Squirm

Plot synopsis:
On the early morning hours on September 29, 1975, in Fly Creek, a small town near the coast in Georgia, a powerful electrical storm rages one night. The high winds topple large high-voltage power lines, and the wires drag and snake along the wet, muddy ground.The next morning, Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy) awaits the arrival of her new beau, Mick (Don Scardino), a city boy she met at an antique show while vacationing in New York City. Mick arrives on a bus that is forced to turn back due to a large tree that the storm has knocked down across the road. Instead, Mick chooses to walk through the woods, where Geri is amused to find him sunken into a mud hole.Geri lives with her mother, Mrs. Sanders, and her younger sister, Alma. Alma is jealous of the attention Mick gives Geri, and tries her hardest to appear more cultured and stylish, since she thinks Mick will respond to this being from the city. Also jealous of Geri's relationship with Mick is Roger Grimes (R.A. Dow), a slightly backwards neighbor who adores Geri. Roger has loaned Geri his father's truck to go and fetch Mick, and there is an immediate problem: Roger's father is a "worm farmer", collecting thousands of worms to sell as bait. The crated worms, which were in the back of the truck, are now missing, the crates empty. Mr. Grimes blames Roger, but Roger knows he loaned the truck to Geri. Roger blames Mick, the interloper who has designs on Geri.The electricity is still out in the area; Mrs. Sanders asks Geri and Mick to fetch a large block of ice for the refrigerator, and while they are in town, Mick stops into a diner. When he orders an "egg cream", the waitress has no idea what he wants, but she does her best to prepare the drink the way he describes it. Mick is shocked when he finds a worm in the drink, spilling it all over the counter. The waitress is furious, and Mick scolds her for serving him a drink with a worm in it; however, the worm has disappeared. The local redneck Sheriff overhears the outburst and makes a thinly veiled threat to Mick for "being disruptive". The locals obviously distrust Mick because he is from the city.Back at home, Mrs. Sanders is clearly spooked by the storm and the subsequent damage. She remains aloof and seemingly in her own world, and Geri admits that she has been that way ever since Geri's father passed away months earlier. The water service has been interrupted, too, and the shower does not work.Geri takes Mick to visit the local antiques dealer, Mr. Beardsley, but he is nowhere to be found, his home mysteriously abandoned. Mick and Geri are shocked to find a skeleton in the flower garden behind his home. They run and fetch the Sheriff, but when they return with him, the skeleton is gone. The Sheriff is furious, thinking Mick is trying to make a fool out of him, and scolding Geri for being involved in a prank.Later, Mick and Geri go fishing with Roger, and while he is unaware, they discover the missing skeleton in the back of his truck. Mick and Geri don't say anything about it to him. While they are out on the boat, one of the large sandworms they use for bait bites Mick on the arm. Geri explains that the worms in the area bite with sharp, pincer-like jaws, but the wound on Mick's arm is quite bloody. Geri admits she's never seen a worm bite like that, but Roger says he has. He tells Mick and Geri that when he was a child, his father used Roger's electric train transformer in an experiment to see if they could jolt worms out of wet soil with electricity. The experiment worked, but the worms were extremely volatile when they emerged, biting half of Roger's thumb off.Mick has Roger take him back to shore and leaves Geri alone with him on the boat so that he can examine the skeleton. While he is in the truck, Alma appears and startles him. Together they remove the skull from the skeleton and take it to the local dentist's office, where they break in. Mick is convinced the skull belongs to Beardsley himself and that he has been murdered, and he confirms this through Beardsley's dental records. How he was reduced to a skeleton, however, remains a mystery, and furthermore why Roger had took the skeleton and hid it in the back of his truck.Meanwhile, back on the boat, Geri and Roger are alone and Roger makes a pass at Geri. When she rebuffs him, Roger is furious and they struggle. Geri knocks him over right onto the worms, which have overturned their small container and have slithered across the floor of the boat. Geri is horrified when Roger turns over, the worms attached to his face, and she sees them burrowing under his skin. They both fall out of the boat and into the water, where Roger runs off screaming into the woods, leaving Geri alone. Geri returns home in a panic and tries not to alert the fragile Mrs. Sanders that anything is wrong. In an attempt to shower off the dirt from the lake, Geri discovers that the water is still