History Film / Tremors2Aftershocks

Filmed and set six years after the first, a group of Graboids is menacing a Mexican oil refinery. The owners hire a reluctant Earl and his hustling fanboy Grady to deal with the problem, and they in turn recruit Burt to assist them. But things gets complicated when the Graboids start hatching out "Shriekers" -- smaller, bipedal critters that hunt by sensing heat.

* ItCanThink: Double-subverted horribly. Initially everyone is convinced that the Shriekers are highly intelligent and coordinated, only to find out that all they're doing is just attacking anything warm that they see on their infrared vision, which includes car engines and electronics. This leads to everyone concluding that the Shriekers are really just stupid animals[[spoiler, right up until the Shriekers start forming a living ladder to get up on top of the tower Burt and Kate are hiding on, and later immediately locate the refinery's large food stores when they get locked inside the garage and begin spawning huge numbers to break out through brute force]].

--->'''Grady:''' [[AchievementsInIgnorance You mean they've been acting so smart 'cuz they're so]] ''[[AchievementsInIgnorance stupid]]''?

* ItCanThink: Initially everyone is convinced that the Shriekers are highly intelligent and coordinated. Subverted when it turns out that all they're doing is just attacking anything warm that they see on their infrared vision, which includes car engines and electronics. This leads to everyone concluding that the Shriekers are really just stupid animals, right up until [[spoiler: it gets DoubleSubverted: the Shriekers start forming a living ladder to get up on top of the tower Burt and Kate are hiding on, and later immediately locate the refinery's large food stores when they get locked inside the garage and begin spawning huge numbers to break out through brute force]].

* LoweredMonsterDifficulty: Played with. The Shriekers are smaller and considerably more fragile than the Graboids they mutated from, and are easier to fire at since they're above the ground. However, they're also far more numerous and, in that particular situation, Burt had stocked up on low ammo, high impact weapons expecting to deal with Graboids, which results in him burning through his ammo rather quickly once the Shriekers show up. Notably, Shriekers seem to be a combination of both remarkably stupid yet incredibly smart. They attack anything that's hot enough to be alive, resulting in them assaulting a radio tower and shredding the electronics within, as well as ripping up the engines of cars. In Grady's own words, "You mean they've been acting so smart because they're so stupid?" At the same time, they're clever enough to prepare ambushes like the one that Burt stumbled into (and apparently the one that killed Pedro) and they formed a living ladder to get to the humans on top of the oil tower.

* WallOfWeapons: Earl still has his, and it even has [[ContinuityNod a Graboid head mounted on the wall as a trophy.]]

'''Coyote''': ''Howl''

* KilledMidSentence: During the night, Earl and Grady hear a [[TooDumbToLive coyote howling in the distance]]. Earl says it better keep quiet, and immediately afterwards the coyote's howl is interrupted by the sound of a panicked yelp and earth moving.

* CheckhovsGun: Burt's [=MRE's=], also in his truck full of guns and bombs.

* LoweredMonsterDifficulty: Played with. The Shriekers are smaller and considerably more fragile than the Graboids they mutated from, and are easier to fire at since they're above the ground. However, they're also far more numerous and, in that particular situation, Burt had stocked up on low ammo, high impact weapons expecting to deal with Graboids, which results in him burning through his ammo rather quickly once the Shriekers show up.\\
\\
Notably, Shriekers seem to be a combination of both remarkably stupid yet incredibly smart. They attack anything that's hot enough to be alive, resulting in them assaulting a radio tower and shredding the electronics within, as well as ripping up the engines of cars. In Grady's own words, "You mean they've been acting so smart because they're so stupid?" At the same time, they're clever enough to prepare ambushes like the one that Burt stumbled into (and apparently the one that killed Pedro) and they formed a living ladder to get to the humans on top of the oil tower.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Burt uses an anti-tank rifle to take out a Shrieker, and as noted above also accidentally destroys the getaway vehicle they were heading for. Later, he manages to trap a Shrieker pack inside a building, which he only then learns is filled with food (which causes the creatures to multiply rapidly).
-->"I didn't know, HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN?" (both times)

Filmed and set six years after the first, a group of Graboids is menacing a Mexican oil refinery. The owners hire a reluctant Earl and his hustling fanboy Grady to deal with the problem. But things gets complicated when the Graboids start hatching out "Shriekers" -- smaller, bipedal critters that hunt by sensing heat.

