NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From horrorreview.com
The longevity of Jeff Lieberman’s Squirm has been largely due to its unjust classification as a cult classic. Granted, the production is very poorly made yet it does not find its proper niche alongside Ed Wood’s features or Coleman Francis’s The Beast of Yucca Flats in Mystery Science Theater 3000 for the film not only exhibits--albeit fleeting--moments of watchability as well as a smidgeon of insight and craft. In the end, Squirm barely stays afloat above the jetsam of “horrible” while clocking in at “severely below par.”
On September 29, 1975 Mick (Don Scardino) arrives in Fly Creek, Georgia via New York to visit his girlfriend, Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy). The rural town has just experienced a devastating electrical storm which has left most of the roads flooded. Unbeknownst to the populace, a power line broke during the proceedings and is electrifying the soaked soil. The result is millions of highly irritated worms.
Yes, the premise, atop the secondary acting and photography, make Squirm a prime candidate for cult status. However, Scardino’s fair to middling performance defies the production, as does Lieberman’s occasional wry quip alongside Rick Baker presenting a very out of proportion moment of eerie effectiveness by way of his consummate makeup effects. Even though Sheriff Jim Reston (Peter MacLean) uses the alibi that it is too hot to file a police report as Naomi Sanders (Jean Sullivan) awaits, replete with comatose stare, to say her lines in between producing one joint after another from her between her breasts, Squirm even threatens to lapse into scathing genre parody.
It is largely due to Lieberman’s novice control that the work falls short of committing to B-movie mayhem, the consequence of such often resulting in inadvertent comedy at the film’s expense. Instead, it manages to keep the viewer partially interested yet never involved for more than half a scene. In short, Squirm evokes casual disinterest in its audience, nothing more.
Perhaps Jeff Lieberman’s fledging skill as a filmmaker fails to do him justice at the end of the day. If the writer-director were slightly worse at his trade, Squirm might well merit the cult accolades which it currently receives. Regardless, the work fails, first and foremost, to satisfy but refuses to aim for rock bottom in order to merit the label of B-movie proper. Thus, the production is unsuccessful on most every level and is, sadly, just that, a poorly made movie.
-Egregious Gurnow
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From best-horror-movies.com
Now I am sure a lot of you out there like to fish. Well would you still want to fish after watching Squirm, which is based on true events? I think not. Let me tell you about Squirm.
The movie was made in 1976. I can remember as a child sneaking with my little cousin to watch this movie when my cousin parents had gone to bed. Squirm starts out tame enough but as it goes on it takes on an evil life that you get sucked into. Did you know you can shock worms with electricity? Well it makes them mad as heck, makes them want to eat you.
Squirm takes place in a small fishing town in Georgia. When power line go down millions of volts of electricity are sent into the ground and this makes the worms mad, sending them into a mad frenzy of eating. I still to this day get sick to my stomach watching certain scenes of this movie.
I dare you to watch Squirm then go fishing with earth worms. This movie will make think twice about Earth Worm Jim.
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From obscurehorror.com
A storm that night causes some power lines to break and touch the ground, drawing millions of man-eating worms out of the earth and into a nearby town. These worms are fierce, menacing and quick. If you don’t watch out, you could be next.
Overall: Frankly, I can’t believe they made this film. I’ve seen a whole lot of crap in my time but killer worms? How about man-eating sloths or carnivorous snails? Really…and the topless flat women didn’t help, believe me. I know the director intent for the film is a bit of a spoof of monster films and has their "tongue firmly placed in the cheek." But I still think what the final product was just inane. The tongue may be in the cheek but the film isn’t funny. Had it been more in the realm of “Scary Movie” (even though this predated it by 25 years), maybe the film could have gotten a good rating from me. My advice is to stay away.
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From reviews.thatcow.com
The Trifecta
Let's see if I've got this right. There's a major electrical storm around this southern backwater town, and all of a sudden, worms are out to get everyone. I've heard ridiculous horror movie premises, and sometimes they are executed fairly well (see The Ring for one example).
At one point, a character falls out of a boat. He gets attacked, the worms burrowing into his face. He tries to get back in the boat, but spills the other occupant into the water. She does not get attacked. Why?
Our male lead discovers a dead man. He opens the man's shirt. Why? The action isn't motivated by anything other than to show the audience a bunch of worms on his chest. Then this guy starts banging on the dead guy's chest with a shovel. Again, why? Perhaps they are deadly worms, but at this point at least, they are just squirming around on this guy's chest. What good is this senseless beating?
So, yes, these worms become an increasing threat. People die, and we see lots of shots of the little bastards not really doing much except having large numbers. The biggest effort in the film was clearly in corralling all these worms, or perhaps worm-looking things.
Not only is the writing bad, but the directing and acting as well. Sure, there are probably more completely bad films than completely good ones. Failing in all three major creative categories and still getting distribution seems to only happen that often in horror. There's no question that bad horror can be its own reward, at least for some people, but you can't argue that this makes for anything good about a movie.
