History Film / Tremors1

** Val and Earl and forced to use Walter's horses to try to reach Bixby. Outside of town, the horses suddenly go crazy. Val just thinks Walter gave them bad horses, but Earl disagrees. He's right: a graboid is about to attack.

** Later still, they completely abandon any form of waiting once they see the Graboids are getting smart enough to inspect and attack the foundations of their high ground. As Val notes to Heather on the radio, they'd all be dead by the time anyone shows up, so the best thing to do is grab everyone still alive and make a break for it.

* GunsAreWorthless: Averted, played with and then reinforced. Burt and Heather do manage to take down a Graboid using their massive arsenal, but it takes a *lot* of sustained firepower to even take down a single Graboid. Even then, the Graboid shrugs off a *lot* of high powered rounds. Afterwards, the remaining Graboids learn from their fallen brethren and make sure they don't engage the humans in any way that would make them susceptible to gunfire, causing the remaining humans to rely on explosive ordinance to deal with the final two.

* ItCanThink: The Graboids learn at a pretty alarming rate. Not only are they intelligent, but they're incredibly ''patient'', too. When Val and Earl find that the town drunk Edgar died of dehydration after being stuck on a tower for three days, Earl skeptically asks "What'd they do, [[ForeShadowing just camp out below him and just wait for him to die?]]" As it turns out, that is ''exactly'' what the Graboids did. At the climax of the movie, Val also acknowledges that Stumpy, at least, is "not dumb".

* {{Catchphrase}}:
** "Pardon my French."
** Also "We need a plan," and "I've got a plan."

* DaylightHorror: By and large, most of the monster attacks occur during the daytime. The one exception is an early scene in which [[spoiler: the town doctor and his wife are eaten.]]

* DaylightHorror: By and large, most of the monster attacks occur during the daytime.

'''Burt:''' For my ''cannon''.

* ForeShadowing:

* PremortemOneLiner: [[spoiler: "Can you ''fly,'' sucker? ''Can you fly?!"'' Which rather becomes a BrickJoke in the third film. No, it can't, but its ass-blaster parents and children ''could''.]]

* AnswerCut: Early on, the townspeople of Perfection argue their best option is to stay put because someone outside is bound to notice the road is out and the phone lines are down and come check on them. It then cuts to show someone ''did'' try to check on them... emphasis on ''[[KilledOffScreen try]]''.

* AtomicFBomb: Val, right after he and Earl accidentally fool the first Graboid encountered into slamming its head on a concrete wall.

** The film starts with Valentine waking up Earl near the edge of a cliff by pretending that there's a stampede. The movie ends with Valentine using a bomb to stampede the last graboid over said cliff to its death.
** The first and last graboids both die after ramming themselves through a concrete canal wall and cliff face respectively, although the first dies on impact with concrete, while the last dies upon crashing on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

** In the opening, Val approaches Earl, who is snoozing in the bed of his truck, and wakes him by faking a stampede. Earl, who once got caught in a stampede and survived, [[DudeNotFunny is less than amused.]] At the end, after they have discovered the Graboids are sensitive to loud noises, Val uses the last bomb by lighting it and throwing it ''behind'' the Graboid, sending it fleeing in pain to carom out of the side of the cliff--a tactic used by ranchers to direct stampeding cattle.
** A [[DarkHumor chilling]] example: near the beginning of the movie, Walter's fridge starts going berserk, and he asks Val and Earl if they can fix it. Val is eager to do so (probably hoping to get out of doing the garbage), but Earl wants to keep to the schedule. Later on, while the group are hunkering down in Walter's shop, trying to keep vibrations to a minimum, the fridge goes berserk again, leading to Walter's death. The joke? Earl was ripping on Val for not "planning ahead" just prior to the first scene at Walter's shop.

** Early in the movie, Val and Earl discover the Edgar, the town drunk, clinging to the top of a power pylon. Assuming him to simply be plastered, they climb up to get him; only to discover that he has died from dehydration after sitting up there for three days, confusing them both. It's later revealed that if one of the Graboids has you trapped somewhere, they'll wait for days until they assume you are dead.

