Seeking-Perfection-cover-final-203x300Jonathan Melville

Fountainbridge Press, out now

An in depth look at the circuitous route the Graboids et al made to the large and small screen…

This is the sort of book that only a fan would write, and Jonathan Melville is clearly a fan of the Tremors franchise. Going into detail that occasionally borders on the obsessive, it tells you everything that you could ever want to know about the first four Tremors films, particularly their genesis and multiple alterations between conception and final realisation on film. It also covers the Sci-Fi Channel (as it was then) series – with some intriguing insights into why the show received the attention (or lack thereof) it did from the channel. (Melville doesn’t connect the show’s pick-up with the cancellation of the planned, and ordered, fifth season of Farscape but I suspect there was a link.)

What it doesn’t do, except in rather a haphazard manner, is give much insight into Tremors 5: Bloodlines, which has just been released on DVD. It does rather feel as if Melville finished his text, and then bolted on information as he received it, rather than edit the material to create a chapter with the same sort of clarity and insight as the sections on the earlier movies – I would suggest that this part is rewritten for a second edition, as it does leave the book feeling as if it slightly peters out.

And that’s a shame, because if you’re a Tremors fan, I suspect this will be hard to beat as a guide to Burt Gummer’s world.

Verdict: Essential for Tremors fans, while for others, it provides some interesting insights into the changing world of film production from 1990 to 2005. 7/10

Paul Simpson