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From badmovies.org
The Characters:
Mick - Clumsy city boy who is the last person you want carrying his fishing rod through a crowded bus. Our hero!
Geri - She looks like Ally McBeal's cousin from the backwoods of Georgia. Seriously, they made a point of showing her naked a few times and I think her boyfriend (Mick) had a larger chest. It was a close race.
Alma - Sister to Geri and she appears to be all arms and legs. Plus her movements exhibit the grace of a marionette.
Mamma - Geri and Alma's that is, obviously she ate paint chips as a child (cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo). Worm food.
Jim Reston - Just your standard swaggering southern sheriff. He hates city folk, nonsense, city folk, hot weather, city folk, and being eaten alive by worms.
Millie (I think) - She runs the diner and doesn't seem to understand how electrical meters work.
Willie - Old man that owns the worm farm. He is in the wrong business at the wrong time.
Roger - Helps his dad out with the worm farm and ever since his mother/aunt (they were one in the same we suspect) died things have been tough. Ends up as compost.
The Plot:
This one is a doozy.
Coming from myself that phrase should set off warning klaxons in your head. The treatment my common sense organ suffered at the hands of this movie makes Rodney King's beating pale in comparison. Not to say that it fails to entertain, but my head felt like a big wad of cotton following the second viewing.
Ominously scrolling text warns the viewer that something ugly happened in the small town of Fly Creek, GA. Obviously a terrible thing did occur, because the hamlet ceased to exist (I've checked a number of maps). Barring the discovery of a video camera, complete with lost footage detailing the mystery and a young woman saying "F**k!" over and over, the world will never know.
Severe storms have just finished battering the Georgia coast and caused widespread damage, including one utility tower's structure failing. The resulting collapse means that high-voltage power lines are left dumping their electricity into the muddy ground. Bloodworms do not enjoy being zapped, as is evidenced by a number of them screaming (yup, screaming) at the camera. Seeing them stick out those painful little pincers they have was effective, but adding in an unearthly shrieking to offend the ears confused me. Did the nocturnal horrors develop vocal chords?
Mick's bus is en route to Fly Creek, but forced to turn around after finding the road blocked by fallen trees and water. He opts to disembark the coach and hike through the woods. Now, let's get this perfectly straight. A city kid, encumbered by luggage, is going to find his way through an unfamiliar forest without aid of neither map nor compass. Wow. Good thing that Geri counted on this and borrowed Roger's truck; she easily locates her boyfriend in a particularly swampy section of brush.
The first portent of something being amiss is when Mick stops in at the diner to enjoy an egg cream (he's from New York). Lurking in the drink is a large bloodworm. The merchant and sheriff think that the tourist is playing a prank and soon accusations are flying. Don't let the drama distract you! How did a six-inch bloodworm make its way into the milk carton, seltzer bottle, or chocolate syrup container? Mick ends up back in the truck feeling distinctly unwanted in this dirt-poor town, while Reston adds one more entry to his "Why I Hate City Folk" list.
More funny business is on the way, because Roger freaks out when Geri returns his truck. All the crates, full of worms when he gave her the keys, are now empty! The inbred is briefly angry with the redhead, but soon calms down and goes back to having a crush on her. That honestly might be more attributable to his being a guy than mom and dad's close genetic ties. Meanwhile, Mick changes into dry clothes while Alma watches and gets high.
Besides the electricity, telephone service for Fly Creek is a casualty of the storm. The residents will have to wait until someone from Statesboro arrives and fixes the lines. Why not Savannah? The "town that vanished" is on the coast, because it's a saltwater marsh and they talk about the lagoon. No matter what, Savannah has to be closer than Statesboro. I should have given up after they used Highway 41 as a coastal road (it runs through Atlanta).
Geri and Mick discover a skeleton in the local antique dealer's backyard and go running to Sheriff Reston. He is very displeased with the two when they return to the spot and find it missing. Our hero (referring to a scrawny kid this way makes me cringe) later finds the missing remains in the back of Roger's truck. He takes the skull, breaks into the dentist's office, and compares it against x-rays. The skull belongs to the antique dealer who was seen alive only one day earlier! At about the same time Geri gets a firsthand look at the phenomenon when a number of earthworms chew up Roger's face. Since when could annelids, angry or not, burrow through flesh?
Amazingly, none of the young people (Alma is privy to some "facts") tell either the authorities what has transpired. Instead Geri decides to take a shower. She turns the facet, but no water comes out. The audience watches in horror as worms slowly start to flow from the showerhead and then retract when she turns off the facet. We're horrified because it is obvious the basic principles that govern a home's water system are beyond the filmmakers. Help! I'm a rational person forced to watch an irrational movie!
