Squirm (1976)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Blistering performances.

I saw this movie as an episode of the cult television show Mystery Science Theater 3000; however, I also saw this movies years before it aired on the show as a kid. Suffice to say, it is one of the better films riffed on Mystery Science Theater as it features some very good practical effects and good gore. What it does not feature is a good story or characters. That is this film's downfall and why I can only manage to give this film a score of five. The makers of this film did a wonderful job with the worms here as they actually seem to be overrunning the town in horrific numbers! The deaths are cool too and the makeup done on Roger's character is superb, but you are going to have to sit through a lot of plot points that make no sense and a premise that will have one scratching their head to get to the finale which is pretty cool.The story has a person from New York coming to a small Georgia town to do some antiquing and he is going to be staying with a girl, her sister and their mother. I only assume he is from New York, another reviewer said he was from Atlanta, but Roger makes a joke about New York, the sister says something about New York, and Mick himself says something that suggests that he is in fact from New York. Of course, if this is the case, how in the heck did he ever meet Geri in the first place? It isn't like there was Facebook back then. This is a absurd plot point and one of many. Another is the town's power going out and a line electrifying the ground causing worms to go crazy in the first place. I know this is a horror and you have to suspend your belief, but I am pretty sure a line going down in a way depicted in the film has occurred more than a couple of times and there have never been killer worms so they really needed to come up with a better means of turning the average worm into a flesh eating creature of death. Well, things get off on the wrong foot as Mick just cannot wait in a truck for five minutes and goes into a cafe and gets on the wrong side of the law and the truck that Geri borrowed from Roger had worms and they all escaped during the day and this also makes no sense because why would the worms in the truck feel the effects of electricity going into the ground and go rouge? I mean it is clearly established at the end that when the power is repaired the worms went back to normal so worms not in contact with the ground should not have been affected! Long story short, Mick and Geri try to figure out what is going on, Geri's mom seems to be losing it, Roger seems to be turning into something of a worm after a face biting incident and we finally get to see the worms overrun the town! This made for a great episode of MST3K as they mainly did poke fun at the absurd story and characters. A lot of the awesome effects were cut from the show, but those effects did not need to be riffed because they were good! A saw in the message board where some were saying the score for this was too low and suggested it was just those of us who enjoy MST3K bringing it down and we follow whatever they say is bad, but MST3K did not create the plot holes and idiotic story arcs that are featured in this film. Why would Mick, leave the house and go running through the woods to get plywood? He could only haul one piece, I don't think that would have made much difference. I've already mentioned what is wrong with the electricity being the cause and I could probably go on and on about what is wrong with the plot. The good effects and pretty decent attack scenes cannot cover up all the holes in this thing. MST3K mainly focused on just these issues, just because you have a great makeup artist on your team and you have conjured up a few good scenes does not excuse you if you sport a bad story.So there you have it, it is worth a look and it is a film that I could watch without Mike and the bots and have done so before. I would like to watch it again though just so I can see the parts they had to leave out because they were too graphic. People who have only seen the MST3K version are missing some of the most awesome scenes such as Roger falling in the boat, Mick finding Geri's mom covered in worms and some claim that you can see her still sewing and Roger coming back for one more round after being tossed to the worms. Still, you have to sit through a lot of bizarre story to get there. Is Geri's mother secretly having an affair with Roger, whose skull is it in back of Roger's truck and why would a woman ever want to sleep with that sheriff? Of course, as annoying as most of the characters are, it will make you cheer on the worms as they finally get to have their revenge!

At the beginning of the film, we learn from one of the characters that earthworms can be called to the surface with electricity, but somehow it turns them into vicious flesh-eaters. Sure enough, 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 town where they quickly start munching on the locals.Something about the idea of millions of flesh-eating worms taking over a small town just indicates that it must be a fun movie. And in many ways this is a fun movie, with some quirky characters and humorous moments. But it never really gets in high gear. The good parts are surrounded by too much blah and lackluster scenes.The film is fun to ponder "what if", as such stars as Kim Basinger, Martin Sheen and Sylvester Stallone were allegedly all possible contenders for the roles. Somehow rather than three great actors, they ended up getting almost no one of note (Don Scardino has his merits). How did this happen, and would casting changes have made any difference in the overall picture?

An electrical storm downs power lines in a small Georgia town. The live wires hitting the ground cause billions of worms to rise up hungry for flesh. Mick (Scardino) has come to town to visit his girlfriend Geri (Pearcy) on the wrong day. It takes half the running time of the film to have the worms begin their attack. What sounds really stupid isn't, thanks to the talents of Writer / Director Jeff Lieberman who delivers some graphic and brutal scenes in this PG rated film. All of this comes in the second half of the film unfortunately. The first half is spent getting to know the characters and the small town which isn't very interesting quite frankly. Early make up by future Academy award winner Rick Baker is a film highlight as worms burrow under the flesh of one unsuspecting man in a lake. Another memorable scene has a grown man disappearing into a sea of worms slithering around. The ending is quite unnerving as an entire house is under siege by the crawlers. The slow beginning and thrilling conclusion makes the film very lopsided which is a shame because when it's good, it's real good.

At the beginning of the film, we learn from one of the characters that earthworms can be called to the surface with electricity, but somehow it turns them into vicious flesh-eaters.Sure enough, a storm that night causes some power lines to break and touch the ground.Millions of man-eating worms emerge out of the earth, and into town where they quickly start munching on the locals....The one thing to note about this movie, is that it features the geekiest hero ever to appear in a movie, and for the first half of the film, he goes on about egg creams.if you can get past this guy, the film isn't that bad, but it's cheaply made and looks decidedly dodgy in the final third.But one thing it isn't is boring, and this is where the film stands above other monster/killer animal movies of the late seventies.And some of the effects are quite good too. Obviously in some scenes you can tell it's just some stringy goo, but the character of Roger, who goes psycho for no reason, is really grotesque toward the end.Performances are average to say the best, and the ending will make you laugh, as it's absurd beyond the point of explanation.But if you are into these sort of films, you could do a lot worse.