not working; as she fiddles with the knobs, she does not see that directly above her, worms have begun to emerge from the showerhead. They dangle from the large nozzle openings, then retreat mysteriously.Mick and Alma return home and Geri finds out that the skull belongs to Mr. Beardsley. Geri is horrified and upset; she also tells them what happened to Roger. The insane Mrs. Sanders appears suddenly and starts to realize something is wrong, but nobody will tell her anything out of fear of upsetting her.Mick goes to the Grimes farm to see what happened to Roger, and he finds the body of Mr. Grimes. Thinking the old man had a heart attack, Mick puts his ear to Grime's shirt and hears a strange sound. Pulling the shirt open, he is horrified to see thousands of worms eating Grimes from the inside out.When Mick returns to Geri, they deduce that Beardsley must have been killed by worms during the storm. They realize that Roger seems to have discovered the skeleton and taken it, mistaking it for one of Beardsley's antiques. They make one last attempt to convince the Sheriff, who is eating a spaghetti dinner with his girlfriend at a local restaurant. Skeptic, he angrily sends them away, threatening to arrest them.Mick and Geri return home for dinner, when a large tree suddenly topples, crashing through the ceiling of the dining room. Nobody is hurt, but the side of the house is now ripped open and exposed. Mick goes around to the base of the tree and finds the upended root covered in worms. When he goes to get gasoline to burn them, he returns to find them gone. He deduces that what is driving the worms back is the light; it is still daylight, and light seems to keep the worms at bay. With the damage to the house, Mick goes off to find plywood to board up the openings; he knows that once the sun goes down, the worms will be free to attack once again. Geri sends him in the direction of an old mill that was torn down, but when he goes there he is attacked by Roger, who is now demented and behaving like an animal. He hurls Mick into a ditch and knocks him unconscious, leaving him for the worms that he knows will come.Back at the house, Alma attempts to take a shower but also finds the water is still off. She does not realize the pipes are full of worms. Unlike Geri, she leaves the faucet open, and after she leaves, worms begin falling out of the showerhead. Eventually the showerhead breaks off completely, and a steady stream of worms gushes into the bathroom, which is now filling up with the things.Roger, still with worms in his face, lurks outside the house in the falling darkness, while Mrs. Sanders begins to behave strangely, indicating that she's losing her grip on reality. When she sends Geri into the kitchen for something, Roger appears and grabs her. Mrs. Sanders and Alma aren't aware that he's in the house, and Mrs. Sanders mentions that she hears water running in the bathroom. Alma remembers she left the faucet on, and goes upstairs. But when she opens the bathroom door, a sea of worms pours out of the room into the hallway.Other residents of Fly Creek are attacked by millions of worms. The Sheriff and his girlfriend, who are having sex in an empty jail cell, are consumed by a flood of worms, as are the patrons of the local bar.Mick regains consciousness and finds himself surrounded by pools of worms. He saves himself by making a torch out of his shirt and fending them off with the light. When he goes back to the house, he finds worms pouring all around the place, covering the floor. They shy away from Mick's torch, allowing him to enter the house, where he finds the body of what used to be Mrs. Sanders, covered in writhing worms. Going upstairs in search of Alma and Geri, Mick is attacked by Roger, who emerges from the attic. He has kidnapped Geri and tied her up, keeping her hostage in the attic room. Mick drops his torch in the struggle; no longer able to fend off the worms, he cannot go back downstairs, and by now the entire downstairs of the house is literally engulfed in a sea of worms that almost reach the ceiling. When Roger tries to push him into the worms, Mick manages to throw him in instead, and the worms pull Roger underneath of them.Mick unties Geri and they attempt to climb out of an upstairs window into a tree. Roger, however, has emerged from the sea of worms, crawling like a worm himself. He attacks Mick, who beats him to death with a flashlight. Mick and Geri escape into the tree.The next morning, they awaken in the tree branch to find the sun has risen and driven the worms away. A representative from the electric company tells them the power is back on and the towers have been repaired; he remarks that the town seems deserted. Inside the house, a large steamer trunk opens and Alma emerges, still alive; she apparently managed to get inside before the worms engulfed her. Mick and Geri are ecstatic that she has survived, and they run inside to greet her.