Rummaging for scrap wood to board up the house separates Mick from the others and brings him into direct contact with Roger. He was not killed when the worms attacked earlier and seems to have an affinity for the creatures. It might even be that the burrowing masters are controlling the idiot's brain. Methinks that would be an improvement, but I digress. The jilted suitor beats up on Mick and leaves him for worm food, then goes to the house and grabs Geri.
Night brings more terror, as mounds of what looks like pasta is used to realize the script. A wave of segmented death rolls into town and starts eating everyone. Mick finds his way back to Geri's, but must somehow kill the (partly) human antagonist. He does and the lovebirds climb out a window to pass the night in a tree. In the morning a repairman wakes them up, demanding to know where everyone is and saying that he fixed the line and tower. What looked to be a two hundred foot steel tower collapsed and we're supposed to believe that Joe Bob fixed it all by himself with the tools in his pickup truck? The insults to my intelligence just keep coming; even Roger would be insulted.
Things I Learned From This Movie:
You can tell that a coastline is part of Georgia if, when looking at it, the ocean is on the right and the beach is on the left.
Trees hate it when you pee on them.
Guys: holding a block of ice against your genitals is not advised.
Marijuana cures poison ivy.
Earthworms can burrow through flesh.
Skulls are "righty loosey" and "lefty tighty."
Conversation about worms is best avoided when eating Italian.
Being lightly struck in the torso with a sheet of plywood will knock you unconscious.
Sweat-soaked shirts burn easily and make excellent torches.
Stuff To Watch For:
3 mins - Usually music by Akira Ifukube would accompany a scene like this.
15 mins - Thunder is heard, not seen, you dumb girl.
36 mins - Milk: it does a worm good. Pass it on.
37 mins - How is that skeleton still together? Why doesn't Willie see them? Arrgghhh!
48 mins - Okay, maybe (big maybe) I can understand lying about Roger being attacked by the worms. Why fib about Mick being bitten though? Does she want to go to Hell?
68 mins - Half of the house just got smashed; there's plenty of scrap wood right here you idiot!
73 mins - Mamma heard the worms filling the upstairs bathroom, but not Alma screaming?
79 mins - Question for the director: "Geri didn't see Roger standing in the doorway? Do I look that stupid?"
89 mins - Whose shadow is that?
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From film4.com
Squirm may have languished in obscurity since the mid seventies but it's not for lack of inventiveness. Presented as a true story (âScientists believe this to be one of the most bizarre freaks of nature ever recorded') it's a film with more than its fair share of creepy moments. But director Lieberman doesn't play it completely straight and there's also a lurid comic-book vibe to this no-budget slice of fear.
After a power line comes down near Fly Creek, city boy Mick (Scardino) discovers a huge worm in his glass of egg cream. Shortly afterwards he and girlfriend Geri (Pearcy) find a skeleton where the local antique dealer used to be. Thereafter it's full-on carnivorous worm action as the enhanced annelids emerge from the shower head, burrow through flesh, crawl around inside people's faces or just swell up mysteriously from the ground.
Despite the lack of funding this is ambitious and effective stuff that even finds room for a spot of sex ân' death symbolism. The worms too look quite revolting and unlike most horror movies it can almost claim to be based on fact - they'll get us all in the end.
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From fatally-yours.com
Review by Sarah “Fatally Yours” Jahier
Killer worms…yup, you read that right. That is pretty much the premise of Squirm, a B-movie from writer/director Jeff Lieberman (Just Before Dawn, Satan’s Little Helper, Blue Sunshine). While this is no doubt one of Lieberman’s worst horror films, it still holds a certain campy charm and should be viewed at least once for its over-the-top and silly story.
From the opening scenes of extreme close-ups of worms screaming (yup…screeching their little tails off!!), you know you’ve entered campy territory! We are then introduced to the main characters after a huge storm has hit their backwater Southern town. They don’t know it yet, but lightening from the storm fried all the worms in the vicinity and made them angry little buggers hungry for flesh! Meanwhile, a city slicker named Mick (Don Scardino) arrives in town to visit his girlfriend Geri (Patricia Pearcy). Mick and Geri keep stumbling over dead bodies, stripped down to the bone, and Mick is determined to solve this strange mystery. He suspects his girlfriend’s next door neighbor, Roger (R.A. Dow) who just so happen to run a worm farm, and starts nosing around for evidence or clues. The townspeople don’t take too kindly to this outsider, so when he discovers that killer worms are behind the murders, no one believes him. It’s up to Mick and Geri to find a way to stop the flesh-eating worms, but will they be able to make it out alive?
Make no mistake, Squirm is an awful movie, but it’s also one of those so-bad-it’s-good flicks that make for a fun viewing experience if watched within the proper state of mind.
Let’s get all the bad elements out of the way – first of all, the acting is atrocious! The actors play the Southern characters completely over the top and, good God, their accents are awful! None of the actors (save for the guy who plays the Sheriff) were Southern and their terribly twangy and grating “accents” can attest to that! Besides the accents, most of the characters were just annoying and I didn’t care whether they lived or became worm food.
