The sequel finds Burt Gummer and his son Travis at a remote research station, where they must go up against Graboids that have been converted into living weapons.

On a windswept frozen tundra, a group of young men and women are drilling for…oil? Something or other. The thumping, handheld drill bores down and down into the snowpack, as the group banters back and forth.  The sounds of the drill attract a giant, hungry Graboid (or is it an Ass Blaster? A Shrieker?) that pops up out of the snow, chomps down on the group, and burrows back down into the sand dune–er, I mean, snow bank.

And so begins the sixth (!!!) movie in the Tremors franchise (not counting the short-lived TV series). The action switches to Perfection, Nevada, where paranoid gun-loving hero Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) is helping out in Walter Chang’s convenience store. A government agent shows up to recruit him to fight his old nemeses, and right on the heels of that plot point, Burt’s oft-denied son, Travis (Jaime Kennedy) pops in to say hi and decides to tag along to help out the worm hunt.

Do I even need to outline the rest of the movie?  Everybody is trapped in a remote outpost, Graboids attack, some folks die, and ultimately (spoiler!) the creatures are conquered and [most] characters live on to fight them in the probably-being-filmed-now seventh movie.

Surprisingly, the acting is pretty good. Gross and Kennedy are manic, each in their own special ways, as father and son (are they, though? Burt says no and Travis teases yes) unlikely monster killers. Every character up at the Boîte Canyon Arctic Research Center (suspiciously devoid of any cold or snow, hello low budget!) gets their very own little moment where they get to show off their specialty and save the day in some tiny way. One guy’s talent appears to be peeing an awful lot to attract the worms (a fun callback to the first movie that started with Kevin Bacon peeing off a cliff).

The worms look pretty good as well. There are flying ones that fart fire (wha…?) and normal ground-based ones, both CGI’d and full-sized/miniature models. And lots of gross worm juice being spurted around.  A new wrinkle is Burt, having been infected earlier by a bite, is slowly being killed by a worm infection, collapsing in pain and confusion every so often.

Director Don Michael Paul keeps the action going, even if there’s nothing really new or unique here, and does admirably with a tight budget (I wasn’t kidding about the opening scene: it’s obviously filmed on a sand dune standing in for a snowy environment). You’ve seen a lot of this before, but it’s handled capably and in an interesting manner.

Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell is a pleasant enough way to spend 98 minutes, just don’t go in expecting a totally original masterpiece (and, frankly, if you were going into part 6 expecting an original take, shame on you). Check it out!