Tremaine, Ketch, and Fernandez join Bacon in Tremors, Earl gets a mention

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The pilot for the Blumhouse / Syfy Tremors mini-series that's set to star Kevin Bacon, reprising the role of Valentine McKee from the original TREMORS movie nearly thirty years later, is moving quickly toward production now that Vincenzo Natali (SPLICE) has signed on to direct. Now it has reached the point when we start hearing who will be starring in the series alongside Bacon.

Written by Andrew Miller, the mini-series has the following synopsis: 

The killer Graboid worms that nearly destroyed Perfection, NV, 25 years ago are back, and the town’s only hope for survival is Valentine McKee (Bacon), who beat them once. But to do it again he’ll have to overcome age, alcohol and a delusional hero complex. 

Three of Bacon's co-stars will be Emily Tremaine (pictured above, and she better not hang out on the ground like that in Tremors), Megan Ketch, and Shiloh Fernandez (pictured below in 2013's EVIL DEAD).

Val was making his move on his love interest Rhonda LeBeck when the end credits started rolling on TREMORS, and the description for Tremaine's character suggests they might have shared more than that one kiss. Tremaine will be playing Emily McKee, "the whip-smart daughter of Val, with a bright future ahead of her. She is newly graduated and stops by Perfection to visit her dad, but quality time with him is the standard disappointment, as Emily sinks further into the understanding that he’ll never change."

Doesn't sound like Rhonda is around, though. It has been said that the show will be presenting Val as a loser, though, so it would make sense that they didn't have a happily ever after.

Ketch will be replacing Ariana Richards in the role of Mindy Sterngood, a character who appeared in both the first TREMORS and TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION (she also appeared on the 2003 Tremors series, played by Tinsley Grimes). This iteration of Mindy is "a charismatic young doctor with an eyebrow-raising fixation on the much-older Val, who saved her from a Graboid at age 9. But Mindy is hiding something that makes her an unanticipated threat: Compelling as she is, more cunning is her mask."

The idea of Mindy being some kind of threat is very weird to me.

Fernandez isn't playing a returning character and doesn't seem to be any established character's offspring, but there is a reference to a familiar name in his character's description. Fernandez will portray Nico Garza, "who has been killing time in Perfection, working in Earl's Graboid Waste Gobbling company, waiting for the right moment to split. The last thing he wants is to turn out like Val, who's stayed stuck in nowheresville all these years."

If Val's buddy Earl still owns a business in Perfection, that leaves the door open for an appearance by TREMORS / TREMORS II: AFTERSHOCKS star Fred Ward. I know my fellow fans of the franchise would appreciate that.

We would also appreciate it if Michael Gross and his character Burt Gummer, a Perfection resident who has been carrying the franchise in the absence of Bacon and Ward, were to be included on the show. There's still no indication of that happening. Even if Gross doesn't end up being on this series, we will see him and Burt again in TREMORS 6, which will be coming out on DVD and Blu-ray in January.