Secondly, the plot has lots of unbelievable elements (a dude from New York is really gonna come alllllll the way to a backwoods Southern town to slum it with a small-town girl? Really???) not to mention the silly premise of electricity turning worms deadly. ‘Nuff said.
Third, the pacing during the first part of the film is off and nothing much happens until 45 minutes or so in…the first part where Mick runs around looking for clues feels more like a Scooby Doo plotline than anything else, and gets pretty boring.
Despite all these problems, a certain charm worms (I couldn’t resist) its way into the film. A surprising scene involving worms burrowing into someone’s face is pretty shocking and the scenes of a massive army of glistening, squirming worms invading a house are impressive and cringe-worthy.
This was one of director Jeff Lieberman’s earlier films and despite its campiness (intentional or unintentional) I am glad that he went on to film more straight-faced horror like the underrated Just Before Dawn as well as other “outrageous” horror films like Satan’s Little Helper. While Squirm isn’t his best work, it is still pretty gosh darn entertaining!
Go ahead and open this can of worms (sorry…had to be done!)!
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From horror-movies.ca
Here's another entry in the Nature Run Amok category. Something funny is happening in Fly Creek , GA. I'm gonna start taking this personally after a while LOL. A giant storm blows through and knocks down the power lines. When they hit the soil, it drives the worms nuts and they hungrily go on the prowl for human flesh. Of course there just happens to be a big bait farm nearby. The bait farm is next door to our lead chick and Roger, the owner's son is in love with her.
But she has eyes for the stranger in town that just happened to fall into the middle of all this. Ain't that always the way? If those strangers never came along, whatever would we do when our towns go to Hell? Anyway, they spend half their time running from the bloodthirsty worms and half their time running from crazy Roger. And both of them can pop up anywhere. It all comes to a head in a horrific climax involving waist-deep worms inside the girls' home. This is the kind of campy, fun movie that will give you the shivers late at night and make sure you keep your eyes OPEN in the shower.
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NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From thehumancinemapede.com
I distinctively remember watching this movie as kid possible 8 or 9 years old on VHS. To a young child this movie is terrifying. However, having watched it recently, I found that the film has not aged quite well. One thing that Squirm does have is the topic of human intervention on nature and the possible horrifying consequences.
The early to mid 70s, had a whole slew of films that centralized on the theme of man’s attempt to push nature to its limits in production. Environmentalism was the new awareness of the time with the energy crisis and the birth of the EPA in 1970. These films reflected the explosion in global population, the need to feed that population and the possible effects of over-tasking the environment and food stocks.
Such films as ‘Frogs’ (1972), ‘The Food of the Gods’ (1976), and ‘Empire of the Ants’ (1977) typified the public’s growing concern of what we were doing to the environment and the repercussions thereafter.
‘Squirm’ stars Don Scardino as Mick, a “city boy” from NYC visiting his country bumpkin sweetheart Geri Sanders (played by Patricia Pearcy) and her family in Georgia. The film’s opening song is reminiscent of the introduction to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968). The music is meant to throw off the viewer with female humming and singing leading the us to believe that the setting is a beautiful quaint country side village.
We get an initial clue of something has gone awry as a severe thunderstorm come through the small town in Georgia and a live power line is seeing dangling on the ground. We see carnivorous worms screaming at this point.
We soon come to find out that the Sanders family’s neighbor Roger Grimes and his father have a worm farm and his father had been experiment with worms and electricity years ago to get more worms out of the grown. Needless to say the worms escape and all havoc breaks loose in this small Georgia town.
As indicative of the time, the fear also centers around what the urban population (Mick) discovers is actually going on in the far reaching rural parts of the country. As the population in the 70s migrated to the cities, many of the themes in such horror movies involved city tourists discovering a dark secret out in the country.
For all its dated sociatel statements, ‘Squirm’ is still a fun movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon or late night netflix browsing. The gore is effective enough with having to control thousands of worms and without CGI.
I recommend watching this with a loved one who wont be embarrassed of your film choice.
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From eatmybrains.com
Plot
A fearsome storm brings power lines crashing down around the small town of Fly Creek, pumping hundreds of thousands of volts into the ground and turning the usually docile locale worm population into a horde of flesh-eating monsters.
