YMMV / Tremors 2: Aftershocks

• Cry for the Devil: It's hard not to feel sorry for the Graboid that is about to give birth to Shriekers. It's clearly in agonizing pain for several hours. Even Grady admits to feeling bad for it.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: At least a good number of fans have voiced their dislike of the Graboids being Precambrian lifeforms, believing it both made them scarier that there was no real explanation for their appearance and that it would be impossible for them to be Precambrian lifeforms since the Precambrian era was made up of mostly single cell organisms. Some even argue Earl's comment about them being from outer space was a more plausible answer by comparison.
• Franchise Original Sin: This movie was the first in the series to use rather noticeable CGI for the creatures. The difference between this film and some later entries was that here, the creatures were still portrayed in mostly practical effects and the CGI was only utilized in small doses and only when the crew knew they couldn’t pull it off practically (i.e. whenever the Shriekers are running or stacking on top of each other), along with it being the mid-1990s when CGI was still in its infancy for live action films, so it wasn’t as much of a problem, whereas a film like Tremors 3: Back to Perfection used too much CGI that it came off too unconvincing for many.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Burt’s taxidermy Graboid head noticeably has 2 tongues as opposed to the standard 3. That’s because the 3rd tongue was shot off by Heather back in the first movie.
  • Kate tells Earl that the graboids haven't come near the refinery. This would make sense, since the refinery would make an incredible amount of noise, enough to hurt the graboids' ears like the explosions in the first film.
  • Earl spends the beginning and end of the film coping with temperamental bipedal animals and their breeding issues. Before he's hired to hunt Graboids, he's wrangling an uncooperative ostrich that keeps resisting going into a female's pen; after the Graboids have been blown up or expired in childbirth, he's got Shriekers that breed like crazy trying to eat him!
  • Even though the movie more or less leaves an impression that the Shriekers are essentially stupid animals that "bite anything that's warm", consider however that this biologically makes sense as it's simply the creatures' evolved manner of hunting food. The Shriekers are expected to be finding live animals to eat, not machinery, which is everything else that's been chomped on that leaves the cast with the impression of them being stupid. Also a bit of Continuity Nod since, like the first movie, the protagonists have to find a method of bypassing their method of hunting and them chowing down on machinery is the hint they need.
• One-Scene Wonder: The unnamed oil worker doing his best to avoid alerting a nearby Graboid to his presence in the opening scene makes his minute-and-a-half of screen time really count.
• The Scrappy: Grady is generally seen as the most annoying character of the film for his overzealous fanboy personality and a constant habit of pointing out the obvious, to the point where some wished he was eaten by the Graboids. He’s also seen as a Replacement Scrappy to Val from the first movie, who was generally liked for playing a great foil to Earl.
• Signature Scene:
  • Earl and Grady discovering a Graboid hollowed out, followed by their encounter with the first Shrieker. It’s usually seen as the turning point for the series.
  • The Shrieker’s reproduction scene, both for the Squick factor of it and the expansion of the Graboid life cycle.
• Squick: The reproduction of the Shriekers, which involves them puking out their offsprings!
• Tough Act to Follow: Tremors 2 often gets ranked highly as the best sequel in the series, so much that it sometimes overshadows the following films and TV series, though they do have their fans.