Tremors is the little horror series that could. What began with a terrific 1990 movie about giant man-eating worms wreaking havoc in a small Nevada town spawned an unlikely franchise: five not-always-awful direct-to-video sequels and a short-lived 2003 TV series on the Sci-Fi Channel. Even as Sci-Fi became Syfy, Tremors kept on trucking…and then came news that a new TV show was in the works, Syfy was making it, and original star Kevin Bacon was set to return as the charmingly lunkheaded hero, Valentine McKee.

However, the new Tremors was axed before it could even be born, with Syfy pulling the plug just a few weeks ago. But the internet is a wild place, a vast desert where just about anything can come lurching out of the ground. Like a very cool trailer for the Tremors TV show, filled with giant worms, dusty locales, and, of course, lots of Kevin Bacon wearing a cowboy hat.

The trailer popped up on Vimeo and I’ll just come out and say it: this looks pretty rad. I’m all about what’s on display in this trailer, especially the way the footage walks a fine line between goofy B-movie mayhem and genuinely affecting horror (a tightrope the original movie balances so brilliantly). Interestingly, it seems to pretend that none of the other Tremors sequels exist at all. In fact, this looks like a terrific change of pace after the often fun but always too cartoonish DTV sequels.

It’s also possible that Syfy is going to have this footage yanked, so watch now, while you still can.

Tremors TV Show Trailer

My favorite part of this footage? Kevin Bacon, of course, looking appropriately grizzled as a Valentine McKee whose days of temporary monster-slaying celebrity are long behind him. My second favorite part of this footage? The use of the terrifying main theme from It Follows. Damn!

This pilot was directed by Vincenzo Natali, the demented mastermind behind movies like Cube and Splice. In recent years, he has become one of the most reliable guys working in genre television, lending his talents to Hannibal, Westworld, Lost in Space, Orphan Black, Luke Cage, Wayward Pines, and American Gods. It’s impossible to know what the Tremors pilot looked like when it was cut together and watched all at once, but the footage here is slick and fun and just scary enough – the middle stretch with the characters attempting to remain perfectly silent to avoid attracting the Graboids looks tense!

Look, for all I know, the Tremors pilot is terrible and Syfy was right to pass on it. But I do think the footage here is very cool and very promising and I would have liked to see more. At the very least, it looks like an appropriate swerve for the series and a reminder that the original movie is still fantastic and worth a revisit. Honestly, this is the kind of show I want to see from Syfy – the network is already home to the best horror show on television (Channel Zero) and more polished genre fare from exciting filmmakers is exactly what they need.

What do you think?