Squirm

In Fly Creek, Georgia, a severe thunderstorm causes havoc when killer invertebrates are unleashed! In no time at all, the local hillbilly population is under attack by these slime-covered wigglers. Indeed, the tiny cattle from Willie's Worm Farm have become enraged, and the humans had better watch out! These worms bite! They also squeal like rusty hinges!

BEWARE: If you think that worms are icky, then you are in for some major ick!

Stupendous characters abound, including the world's least heroic hero, Mick (Dan Scardino), the wretched Sheriff Reston (Peter Maclean), Roger (A.W. Dow), the man that halfwits point at saying, "Hey! Look at the halfwit!", and the unforgettable, pot-puffing Alma (Fran Higgins) and her enormous shoes!

SQUIRM is Director Jeff Lieberman's creeping, crawling contribution to the "when nature attacks" movie sub-sub-genre. As such, it's a bait bucket full of hilarious fun! Roger's unspeakable transformation, and the dreaded "worm tidal waves" are especially rib-tickling!

EXTRA POINTS GO TO: Jean Sullivan as the ethereal, seemingly LSD-powered Naomi "Ma" Sanders!

Entertaining, ridiculous, and just plain weird!...

A vicious storm downs a power line near a very small Georgia town. It (somehow) drives all the worms crazy and turns them into vicious man-eaters! The town is cut off from civilization and the worms attack...

The plot is just silly (flesh-eating WORMS? Come on!) but the film never takes itself TOO seriously. A lot of the dialogue is very tongue in cheek, and there are LOTS of close-ups of screaming worms (news to me--I didn't know worms could scream). So it's really hard to take any of this seriously.

The acting is all pretty bad (even Jean Sullivan the one "name" in the cast) and the plot moves in fits and starts. And it does take a while to really get going. But when the attacks happen things really get going. There are some pretty good, if disgusting, special effects (one VERY disturbing scene shows worms burrowing into a guys FACE) and seeing literally MOUNTAINS of worms squirming around is kind of queasy.

It you take this film literally you're gonna hate it. But if you accept it for the low-budget, slightly campy film it is you'll probably have a fairly good time. Worth seeing at least once for the gruesome special effects.

I saw the PG rated one on cable which (I heard) is one minute shorter than the R rated one. Purportedly all that's missing is some minor nudity (some of which was in the PG one) and some swearing. All the gore is still there.

This film gave me vivid nightmares as a kid. It has a scene where worms burrow under a guy's face. It was just on MST3K. It has a creepy song that plays over the opening credits (as Tom Servo puts it, It's evil little kid music). And DON'T, I mean don't eat spaghetti while watching this movie or within a week of viewing this film.

Against FOOD OF THE GODS, DOGS, KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, the irrepressible SLUGS and other nature-gone-berserk flicks, SQUIRM stands tall.

The worms are the thing here, but their existence does not short-change the film's acting, storyline and characterizations. Director Jeff Lieberman, a fellow of immense cinematic intelligence (BLUE SUNSHINE, JUST BEFORE DAWN), has crafted a smart, stylish little thriller that delivers on its promise.

Rick Baker's worms are very impressive and Lieberman knows when to reveal them and when to keep them -- literally -- in the dark.

The set-up is simple. Following a filthy, dirty storm, downed powerlines send bolts of electricity into the earth. Shocked worms turn rabid and begin to menace "us".

The film is exceptionally well photographed and acted, the rural setting works beautifully, and the climax packs a punch.

Solid filmmaking all 'round.

Fly Creek is a small southern town best known for it's "antiques" and the Grimes Worm Farm. During one particularly hot summer, while Mick (Don Scardino) is on his way on a bus to meet new girlfriend Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy), they're hit by a whopper of a thunderstorm. Fly Creek's roads are flooded and they've lost power due to a downed power line that is still sparking. And that leads to a big problem. Because when the film's worms are stimulated by electricity, they come out of the ground, ready to bite, and there are millions of them!

As is obvious from the premise, Squirm is a nature-gone-wild film, a subgenre of horror that was particularly active in the 70s. It's a pretty good example of the genre, and the film is successful more often than not, as long as you don't start to question the plot too much. Overall, it's a 7 out of 10 for me. I almost gave it an 8, but the ending is a bit too clichéd, so I knocked off a point. I've only seen one of director/writer Jeff Lieberman's other films so far--Blue Sunshine (1976)--and that also had points taken off for a less-than-satisfying ending.

Squirm is at its best when it's wallowing in small redneck town weirdness. The Sheriff (Peter MacLean) is frighteningly unresponsive, a bit pleasantly campy, and he's also a paranoid troublemaker. The Grimes family, Willie (Carl Dagenhart) and Roger (R.A. Dow), are demented and creepy. The Sanders family seems oddly dysfunctional, and Geri's sister, Alma (Fran Higgins), demonstrates that Juliette Lewis wasn't the first Juliette Lewis. When all of this stuff is combined with Squirm's initial slow-burning horror aspects--including a relatively subtle amount of worms and a well-placed (both literally and in terms of the script) skeleton--it is good, almost sublimely so.

But things begin to go slightly awry when we get to the big extravaganza near the end. The characters have either died off or Lieberman simply abandons them. Having a lot of characters die off by the end is understandable and even laudable in a film like this, but it's too bad we couldn't have seen them longer and had more emotional investment in them. Simply abandoning characters isn't as excusable. Of course the attacking worm quotient increases as the film continues, and this is handled well physically (I can't imagine having to be a worm wrangler), but plot points surrounding the worms become sketchier and almost contradictory at times. That saps too much tension out of the ending, and instead we're primarily engaged by physical effects for their own sake, plus a wonderfully campy change in personality from Roger.

Squirm is definitely worth seeing for anyone with a taste for lower-budget 1970s horror, and at times is quite a gem. Just don't set your expectations too high (but really, who would for a film like this?)