Tremors: Shrieker Island Already Out on Netflix

Tremors: Shrieker Island, the latest (and possibly final?) installment in the cult-favorite horror franchise launched in 1990, is already available to stream on Netflix following its official release on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital this week. Fans with an account can watch the film -- as well as its predecessor, 2018's Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell -- free with a Netflix subsription now. In the new release, Michael Gross returns as Burt Gummer, summoned to a tropical island where a research camp is in danger after a nearby trophy hunter imports graboids -- the massive, subterranean worm-monsters that have defined the Tremors franchise -- for rich tourists to hunt.

The film also stars Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder as a potential new protege for Burt -- a role that likely would have originally been filled by Jamie Kennedy as Burt's son Travis. According to Gross, Kennedy was offered the role (which he played in the previous two Tremors movies) but turned it down.

"What we've tried to do with Burt in five, six, and seven is present him, frankly, with more emotional challenges," Gross recently told ComicBook.com. "In five, what are you going to do with a son who appears out of nowhere and says, 'Hi Dad. I'm all yours.' It's like, 'Excuse me?' Burt, who wants nothing to do with any other human being. And in six, to infect him with this graboid venom, and bringing the real danger of death to him possibly. And in this one, bringing a woman who challenges is very way of life -- who says, 'Why would you possibly make the choices you're making?' We thought that was fun. From the beginning of seven, I wanted a woman there. Everybody talked for years about how they wanted Heather back. They wanted Reba. She wasn't coming back. She wasn't interested. I wound up as the default center of these films because everybody else dropped away. It wasn't like I thought, 'Oh, I've got to be in charge.' No, everybody else left! I truly am a survivalist, in more ways than one. Michael Gross kept staying because he couldn't resist playing Burt. And everybody else is like, 'Nah, I've had enough. I'll see ya. I'm out of here.'"

The release comes on the heels of a new documentary looking back at the original Tremors 30 years after it hit theaters. The movie wasn't a hit on the big screen but went on to become a sensation on VHS, back in the days when prominent placement at Blockbuster and a cool box could make you the most-rented movie of the year.

You can get Tremors: Shrieker Island on Blu-ray, DVD, digital, and now on Netflix.