-->"I am ''completely'' out of ammo. ({{beat}}) That's never happened to me before."

** "Grizzly single-shot BMG based on a WorldWarI anti-tank cartridge." This gun blew a Shrieker in half, then proceeded to punch holes through the stone wall behind the Shrieker, several oil drums, a tool shed, another oil drum and [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the engine of their escape vehicle]].

* HeartbrokenBadass: Not a very prominent part of his character, but Burt qualifies, when he all but admits he's there at least in part to get his mind off of Heather leaving him. The series later drops a few hints that he's still not completely over her.
** By the fifth movie he seems to be over it as he states he greatly misses the gun she took with her "and to a lesser extent you(heather)".

* AchievementsInIgnorance: Acts like attacking the truck and disabling the radio tower initially make it seem like the Shriekers are just as intelligent as the Graboids they spawned from. As the characters learn later, rather than hunt by sound like Graboids, the Shriekers hunt by heat and were only attacking those things because they were hot.

* BaitAndSwitch: In Earl's first scene, it ''looks'' like he's roping an unruly stallion to lead the animal into a corral. When we actually get a look at Wildfire, he turns out to be an ostrich.

* WrittenInAbsence: Off-screen, Ortega approached Val for help and was rejected.

** Earl's attempts to teach Grady how to settle disputes via Rock-Scissors-Paper, a method he and Val had used routinely.

** Earl's attempts to teach Grady how to settle disputes via RockScissorsPaper, a method he and Val used routinely.

* DidntSeeThatComing: Burt Gummer came prepared to fight giant subterrean worms. But really, no one saw it coming because they handn't been around Graboids long enough to know that they could hatch multiple smaller terranean Shriekers.

* DidntSeeThatComing: Burt Gummer.

* {{Explosive Breeder}}s: Shriekers.

** On the wall of Earl's home we see that he and Val did end in both ''People'' and ''Magazine/NationalGeographic'' magazine (among others).

* HopeSpot: At the beginning of the movie an oil worker is trying to get to a van without touching the ground, and he sees a direct path by hopping on oil barrels. Unfortunately for him, it's not good enough.

** Burt's reaction to finding out Earl threw a bomb in his explosives-filled truck is a horrified "You ''[[BigWhat what?!]]''

* AnswerCut: Earl suggests they might need help in hunting the Graboids, but Brady thinks anyone would have to be crazy to want to help them.

-->'''Brady:''' How dumb do you think I am?

* KilledMidSentence: During the night, Earl and Brady hear a [[TooDumbToLive coyote howling in the distance]]. Earl says it better keep quiet, and immediately afterwards the coyote's howl is interrupted by the sound of a panicked yelp and earth moving.

Notably, Shiekers seem to be a combination of both remarkably stupid yet incredibly smart. They attack anything that's hot enough to be alive, resulting in them assaulting a radio tower and shredding the electronics within, as well as ripping up the engines of cars. In Grady's own words, "You mean they've been acting so smart because they're so stupid?" At the same time, they're clever enough to prepare ambushes like the one that Burt stumbled into (and apparently the one that killed Pedro) and they formed a living ladder to get to the humans on top of the oil tower.

* NaiveNewcomer: Earl is very experienced around Graboids, while Brady... isn't.

** Earl and Grady in the second movie when they find the remains of a Graboid that just gave "birth" to Shriekers.

* RedShirt: Kate has an assistant named Pedro, he does very little until he gets eaten by a shrieker.

''Tremors 2: Aftershocks'' (1996) is the second movie in the ''Film/{{Tremors}}'' film series.

** Later on, it turns out that the Shriekers actually ''are'' capable of [[ItCanThink surprisingly concrete problem-solving]] despite their apparent stupidity, as they [[spoiler: begin forming a living ladder to get at Burt and Kate on top of the tower]].