Summer, my personal favorite season of the year, is just around the corner; it is also the best time to gather your buddies and sit your butts down for a special midnight screening.

The film for one such occasion, and one in my favorite genre, is Tremors. It is another low budget or, B-movie, monster flick that is an enjoyable sci-fi, horror comedy with very good pacing, thrilling death scenes you’ll want to watch over and over, and a cheap-looking monster that terrorizes the small desert town. At the same time it is a loving tribute to all the 1950’s desert-based low-budget monster films like Them! (That is the title of the movie, no joke), Tarantula, and Monolith Monsters.

The film, like I mentioned earlier, is set in the desert town of Perfection, Nevada, where there have been a series of odd phenomena, and a few very gruesome deaths. Eventually two local handy men and a few neighbors discover the causes of these deaths: subterranean prehistoric worm-like monsters that dig through earth-like fish swim through water that reach up and catch anything they can for food and that are also as smart as they are fast.

The movie benefits from the campy effects, well-written and subtly humorous script, and a high shock value, but my real fascination with this movie are the effects that naturally got this film its cult following.

So when you plan a midnight screening this summer, leave behind all your romantic comedies and Channing Tatum, and get to watching cheap-looking monsters getting their innards blown out in the most spectacular way only a B-movie can provide.