Tags: murder

Review:
The 1970's saw a number of nature-strikes-back horror films, like Frogs (1972), Grizzly (1976), Empire of the Ants (1977), Day of the Animals (1977), and Prophecy (1979), but none that were quite as well-made and effectively frightening as this low-budget horror masterpiece!Freak storm blows down power lines in a small Georgia town, and the resulting surge of voltage through the soil drives hordes of sand worms into a flesh-eating frenzy!The debut film of director Jeff Lieberman, who would go on to make other great B thrillers like Blue Sunshine (1977) and Just Before Dawn (1981), Squirm is still one of his best.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Which now Mick and his girlfriend's family are trying to stay alive until the next morning comes.Written and Directed by Jeff Lieberman (Blue Sunshine, Just Before Dawn, Remote Control) made an decent entertainment horror movie that is intentionally silly at times but it also has some good shock sequences.
Sure, the movie is actually much more sillier today but i think it's genuinely well made for its time and seeing the character of Roger (D.A. Grimes), who was attacked by worms twice is a bit too much.
But the worms are going to destroy the town and hopefully tone down the southern accents.Squirm isn't necessarily a bad movie, well, I think it's one of those movies that it's so bad that it's actually good.
Just the way the actors present a lot of the lines are a little distracting and get a good unintentional laugh like "Yer gonna be da worm face!" was said a little oddly.
This is a great Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode I would recommend, but as a film, it's worth a look if you're into a cheesy drive in flick type of movie, otherwise, don't expect too much.3/10.
Filmed on location in Georgia, this film was also too convincing in it's portrayal of the rural south: I kept waiting for the banjo music to start up, kept waiting for Roger or the sheriff to ask Mick to "squeal like a pig." I couldn't feel sorry for the people who ended up as worm food because they were all so icky.
A slow-moving but nonetheless atmospheric entry in the 1970s cycle of animal attack films.Don Scardino plays Mick,who finds himself in a small town where downed electric wires have energized the local earthworms into a writhing bunch of carnivorous killers.Director Jeff Lieberman of "Blue Sunshine" and "Just Before Dawn" manages to create some genuinely creepy images like people sinking into a disgusting mass of the crawly critters,worms clogging a shower head and more angry annelids tunneling into a man's face.The cast is solid and the blood-worms are absolutely horrific.Makeup maestro Rick Baker contributes some great worm-eating effects."Squirm" is surely a neglected classic of 70's US horror.8 out of 10..
It is a truly unique film and even though many people will not want to take a movie about killer worms seriously, they will be surprised at how effective some of the scenes are..
Well acted by it's unknown cast, it also features good photography that captured the scenery of Georgia extremely well not to mention tight direction and very good effects.The infamous "worm face" sequence is truly unsettling but it gets even worse at the film's climax.
Regardless of whether it was masses or worms or thick brown pasta, the effect is truly impressive.Squirm is chock full of little unusual touches like the foreshadowing of the falling tree, the really strange Mother of the two girls who is seemingly going crazy (and meets a gruesome end) and the fact that this is one of those rare films in which the action takes place in less than a 24 hour period.
This actually did both.It was a bit comical in the beginning with the bad acting, and the country cliché's, but if you got into it, it wasn't that bad.Sometimes the worms looked like spaghetti noodles, sometimes they looked like rope with ketchup on them but they managed to make them move so it was okay.There were some dumb moments too, like when the house breaks down and they don't run out of there right then and there, but you have to allow for that in low-budget horror.
If you close your eyes and imagine David Lynch directing a long-lost horror story scripted by Tennessee Williams, then you can begin to imagine Squirm.I'd like to start off by saying, "If you have not seen this film at a drive-in or in a theatre, you have not truly seen this film."  The Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode definitely does not count and reviews from that show should be stricken from record.
The director, Jeff Lieberman has commented a few times during interviews, "it looks like there has been a mistake in the editing."Squirm, seen in its entirety, is a seamless masterpiece that features great acting by the entire cast, a wonderfully demented musical score by Robert Prince and some of the creepiest cinematography ever committed to celluloid.
The director of this film has stated in his commentary on the DVD that this movie was meant to be a parody of movies that he grew up with, i.e., "The Birds." What the person above obviously did not realize is that movies at one time could be both entertaining, fun, and parody without being as in-your-face as, say, the 'Scary Movie' series--and still be enjoyed on its own terms like "Squirm" should be and is by this reviewer.This movie is one of my favorite Drive-In "creature features." Its pleasures are simple and fun.
