36 Years Ago, Kevin Bacon Starred In Two Very Different Sci-Fi Movies

Kevin Bacon starred in his fair share of sci-fi and horror movies during his heyday — which goes for virtually every other genre that there is, since the man is a versatile enough actor to have done it all. He appeared in the classic slasher "Friday the 13th" in 1980, and who could forget his villainous turn in the campy guilty pleasure of Paul Verhoeven's pseudo-scientific "Hollow Man?" Yet one of his more interesting streaks of sci-fi horror roles happened relatively early in his career when he made "Tremors" and "Flatliners" back-to-back in 1990.

Ron Underwood's "Tremors" wound up as a beloved B-horror and franchise-launcher that cemented Bacon's status in the genre enough that he periodically returned to it with such pictures as "Stir of Echoes," the aforementioned "Hollow Man," and the haunted house flick, "You Should Have Left." In the 1990 film, Bacon plays the rambunctious handyman Val McKee in the desert town of Perfection, Nevada, where he and his colleague Earl (Fred Ward) find themselves stranded by several sneaky and gross underground monsters that quickly unleash terror over the isolated place and its residents. With a collective effort of the locals, Val and Earl make it their mission to eviscerate the giant worms and save their hometown.

"Tremors" wasn't a big hit when it was released in the '90s — only making $16 million at the box office worldwide against its $11 million budget — but it found a larger and loyal audience on video in the coming years. No surprise there since it's one of the most entertaining and light-hearted creature-feature horror comedies out there, with a PG-13 rating, dazzling practical effects, and a terrific cast that gelled together extremely well. It also spawned six sequels, although Bacon never returned to reprise his role.

Following his comically charming turn in "Tremors," Bacon went kind of dark and serious in Joel Schumacher's "Flatliners." In it, he plays one of the medical students, David Labraccio, who join Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland) in his experiments exploring what lies beyond death in a medical setting. Nelson and his partners manufacture temporary deaths so they can see what awaits them on the other side before being resuscitated back to life using defibrillators. Besides Nelson, David, Rachel (Julia Roberts), and Joe (William Baldwin) all have a go, taking turns and triggering different traumas from their past. The near-death experiences take a mental and emotional toll on each of them, causing various hallucinations and repercussions that begin to ruin their lives. Yet stopping the experiments completely turns out to be harder than they thought.

As opposed to "Tremors," the intriguing premise and imposing cast of "Flatliners" instantly drew moviegoers into theaters, making the film an unlikely hit early on. Against its rather modest budget of $26 million, Schumacher's flick ended up grossing over $61 million at the box office worldwide. Ironically, however, its high-concept script has faded over time and somewhat lost its initial appeal as the years passed. Barely anybody talks about this movie anymore (apart from its stars mentioning it in retrospectives here and there) and the negative critical reception it got back then didn't help either — but it did manage to acquire a level of cult status among some hardcore sci-fi fans in the past three and a half decades.

Nevertheless, the fact that Kevin Bacon starred in two such different sci-fi horrors back to back in the same year remains a curious piece of trivia to look back on.