Review
The mid-seventies saw a huge horror boom. The rise of the slasher flick is well documented as are the gut munching cannibal and Italian zombie movie sub-genres, but not a lot of time has been dedicated to the ecological monster horror concept. After a brief emergence in the 50s with classics like Them! and Creature From the Black Lagoon (both 1954), the genre lay dormant for 20 years until a certain film school brat had the idea of doing a movie about a giant man-eating killer shark and sure enough the flood gates opened. Frogs, Bug, Grizzly, Piranha, Orca, Day of the Animals and Food of the Gods were all environmental horrors and they all rode the waves of the Jaws phenomena to one degree or anther. The basic premise was that the human race had, through some action or possibly inaction, caused an ecological anomaly or mutation that had turned some other often harmless species into our obsessed mortal enemies. We had monster flicks about bears, insects, fish, rats, you name it and they all had big teeth and wanted to kill us, or at least gross us out in the comfort of our nice warm cars at the Saturday night drive-in. "See the hapless teenagers run for their lives from the rampaging hordes of flesh-eating killer..." and then you placed the movie’s protagonist species on the end. In the case of Squirm, it’s worms.
The movie starts with a neat telecaster prologue which scrolls slowly and ominously up the screen in a way not dissimilar from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Apparently, a sudden electrical storm has ravaged the rural sea coast area of Georgia late one evening of September back in 1975. Power lines, damaged by the storm, have been sent toppling over sending hundreds of thousands of volts surging into the ground, simultaneously frying the local mud swamps and disrupting the power supply to the small backwater town of Fly Creek. In the aftermath of the storm the local citizens experienced "...what scientists believe to be one of the most bizarre freaks of nature ever recorded." No prizes at this stage for guessing what they’re talking about.
And this is where the film begins. Geri, the slightly too skinny red-haired female lead, lives in a small farm house on the outskirts of the unlucky Fly Creek. She lives with her embarrassingly slutty, but quite ugly teenage sister, Alma and their overly traditional but slightly twisted mother. Mick, the similarly red headed geek out-of-towner hero (and hero is used dubiously here), is Geri’s boyfriend who has traveled down from New York for a few days to visit, much to the annoyance of her mother and their worm farming neighbor Roger Grimes. Roger it seems is quite smitten by Geri and has been for a while now. Geri’s meddling mother, being a very stereotypical southern momma and therefore fearful of outsiders, is always trying to push Geri and Roger together despite Geri’s obvious disinterest. As you'd expect, though, Geri is prepared to milk that attention when necessary. When she finds out that Mick is stranded on the other side of the swamp because the bus couldn't get past the downed power lines, she asks Roger if he'll lend her his dad's truck to go get him and Roger agrees. He's obviously not too happy about it though and to make matters worse when Geri returns the truck, Roger is horrified to discover that his whole harvest of worms, several thousand or so, have mysteriously gone missing. Now where could they be?
Squirm is, at the end of the day, a low budget cheese ball mid 70s monster movie about worms that bite but one which slightly outshines it’s contemporaries by having a strangely likeable cast of characters and some pretty entertaining worm special effects. Don Scardino turns in a reasonably plausible performance as Mick, the city boy in a southern trailer trash town. But the same can’t be said for Patricia Pearcy’s totally wooden Geri, whose southern drawl is almost as scary as the worms themselves. Jean Sullivan revels in her role as the mother, especially as her character seems to inexplicably become more and more deranged as the running time pads out. Shades of Jessica Tandy in The Birds? Perhaps, but it’s nice to see a 40s starlet on the big screen again in any form, even if this really doesn’t compare to being in Errol Flynn movies.
There are also a few more characters of note. The sheriff is convinced he is Doug McClure but in actual fact is a little known TV movie bit part actor named Peter MacLean. He's never helpful, always arrogant and is much more interested in cheap sex than upholding the law. So in other words, everything you’d expect from a small town southern sheriff. Look out for the scene where he offhandedly dismisses Mick’s killer worm theories while tucking into a plate of spaghetti. That’s a little cringe worthy irony thrown in for you more observant types. Meanwhile R. A. Dow, mysteriously never to be seen in front of the camera again ever, doesn’t do too bad as the doomed Roger, although I wonder how hard it is to play a backwater inbred meat-head worm farmer who talks at an even slower pace than the plot moves. Special mention here also has to go to the on-screen charisma of the local antiques dealer, one Mr. Beardsley. He casually steals almost every frame he's in, although he is outshone by a hand full of stunt worms in one of their later scenes.
Speaking of those wiggly critters, have you ever seen a worm scream? Well, after you’ve watched Squirm you will have. The storm that the opening credits roll over is inter-cut with some quite disgusting close-ups of worms screaming and is accompanied by the creepiest evil little kid music since A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s all quite eerie, especially when you discover that they pulled off those shots by frying a bunch of harmless blood worms on electric hot plates. While that is in no way up there with the levels of animal cruelty involved in a string of cannibal films I could mention, it is still pretty gross and makes you pull that face, you know the one I mean.