Plot summaries are boring and let's face it if you're renting or purchasing 'Squirm' you're doing it for earth-worms attacking and eating people not for a cozy story.
From the moody opening with an eerie song sung by a child played over scenes of a violent thunder-storm, to the squishy close-ups of (real) blood-worms (screaming!) the director says the "screaming" is actually culled from the slaughter of the pigs scene in the movie 'Carrie'!?
When Seventies Elton John goes to visit his girl way down somewhere in Virginia, he's all expecting some passionate loving (wait, that doesn't sound like Elton John at all), but instead gets surrounded by pink, wriggling slimy things instead (that sounds more like Elton John).What's happened, right, is that there was some sort of storm and the some electricity hit the ground and then all these worms (who were residing in a worm farm) all went a bit mental and start chowing down on the locals, none of whom in the slightest belief Elton John's theories (or even like him in the least, especially that sheriff with the simply bizarre haircut.
Squirm is a low budget movie with bad actors, bad special effects, a boring story line, a ridiculous premise, and bad music.
I first saw this writhing,slithery little flick 20 years ago,and still enjoy it to this day.There are some graphic scenes of repulsive images,mixed with dark humor.The setting is outstanding,and the entire atmosphere makes you want to grab a can of insect repellent and start scratching your legs for chiggers.You can almost feel the humidity of the deep south.The worms themselves are indeed horrifying, and credit must be given to the Squirm Company as well as the entire cast and crew..
Other fun attacks include the nice brawl between the characters in the forest as well as the series of small attacks around town, from the couple in the jail- cell to the diner swarming which is all a prelude to the utter fun of the finale's house assault as there's a lot of fun to be had with the completely oblivious set-up of the worms arriving in various sections of the house and appearing without them realizing which is all where the different searches are all mixed together with the action and escapes all makes for a really exciting scene.
Of course, the city slicker is the protagonist, but that doesn't stop the locals from treating him like dirt (ironically, the thing worms live in).This film is fun and will at times make your skin crawl.
The year after Spielberg gave us his classic blockbuster Jaws, director Jeff Lieberman (Just Before Dawn, Satan's Little Helper) brought us a very different kind of killer animal/eco-horror movie—Squirm—which saw a small Southern community under attack from flesh-eating worms drawn to the surface by electricity surging from a fallen power line.Now worms aren't exactly renowned for being unpredictably violent, or indeed threatening in any way, shape, or form, meaning that Squirm is right up there with Slugs (1988) as far as silly killer invertebrate flicks are concerned.
And try as he might, Lieberman simply cannot make his slimy pink critters the least bit frightening; indeed, showing them in extreme close up and having them screech and growl like wild animals only makes them funnier.With a very gradual build up, the first half of the film is almost completely devoid of worm action, and matters prove rather tedious until the final act.
But unless you're seriously wormophobic (made up word), even the sight of thousands of the things wriggling in a heaving mass is unlikely to cause shivers of fear.The film's best moment comes when Fly Creek hick Roger Grimes (R.A. Dow) falls over whilst fishing, allowing a few of the ravenous worms to latch onto his face and burrow under the skin: the effects in this scene—by make-up legend Rick Baker—are actually rather nauseating.
If the film had featured a lot less Nancy Drew/Hardy boys amateur detective work from Geri and Mick, and much more people being munched on by worms, this could have been great.
Jeff Lieberman's debut film "Squirm" has a rural Georgia town inundated with flesh- eating worms who have been summoned by electrical currents from fallen power lines in the aftermath of a storm.
Down-home Southern girl Geri (Patricia Pearcy) is meanwhile being visited by her New Yorker boyfriend, Mick (Don Scardino), and needless to say, things in Fly Creek run amok.I've read multiple comments about this film essentially being a rendition of Hitchcock's "The Birds," rather with worms, and they couldn't be any more correct— Lieberman takes the template and runs with it by all means, but "Squirm" still retains so much charm and doses of wormy nastiness that I find it impossible not to love it.Admirable special effects on a shoestring budget are one noteworthy aspect of this film (early work by Rick Baker, who has went on to become a majorly successful makeup designer in Hollywood, is on display here), but perhaps its greatest achievement is the sense of unease that pervades even in spite of the inherent silliness of the plot.
