La Nuit des vers géants

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.

Reading some of the negative reviews for Squirm, I can't help but wonder if some people tend to prejudge it just because its "one of those 70's bug flicks". I saw this movie at the theater when it was first released, and watching it now on video, it still holds up today as a very well made film.

The set locations were perfect for giving that "small town down south" feeling. And, though the acting by some of the locals left something to be desired, I thought the main characters did a very good job, especially considering the type of movie this was. The music score was terrific and gave the film some great moments. The photography was very good, and probably one of the best using low-light scenes with only candles. And the special effects hold up very well by today's standards.

O.K., I'll point out a few negatives. Some of the dialog is hilariously bad, and tends to stereotype "southerners". Of course, as with most of these types of films, the science doesn't hold up, but thats why its called "science FICTION".

In closing, I can highly recommend this movie to any fan of sci-fi-nature-strikes-back and horror movies. But please, watch it with an open mind- you'll enjoy it better.

Definitely not MST3K material.

You wouldn't know it from the description, but SQUIRM manages to be scary, fun, gross, and engaging all at once. Scare shots are timed to a tee and both the conflict of the film and the characters involved in it are executed with as much style and excellent timing as could be expected for a film about killer worms. The scene where worms burrow into Roger's face, and the one where the bathtub is quickly filling up with worms are really effective. Your local video store probably sold off this one years ago along with other slow-renting titles to make room for hundreds of copies of "Sleepless in Seattle," though, so if you see a copy and are looking for a good scare, pick it up.

In Fly Creek, a storm knocks down the power lines, transforming worms in mutant creatures. Mick (Don Scardino) travels from New York to meet his girlfriend Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy) and stays at her home with her mother Naomi Sanders (Jean Sullivan) and her sister Alma Sanders (Fran Higgins). On the arrival, Mick has a friction with Sheriff Jim Reston (Peter MacLean) and with Geri's neighbor Roger Grimes (R.A. Dow) that woos her. Soon they find that Fly Creek is infested of carnivorous worms that are devouring the inhabitants, but Sheriff Reston believes it is a prank of Mick.

"Squirm" is a lame and laughable trash movie about carnivorous worms. The silly story associated to the poor performances and annoying accent makes this film terrible to see and hear; however it is cult for many viewers. But the gorgeous Patricia Pearcy makes it worthwhile watching. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "A Noite do Terror Rastejante" ("The Night of the Terror Crawly")

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?)