Never the less, a lot of the worm effects in this movie are pretty fun, although things do take a while to get going. After the stormy introduction, the plot moves painfully slow with very little worm action to speak of in the first half except for one lucky wiggler's cameo in Mick's egg cream. The worm count does, however, really pick up further down the line. Squirm is the kind of movie which throws a million plastic worms at its actors and asks you to believe that they can't outrun them. In fact the whole concept of the film is based around that premise. Hard to stomach I know, but then you are watching a cheesy 70s monster movie about killer worms, so what did you expect? Still, even though the effects are obviously done on the cheap, they are pretty creepy, especially if the thought of being covered in worms grosses you out as much as it does me. It's a good that the worm effects are so entertaining because apart from that, Squirm is sadly lacking any decent gore, or nudity for that matter. All we get is a handful of worm induced deaths, a quick flash of breast in the well known shower scene and the sharing of one joint. That’s as controversial as it gets. That said, I advise you avoid the butchered PG television version at all costs.
All in all this is a small low-budget first time effort from the writer/director brain of Jeff Lieberman. A guy who went on to make the cult affair Blue Sunshine and the much rarer Just Before Dawn. Squirm is a lot of fun when it finally gets going and I honestly don’t think you’ll ever see as many worms on screen at once, again in your entire life. But if that’s your thing then this is definitely for you. Otherwise, I certainly recommend a viewing if you’ve not seen it, but this might not be one you’ll come back too that often. Unless that is you remember Squirm from the 70s drive-in boom in which case pure nostalgia may be enough justification for a purchase.
Versions
Available on US DVD which is supposedly uncut, and various pre-cert editions knocking around ebay.
Posted by Jim
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From enotes.com
Squirm is a 1976 "nature-strikes-back" horror film starring Don Scardino and Patricia Pearcy. It was the debut of cult horror director Jeff Lieberman and remains the director's most popular film. Squirm also features early makeup work from Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker. The film was shot over the course of 24 days in Port Wentworth, Georgia. The story takes place in the small town of Fly Creek, Georgia, which is hit by a terrible storm one night that knocks down power lines. Electricity is pumped into the ground, inadvertently prompting the bloodworms in the town to begin viciously attacking unsuspecting citizens.
In 1999, the movie was featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000's penultimate episode.
Synopsis
A freak storm causes the power lines of Fly Creek, Georgia to collapse and surge 1000's of jolts of electricity into the rain soaked soil. This disruption causes the inhabitants of the soil, a mass of common worms to go berserk. Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy) lives with her mother (Jean Sullivan) and sister, Alma (Fran Higgins) in rural Fly Creek, Georgia. She has invited a new friend, Mick, (Don Scardino) down to her house for five days, ostensibly for an antiquing trip, though they obviously have some sort of romantic chemistry. Geri borrows the truck of Roger, a neighbor who has an unrequited crush on her. The truck is a work vehicle - Roger and his father operate a worm farm which cultivates the creatures for use as bait.
Mick's bus ride unexpectedly ends early when the driver discovers that a tree, felled by a horrific storm the night before, has blocked the only road into Fly Creek. Mick chooses to walk into town on his own; he meets Geri in the woods after falling into a swamp. He and Geri head into town to buy ice as a favor to Geri's mother; while she's in the general store, Mick is startled by unusual noises coming from the back of the worm truck, and goes into a restaurant. He orders an egg cream, but finds an enormous worm in it. The local sheriff, present in the restaurant, suspects that "city boy" Mick is merely playing a prank. He doesn't find it a bit amusing, setting the stage for an increasing war of hostilities between the two.
Geri returns the truck to Roger, who immediately gets in trouble with his father, who discovers that the formerly full crate of worms in the back of the vehicle is now empty, and berates his son for letting friends borrow it. Geri and Mick placate Roger by promising to go on a fishing trip with him later in the afternoon; first, though, they have a previous appointment with the local antiques dealer to keep. However, when they arrive at his home, they find no one home, and instead discover a skeleton in his yard. Mick and Geri lead the Sheriff back to where the skeleton was and discover that it's gone. Geri and Mick begin to suspect Roger is the killer, but go out fishing with him anyway. When Mick is bitten on the arm by a very large worm in the bait bucket, Roger relates a tale of how, when his father had started the worm farm, he had electrified the ground to bring worms up, and how the roused worms had bit and permanently injured Roger, resulting into forcing him to amputate his thumb on his left hand.
Soon, Mick goes back to shore to bandage himself, leaving Roger and Geri in the boat alone. Roger makes clumsy advances, but Geri pushes him away. Neither of them notice that the bait bucket has overturned, causing the worms to spill onto the floor of the boat. Roger tries to force himself on Geri and threatening Mick's life if he ever touched her again. He tries to kiss her and repulsed by the advance, Geri pushes him off her. Roger falls face first into the escaping worms and the worms begin to attack and bite him. He screams as he pulls one from his face while the other burrow under his skin causing the two of them to fall off the boat. Roger howling in pain, runs away into the forest, and soon disappears while Geri horrified by the events, screams after him.
