Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Tremors (1990) Filming Locations





Opening Credits
Since the 1990 movie Tremors was set in Perfection, Nevada - which is a real place - people assumed that it was also filmed there and the nearby town Bisbee - in the movie it was Bixby. Since it was a Hollywood production, they shot most of the movie in the Owens Valley area of California. 


Some of the movie was shot in the Alabama Hills (which was a hot spot for many Westerns and Sci-Fi movies and TV shows), Olancha and even some was shot in the near-ghost town of Darwin, California. 

It was nearly impossible to find the exact places, and most - if not all - of the buildings were sets.



It looks like that the movie used some of the roads in the Alabama Hills in the above scene. Below it is one of the many roads through the area. As you can see the tell-tale rugged rocks are present.

Perfection, Nevada in the movie - these were all sets
Thanks 'anonymous' for the site of Perfection, Nevada in the movie!
Above is the actual site of Perfection in the film. It was located off of Cactus Flats Road, right off of Highway 395 in Olancha, California. 



When they head back into town, the mountainscape completely changes. Below it is the town of Darwin, California. Some scenes of the movie were shot here, so I am told.

The boulders seen in the movie
Alabama Hills
Movie Road, Alabama Hills
From the film
From the film - the rocks they pole vaulted on were probably also fake
From the film
Alabama Hills


A majority of the film was shot in the Alabama Hills area, to Whitney Portal. The iconic ragged mountains can be seen in these scenes. 

From the film
Whitney Portal area
Once the movie gets back to the town of Perfection, the landscape and mountains change. Now they are lower, black basalt mountains with Joshua and Yucca trees in the landscape. These scenes were most likely shot in Olancha and Darwin.


From the film - notice the painted on bricks and louvers on the door - a set.
From the film - low mountains and Joshua Trees
From the film - Chang's Store was also a set
Darwin, California
From the film
Olancha, California


15 comments:

  1. Aw too cool my good man. I LOVE Tremors. One of my fave straight b-films of good dialogue, cool premise & monsters & overall dumb fun that isn't too dumbed down. A small "Hicksploitation classic" as I call it.

    Anyway great shots once again my good man. Hope that 'ya enjoyed the Erich Anderson video as well too. You should consider using it for a future update as you don't really see too many Paramount-era Friday franchise members on TV spots these days; just a thought, of course. ;-)

    Anyway I LOVE those many rural county oddly impoverished looking small, no sub-division suburbs in sight Hick towns of the more rural areas of California or even the great Silver State of Nevada as well, too.

    Oh so much of modern day/mainland North America looks oh so oddly similar and I LOVE these disolate place to b sure my ole friend. Keep the pics coming, I loved them all brol :)

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    1. I will definitely share it. I had this post cued for a while but it never posted and then I saw I had the date to post wrong. But I will post the commercial and thanks!

      And out in this area of California it is SUPER desolate. VERY small, dying towns everywhere. A lot of towns have less than 100 people and most of them under 50. I think Olancha has a few hundred, Darwin has 35. There's a documentary on Darwin, you can see how weird the town really is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnc2-rXDVc4

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    2. Ah you're too cool my good man, and a big thanks once again. ;-) Truly this site is addictive to be on every few weeks, as per always. :) And I'm always glad to help out.

      A big thanks for the documentary as well, too, No lie: I'm a huge documentary fanatic, its apart of my Asperger's Syndrome and I shall definitely save it to watch later on this month, then I'll be back here to re-comment on it. There is a similar documentary I watched over three or so years ago that I got from a Big Lots! store that I had happened to be looking into cheap-o furniture for in. And yeah with those population figures, I can imagine a lot of unique personalities have chosen to stay there, to be sure.

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    3. The documentary is good, sort of sad too. Some of those people who live in Darwin are there because they can't get out. While "town" is about 30 miles away (one store), a real town is 60 miles away IF Panamint Valley road isn't washed out (it generally washed out for 5 months a year). If it is washed out, the nearest Wal Mart is like 90 miles away.

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    4. A big thanks my good friend. And yeah, I have watched it. Its indeed super sad. Poverty & circumstances at some point here in North America, hits us all during youths or even our adult lives, and its something that every culture/continent needs to work on uniquely. And yeah it was a unique look. Many of us forget about how overtly desolate many elements/counties of California, Nevada, Arizona even and the heartland Mormon county that is Utah and the like is so uniquely isolationist 'out west' here in the United States.

      Must say the music also got to me; was uniquely done. However I am currently enjoyably making myself over as a Rockabilly '50s style greaser in how I dress for my Rockabilly cover band & currently spending time practicing my drumming & mild back-up singing so I am trying not to watch too much overtly depressive stuff cause I am much more positive overly the last three-plus years of my life. Meaning that I thought it was a fine enough & unique enough documentary but I doubt I'll revisit it much in the future. A big thanks for it though, honestly - I love stuff like that, bro. Be cool & enjoy life! RESPECT

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  2. this is great too bad you cant find more definitive locations for this film like the tower the guy died on and the trailer park

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    1. Most of the movie was made up of sets, and this includes the towers, etc. It was all in areas in the Owens Valley area, here and there. All through Alabama Hills and the East Olancha/West Darwin Valley area.

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  3. Here was Perfection site:
    https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2088485,-117.9381098,1048m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

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    1. Thanks very much! I asked around and no one seemed to know the exact location. Next time I am out near Olancha, I will drive out to the spot.

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    2. I knew Perfection set was near Olancha or Lone Pine (I read it here: http://www.stampede-entertainment.com/faq/faq.php)
      I found Perfection set site after a long search on google earth comparing this frame of movie (http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/ebxRt0tiqHbzq6Ns34nQ2IaBC6D.jpg this view looks south) with ground-level view... Important clues was "mountain profile", a lot of joshua tree and the partially paved road.
      After I discovered it I found this flickr album (https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/sets/72157629075387781/) that confirms the correct position of the site.
      Sorry for my poor english, but I'm italian :)

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  4. Have you seen him in Stir Of Echoes where he carried it like Will Smith or Vincent Price did in their Richard Matheson adaptations. You need to read the novel because I think Bacon read the novel to play up what he did. "Come on hypnotized me" he saw something quite plausible as Chicago has a haunted history. His role in Stir of Echoes rivaled Footloose. The movie is unfairly overlooked because it relied heavy on story than a death count.

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  5. any chance off doing a Google earth file so I could add the locations

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