By some unidentifiable stroke of genius (or perhaps accident), "Squirm" never works its way into any sort of cornball hysteria— despite the fact that the film's antagonists are thousands of worms (and a worm-infested redneck), it still never manages to fall into the "so bad it's good" category that one might expect it to.The innocuous exposition of the film may have a great part in this in that it builds a certain kind of dread, but no matter the cause, the film maintains a healthy level of self- awareness and seriousness that really elevate it from standard low-budget creature fare.
The film's finale has all the worms you could ask for, and the entire event is just plain fun.Despite what preconceptions you may about "Squirm" (I had many), it is definitely a film that is worth the time for anyone who is a fan of '70s horror or creature features in general.
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.
It has loads of atmosphere and a few really creepy scenes, like when the worms attack Roger's face while fishing in a rowboat with Geri.
Too bad he couldn't ultimately make more out of it.So, the bottom line is (and I DO enjoy saying 'Bottom') that if you have a STRONG affection for these old Monster Horror films, AND you have a very, VERY forgiving spirit, then you most likely will enjoy this movie at least a little bit....
Fran Higgins is a delight as Geri's tomboyish sister, Carl Dagenhart a total hoot as miserable worm farm operator Willie Grimes, and character actor William Newman, whose memorable mug you may have seen in one thing or another, makes his film debut as Mr. Quigley.
The first half of the movie drones on and on and since the characters are so poorly defined and uninteresting, Squirm leaves its audience begging for some worms to come along and swallow the cast up.
maybe "Frogs"?Anyway, Don Scardino plays some kid from "the city" who visits this trailer trash town in the South (supposedly Georgia) who is taken in by a girl, her incredibly ugly sister 'Alma' (or should I say, brother), and their psychotic catatonic mother who spends most of her time either white-faced, tight-lipped or murmuring incoherently about knitting shawls.Some power lines were downed in a thunder storm, sending volts of electricity in the ground, driving up hordes of flesh-eating blood worms.
The film provides two different villains - Roger (creepy in the latter stages, especially his worm-like crawl up the stairs and when his face appears at the window; also interesting is the shot where he shields his face from the light) and the Sheriff (something of a caricature but certainly adds to the fun, especially when Don Scardino mimics his movements as soon as his back is turned); the mother is also fairly hilarious, though one feels it was unintentional (and Lieberman himself seems to concur).
Geri please, you're too good for him.Still, Squirm is an interesting, little movie that's worth a look, if you like interesting little movies about killer worms..
New Yorker Mick (Don Scardino) is visiting his girl Geri (Patricia Pearcy) and soon the two of them are trying to survive.Director Jeff Lieberman's SQUIRM is pure Southern drive-in horror that manages to work even though it has a rather silly story and very little of what you'd call a budget.
Moreover, the worm attack set pieces are disgustingly convincing and thus quite jolting (the horrific highlight occurs when vile redneck degenerate R.A. Dow has his face feasted on by the grody flesh-eating buggers), the refreshingly unmacho, but still resourceful Don ("He Knows You're Alone") Scardino as the bright, bookish, hopelessly out-of-his-element college educated New York city boy hero and ravishing redhead Patricia ("Cockfighter") Pearcy as Scardino's sweet, smart, fetching Southern belle girlfriend give nicely appealing performances, Joseph Mangine's crisp, evocative cinematography vividly captures a tangibly grungy and uninviting shabby small stickville town gone to seed atmosphere, Rick Baker's stand-out, often startling special make-up effects are typically first-rate (a post chewed-up Dow, dubbed "Wormface," makes for a notably ghastly sight to behold), there's a beautifully eerie opening credits sequence (the odd, austere children's song played during the credits is positively haunting), and the all-around sound acting is up to snuff.
Add to all this the really nice low budget special effects, solid acting by a group of unknown actors (for many, this was their only screen credit), wonderfully authentic Georgia locations, good pacing, and a steady directorial hand and it's amazing it's taken me this long to appreciate Squirm.Once again, thank you MST3K for opening my eyes to this entertaining little movie..
Case in point: this little killer worm movie filmed in Georgia.
Discovering that it's the old man that he and human pencil girl had spent ten minutes calling earlier in the film, he goes back to the old man's place to look more closely into why the skeleton had had all the flesh stripped from its bones in such a short time.The movie finally kicks into high gear, as the worms begin their concerted attack on the townspeople.
A bad movie that features killer worms who kill rednecks, and hate electricity (Minor Spoiler coming up)..
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.