Meanwhile, Mick goes into the back of the old man's worm truck and discovers the skeleton he and Geri had earlier found in the antiques dealer's yard. He has the idea to take the skull to compare to dental records; the dentist's office is closed, as the storm has knocked out all power to Fly Creek. Geri's sister Alma sees him and tags along. Looking at X-Rays, Mick realizes the skull is that of the antiques dealer. Unbeknownst, a worm crawls out of the eye socket of the skull.
Geri and Mick run to the Sheriff to tell him what their discovery was. The sheriff is sitting down to lunch with his lover and they are about to eat a plate of spaghetti, when Geri and Mick starts to talk about the danger of the worms. The Sheriff again feel that what they are saying is a joke and warns Mick that he has a head start before the Sheriff decides to lock him up. Mick takes the warning under advisement and leaves the Sheriff to eat his dinner. After unsuccessfully trying to convince the Sheriff of the death of the antiques dealer, they swing by the worm farm. It seems to be deserted but Mick finally finds Mr Grimes (Roger's Father) lying on the ground. Mick can see that he is not moving but his stomach is. Mick rips open Mr Grimes' shirt and finds that his guts are completely gone and instead a mass of worms are now inhabiting his body. Disgusted and horrified, Mick picks up a spade and smashes it down on both Mr Grimes' body and the worms. Geri thinks that Roger killed his father but Mick points out that it wasn't Roger that killed his father, it was the worms. Mick and Geri swiftly return to her home. While having dinner at Geri's house, a tree falls over and crushes part of their house. Geri and Mick go see what caused the tree to fall, and discover that its base was eaten away, by worms. Alma decides to go take a shower and leaves the water running, but it's not water that's coming out of the shower head. It's worms.
Mick figures out that it's the electricity that's causing the worms to grow and goes to a torn down mill to get some spare wood to patch up the house so the worms can't get in. He picks a big piece of plywood and then starts heading back through the woods. However, he is apprehended by Roger, whose face is horribly disfigured, who throws him into a pit, hurting his ankle. He throws the plywood on him which knocks him out, and worms start to come out of the dirt around him.
Meanwhile, all the power is out and Naomi (Geri and Alma's mother) is knitting. She hears a noise and Alma realizes that she left the water on. Alma, with only a lantern, goes up to the bathroom and opens the door, only to be covered by a multitude of worms.
Mick awakens and takes his shirt off and lights it on fire with a lighter. He sees hundreds of worms in the soil banks around the hole near where he needs to get out. He waves the makeshift torch at the worms and they retreat back into the soil. Using a stick, he climbs out of the pit and begins his trek home. No worms have gotten Mick in the time that he was unconscious. While this is happening it's closing time in the local tavern. The inhabitants hears noises and sees the floor in the tavern moving. One of the guests gets a candle and points it towards the floor, it's a teeming mass of rampaging worms! The guests one by one fall into the moving mass and some even get up on the bar to get away. In the sheriff office, the sheriff and his lover are in a jail cell making love. The lover asks the sheriff if they are safe inside the cell. The Sheriff remarks that he has the key so no-one can come in on them. The wave of worms are seen slowly crawling towards the bars of the cell. The lover tells the Sheriff to stop it thinking that he may be touching her inappropriately. he smiles and says his hasn't done anything. Then she screams, the sensation wasn't his hand but the worms were between her inner thigh when she thought they were the Sheriff's hands. The sheriff screams to as millions of worms descend upon them.
Back at the house, Geri asks her mother, who is getting somewhat paranoid, if she left any of the doors open. Her mother says that she left the back door open to get some fresh air in the house. While going to the back door, Roger covers Geri's mouth and shields his hideous face away from her, taking her away. Through a hole in the ceiling, worms are coming where Alma left the faucet running and they attack Alma's mother with one clearly attached to her leg.
Mick gets back to the house and finds that it has been almost completely overrun by worms. He calls out for Naomi and sees the horrific vision of her skeleton covered with blood and worms. Using a candle, he pushes it into the mass of worms and they part, making a path. He manages to get up the stairs and goes into the attic, where he is attacked by Roger. Geri is tied up in the attic, too. They get to the stairs where Roger fights with Mick and Mick flips Roger over into the huge amount of worms. He goes upstairs and frees Geri and starts to climb out the window into a nearby tree. Roger is still alive, but with broken legs, and bites Mick in the leg as he is about to go out the window. Mick beats Roger to death with his flashlight and climbs out the window and hides in the tree with Geri while the frenzied worms attack the tree.
Mick and Geri wake up and talk to an elderly electrician who says that the town's power is back to normal. All the worms are gone. It turns out that Alma didn't die. Roger had knocked her unconscious and hid her in a trunk. Waking up, she gets out of the trunk and goes to the window where she greets Geri and Mick. Mick and Geri are so relieved that Alma survived, they get off the tree and run into the house. It seems the nightmare is finally over but down in front of the house, there are many holes in the ground. The sunlight scared the worms away back into the ground for now...............
