Graboid - Film Appearances

Film Appearances

There are three varieties of Graboid shown in the films. This number can be expanded to as many as four (juvenile dirt-dragons as larva, "adult" graboids as pupa, Shriekers as subimago, and Ass-blasters as imago) or reduced to as few as two (Dirt-Dragons as larva and Ass-blasters as adults; similar to the sharp lexical division of amphibian metamorphosis into tadpole and frog/newt). Their division into three forms seems to be based on habitat or locomotion: subterranean Dirt-Dragons, terrestrial/cursorial Shriekers, and aerial Ass-blasters.

The standard graboid, seen in all four films, is a subterranean animal, resembling a gigantic worm or grub, with a serpentine body, four massive, black, armored beaks on its head, and no eyes. Instead of hunting visually the graboids find their food by sound; they are also able to sense ultrasonic signals as demonstrated in the third Tremors movie. It also has several spikes on its sides that it uses to push itself along underground. The juvenile form of the graboid is about two feet long and looks somewhat similar to the adult form. The younger graboid has a proper beak (without the three separate jaws that form the lower part of the beak) and lacks the trio of serpentine tentacle tongues. Also, since they are not strong enough to pull a victim underneath the dirt, they instead propel themselves out of the dirt with extreme speed to take down a moving target. These young graboids are seen in Tremors 4: The Legend Begins wherein the characters refer to both juvenile and adult graboids as "Dirt Dragons". Graboids are also intelligent and learn very quickly. For instance, in the first film, when two graboids discover that the bulldozer is too heavy to lift, they simply dig a trap in its path.

The full adult form is about thirty feet long. Graboids have a trio of long, powerful, snake-like tentacles, which are prehensile and have a reach of at least ten feet. Each of the three tentacles has a small, tooth-filled mouth and two horns. They often seem to have minds of their own. They die as soon as the graboid they belong to does.

In Tremors 2: Aftershocks, "Shriekers" are introduced. Fully grown graboids die while giving birth to a random number of creatures depending on the amount of food they consumed, between three and six, these creatures are the shriekers. Much smaller than graboids, about 6 feet (1.8 m) long and 4 feet (1.2 m) high, shriekers live above ground and resemble a small dinosaur, with stout, three-toed legs and a compact body. They have similar beaks on their heads, but lack the tentacles of a graboid instead having a single, long tongue, and like graboids lack eyes and noses, but they don't have ears. Shriekers find prey through a retractable, heat seeking crest on the top of their heads as well as their tongues which they use to find cold food through taste. They are hermaphroditic and will gag up small shriekers as long as they find food.

The third stage, the "ass-blaster", is introduced in Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. Shriekers turn into ass-blasters, which resemble their original shrieker, shedding their skin as they grow and change. They are capable of gliding with the use of red/pink-colored sail-like structures at the sides of their bodies, consisting of a semi-translucent skin supported by rigid stems and a third dorsal sail that extends from the spine down the back and tail. In order to take flight, they shake and quiver their tails and backsides and seem to be mixing two liquids which produce an explosion of flames from their rear end, similar to a Bombardier beetle's blast of acid. Ass-blasters fall into a "food coma" when eating too much and carry graboid eggs within their bodies, supposedly bringing the life cycle full-circle.