* TheSpook: No one knows what the graboids are or where they came from; they make a few theories (aliens, genetic engineered bioweapon, nuclear mutants, prehistoric organisms), but none are confirmed in the first film. Only in later material is it revealed they're Paleozoic invertebrates related to cuttlefish. Some viewers found this disappointing, preferring the mustery in the first film.

* LampshadeHanging: When everyone keeps asking Rhonda about the Graboids when her guess is as good as theirs.

* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: [[ShownTheirWork Averted]] by Burt Gummer, who shows proper gun-handling technique at all times, and occasionally chastises other characters for not doing so. He gives an idiot a revolver to get him to cooperate -- an ''unloaded'' revolver. After he takes it back, he pops the cylinder just to make sure it's unloaded. '''This is what you are supposed to do anytime you pick up a firearm, just so you do not Shoot Someone In The Face'''. Oddly, it's also waived somewhat in the rec room scene, where the flare gun already has a chambered round when it's taken from the wall. Also, a minor one, but Burt fails to put the elephant gun against his shoulder when firing it. An 8-guage shotgun firing live rounds would likely break your wrists or fly wildly out of your hands when fired like that.

** As Val and Earl are about to leave Perfection on horseback, Earl comments that he doesn't believe the "snake creatures" could be fast enough to outrun a horse. Val returns with "Shit, for all you know, they can fly". It was later referred to and {{foreshadowed}} by Val when he yells "Can you fly, sucker?" [[spoiler: at the last Graboid before he kills it by chasing it off a cliff.]]

* CryingWolf: Melvin Plug repeatedly plays pranks on Earl and Valentine, including wrapping a Graboid tentacle around his head and pretending it's attacking him. Finally he starts yelling and Earl, thinking he's still joking, says he's going to kick Melvin's ass. When they go outside, they see Melvin cowering on top of a metal pole -- making them realize that this time he isn't kidding -- the Graboids are here. [[spoiler: You'd likely expect a jerk like Melvin to be counted among the victims in a film like this, but ironically, he survives.]]
* CuteBookworm: The LoveInterest is an attractive seismology grad-student.
* DaylightHorror: By and large, the monster attacks occur during the daytime.

* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: Val and Earl attempt multiple times early in the movie to leave town for greener pastures, but are stopped when they see situations they are compelled to get involved in and help; seeing Edgar stuck atop a tower, and discovering that he was dead, they brought him back to town for the doctor to look him over. Later, they find that a local farm had been ransacked by a "Murderer" and head back to town to warn everyone and call the police.

** Melvin's reaction to Nestor's death can give some viewers the impression that the two are related, but it's more likely a response to seeing a death up close for the first time.

* GenreThrowback: 1950's monster movies, particularly the first film in the series.

* ImprovisedWeapon: The pipe bombs Burt constructs.

* ItCanThink: The Graboids learn at a pretty alarming rate. Not only are they intelligent, but they're incredibly ''patient'', too. When Val and Earl find that the town drunk Edgar died of dehydration after being stuck on a tower for three days, Earl skeptically asks "What'd they do, [[ForeShadowing just camp out below him and just wait for him to die?]]" As it turns out, that is ''exactly'' what the Graboids did.
* ItOnlyWorksOnce: The Graboids have a tendency to find ways to work around the humans' counter-attacks before very long.

* TheLoad: Melvin and Mindy, though to be fair, they're still just kids, and at least Mindy isn't ''obnoxious'' about it like Melvin. Earl also describes all of Val's [[IBrokeANail previous girlfriends]] as being this.

* {{Namedar}}: How the Graboids are named.

** "Pardon my French", used by a speaker after cussing.

* TheSpook: No one knows what the graboids are or where they came from; they make a few theories (aliens, genetic engineered bioweapon, nuclear mutants, prehistoric organisms), but none are confirmed in the first film. Only in later material is it revealed they're Paleozoic invertebrates related to cuttlefish.

* TakingYouWithMe: Burt considers blowing ''himself'' up along with the graboids as an alternative to starvation, before Val and Earl's idea of "going fishing" averts his need to do so.