. The audience and the host all press the play button on their computers/VCRs at (around) the same time, and then everyone can sit back and chat along as giant subterranean worms terrorize a tiny town.

But of course, you could just watch Tremors anytime you want on a variety of streaming services. So what makes next Friday’s MoPOP party special?

Well, for one thing, there’s awesome guest Kelly Sue DeConnick, a comics writer whose vision for Captain Marvel formed the basis for the character we know and love in the Marvel film. MoPOP’s arranged for her to host the party with commentary, cosplay, and cocktails.

Aside from the Carol Danvers rebranding as Captain Marvel, Kelly’s also worked on Pretty Deadly, Bitch Planet, and many many more. Doing a screening of Tremors was her idea, a tribute to '50s-style creature features.

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To be clear, Tremors is an extremely goofy horror film, which is of course its great strength. Originally entitled Land Sharks, it’s the story of a bunch of giant worms that want to eat you, and that’s pretty much it. Explosions, decapitations, scary monsters in the night — it’s an ideal blend of '80s schlock-horror with wry knowing '90s dialogue, and it’s as popcorny a film as films can possibly be. (Worth noting: It's from the team that brought us Short Circuit.)

I’ll confess that I’m easily startled and often horror-averse. (Just this morning I scared the shit out of myself when I put a spoon into some oatmeal and it made a louder glorp noise than I expected.) But Tremors is gleeful magnificent ridiculous camp, on the level of Night of the Lepus (giant killer rabbits) or Food of the Gods Part II (numerous giant rats plus a giant foul-mouthed toddler). It’s the ideal laugh-and-scream movie experience; and until we can all get together in person for watch parties, more screening events like this make life vastly more bearable.

This post has been updated to reflect that this screening is next Friday, not this Friday.