Ahead of hosting Shout! TV’s new episode of Double Take, which will feature a double feature celebrating Roger Corman’s birthday, special effects artist Alec Gillis reflected on his work on the Tremors franchise.

Gillis worked on the special effects for 1990’s Tremors, 1996’s Tremors 2: Aftershocks, and 2001’s Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. The monster movie franchise is known for introducing fans to a number of iconic monsters, including Graboids, Shriekers, and Ass-Blasters.

Gillis will host a brand-new episode of Shout! TV’s Double Take on April 5, 2025, in honor of Corman’s (The Little Shop of Horrors, It Conquered the World) birthday. Visit Shout! TV’s website by clicking here for more information.

#Tremors creature designer Alec Gillis told ComingSoon about the challenges of bringing Graboids and Shriekers to life.
Tune in to @WatchShoutTV on 4/5 for a brand new episode of Double Take hosted by Alec Gillis celebrating Roger Corman’s birthday. pic.twitter.com/sYkrLLE0JF

— ComingSoon.net (@comingsoonnet) March 31, 2025

When asked by ComingSoon about some of the challenges that came with bringing the Graboids to life for the very first time in the first Tremors movie, Gillis said, “The Tremors monsters were both a joy and a challenge. The Graboids from the first film, because of their bulk and their size, were very, very challenging but, luckily, we did the same plan for Tremors that we did for Aliens — which is to bring in Robert and Dennis Skotak to do tabletop miniatures and we created miniature puppets. So that was tough.”

ComingSoon also asked Gillis which of the Tremors monsters — Graboids, Shriekers, or Ass-Blasters — were the most difficult to create.

“I have to say, I think the Shriekers from Tremors 2 were more difficult because we had so many of them,” Gillis answered. “We had beautiful Shrikers that Phil Tippett and his team did that could do a lot of the athletic stuff, but we just had so many puppets and puppeteers jammed in. There were just a lot of cables and a lot of gear. So I would say the Shriekers were probably more difficult.”