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From esplatter.com
Directed by Jeff Lieberman
Starring Don Scardino and Patricia Pearcy
"Tell him about the worms," a woman cries in a restaurant as a dozen unbelieving people around her chow down on spaghetti. "They bite!"
Underrated, unjustly forgotten mid-1970s horror film from the writer-director of the excellent "Blue Sunshine" opens up with an intro hinting that it's the true story of what "scientists believe to be one of the most bizarre freaks of nature ever recorded."
After an electrical storm, things go haywire at a worm farm, when the squirmy little critters become dangerous creatures that bore into the flesh of humans. A city slicker (Scardino) shows up in the hick town of Fly Creek, Georgia for a rendezvous with his girlfriend. After finding a worm in one of his drinks he begins to suspect there's something wrong with the bloodworm population in the town. After finding two skeletons, he gets even more suspicious.
Highlights of the film include worms squirming out of a shower and a scene where they bore into a guy's face and are clearly seen moving around under his skin. The film is extremely low budget and mainstream audiences might find it too slow and documentary-like for their tastes. But '70s schlock fans and lovers of bad movies should look for it.
It's one of the best from Lieberman, a tremendous low-budget horror filmmaker who never got the attention or credit he deserved. "Arachnophobia" and many other nature-run-amok films were influenced by this gory pleasure, with special effects by Rick Baker. It's not as good as the brilliant "Blue Sunshine," however.
NOVEMBER 15 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : SQUIRM (1976)
From radiationscarredreviews.com
Greetings, readers. To the left of these words, you can see what is quite possibly one of the most grue-tastic, eyeball-enticing, chunkblower beautiful B-monster posters of the 1970s. I mean look at it! LOOK AT IT! A screaming skull being devoured by giant annelids which seem to sprout like hair from its shiny bone surface! People getting eaten by worms! WORMS! Regular worms are pretty gross, by standard thinking, so this film must pull out all the gross-out stops in it’s giant worm invasion from Hell! As an aside, Radiation-Scarred Reviews’ Spooky Sista of Psychotronic Cinema Strangeness, Jenn over at the Cavalcade of Perversions, which is a fantastic blog and if you aren’t reading it you should look in the mirror and seriously question what you are doing in life, is perhaps one of the most dedicated fans this film has.
Anyways, shameless plugs aside, on to the film. Spoilers ensue.
Welcome to Fly Creek, Georgia. During a violent lightning storm, an electrical tower collapses into the mud, coursing electricity pulsing into the wet earth. Thousands of earthworms writhe to the surface.
Meet Mick, a gawky New Yorker come down to Fly Creek for antiquing and to meet the girl of his dreams, local redheaded sweetheart Geri. He’s dedicated too — when the bus couldn’t continue down the road, he got out and walked, without map or compass, just wandering into the woods in what he suspects is her general direction. Fortunately she can find him with a truck borrowed from the local worm farm.
When Geri stops to pick up some ice for her mother (the power is out), Mick gets an egg cream — and the waitress had the same reaction as I did to this — “What’s an egg cream?” Mick finds a worm in his, prompting the local sheriff to demand he apologize for this “prank.”
Next, Mick runs afoul of Roger, the big thick-skulled yokel boy who works the worm farm when it turns out the crates of worms in the back of the truck have been mysteriously emptied. Fortunately, Roger soon calms down and goes back to disliking Mick because he wishes Geri was with him instead of the scrawny city-boy.
Unfortunately, Roger tries to force himself on Geri, and somehow the tiny, slender redhead manages to push the burly slobbering goon off her…right in to a pile of worms that BURROW INTO HIS FACE. She rushes home to take a shower, only to be confronted by worms sluggishly oozing from the shower head!
Yes, the worms have been energized, enraged, and rendered anthropophagous by the electricity coursing into the ground, and they’ve begun to eat the fine folks of Fly Creek. Can Mick and Geri survive the annelid invasion long enough for the electrical tower to be repaired? And will fixing that be enough to calm the savage squirmers?
THE END?
That…was…AWESOME! I’ve seen a lot of reviews lambasting this film for its slow pace, the “amateurishness” of some of the actors, and the sheer ludicrousness of having ordinary earthworms as menacing monsters. To hell with them, this was FUN. It’s campy as hell, sure, but it’s got a pretty good atmosphere to it and I like the genuineness of it — it was filmed in Georgia with a lot of Georgia natives.
The close-up shots of the worms were really extremely effective — they have these amazingly bizarre inverting mouths with black spiked hooks for grasping prey, that pump in and out as the worms are electrified. Very creepy, though the shrieking sound effect they’ve given the worms is inexplicable — I think they would have been creepier in silence, but I am not the filmmaker here.
Final Analysis: A deliciously gross piece of 1970s nature-run-amok horror utilizing a menace one would never expect. Fun, weird, and Patricia Pearcy (in the role of Geri) is cute.
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