31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Squirm

I did manage to get my Creature Feature in, but as usual, I'm behind. Here's the writeup for the first. Hopefully have the second (along with tonight's film) tomorrow:


Squirm (1976)
 Squirm is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's not really a good movie - it looks cheap, the acting is... earnest, I guess is the best you can say for it. The monster is, well, it's worms. Not really high on the 'scare the crap out of you' meter - somewhere above slugs and bunny rabbits, though, and I've watched (if not enjoyed) films with those as the monsters. The hero is the most nebishy nebish who ever ordered an egg cream, the 'hothouse flower' love interest is more 'backyard flower garden' and the sheriff is slimier than the worms.

No, I can't really recommend Squirm, and yet I've been looking forward to watching it again. I think I like the way it plays things straight, despite the subject matter and general cheap feel. It's unwilling to make fun of its cast or the story as a whole. In some films that dogged seriousness can be a detriment, weighing things down and leaving you unable to even enjoy making fun of it (sorry, Night of the Lepus). In other films it seems to add to the fun and makes you feel like "it's not the best, but I think it was the best they could do." They're taking the work seriously, but not themselves.

The Medium
I tried the Midnight Pulp app, streaming via Chromecast. The quality was surprisingly good for that setup, though it's not a film that will win any cinematography awards.

The Movie
Somewhere along the coast of Georgia an intense storm causes power outages all over the town of Fly Creek. The high voltage power lines lying on the ground cause the local worm population to begin crawling out of the ground. Meanwhile, a love triangle develops between local girl Geri, her neighbor (and apprentice worm farmer) Roger, and city-boy Mick. Soon Mick and Geri are finding skeletons in backyards, worms in egg creams and possible sexual tension (though it may just be the heat). The electricity is making the worms crazy, you see, and these worms have teeth! Well, a few of them, anyway.

The worms are way more disturbing than the invertebrates in Slugs - and the way bloodworms eject their mouths in order to bite is reminiscent of the creatures in the underrated Deep Rising. Unfortunately, these are normal sized worms and, while disgusting, it's hard to take them seriously as a menace. At least in limited numbers.

Geri and Mick try and figure out what's going on - Mick even enlists Geri's younger sister Alma in a little B&E at the local dentist to try and identify a skull - but darned if the worms (and their victims) seem to keep disappearing just as the local sheriff shows up. The sleazy law man (always on the make) takes an instant dislike to Mick and would do more than threaten - if he had any ambition, energy, charisma or modicum of talent.

At some point Geri, Roger and Mick all go fishing for some reason - I really can't remember why Mick set it up - and Mick is bitten by a worm. When he leaves to get patched up (and commit that felony I mentioned earlier) Roger takes advantage of the alone time with Geri to get all rape-y. However, Geri manages to shove him off and he gets a face full of worms before running off. (He also manages to knock out Mick along the way - using a gently tossed sheet of plywood.)

All this is leading to nightfall, when the enraged worms finally start an all-out attack. Yes - the masses of roiling, pink tubes look like what they probably are - rubber worms - but in vast numbers it has an unsettling, Blobb-like quality. The last 15-20 minutes are the best of the film as Roger attacks along with the worms and the sheriff gets his comeuppance. One memorable sequence includes worms coming out of a shower head - leading to a "too-full closet" moment as a veritable wall of squirming pink comes falling out of an open door.

Despite some pretty intensive infrastructure being destroyed - including a giant steel tower - one guy manages to get the electricity on the next day, presumably saving the rest of the town and - dare I say it - the rest of the country. I wish he'd come up here to Maine where there's roughly 400,000 people without power today.

The Bottom Line
Yes it's cheap. Yes it's cheezy. Yes it spends way too much time trying to make Don Scardino into a heroic action figure. Still, Squirm has a low-budget charm that reminds me of similar films, like Frogs or Day of the Animals. And Roger's 'worm-face' makeup is actually pretty good. So if you watch it and don't like it - well, I told you it was bad. If you watch it and you DO like it - I promise I won't tell anybody.