“Squirm” – (1976, USA, 92 minutes – VHS rated PG; DVD rated R)
From the ‘70s, we have in “squirm” yet another “nature strikes back” offering, although this one doesn’t preach, it entertains.
During a severe storm, power lines are downed near the small Georgia town of Fly Creek. As a result of live wires sweeping across the mud, bloodworms crawl out at night to devour the unsuspecting inhabitants of the county.
Watch the trailer here:
Our heroes, local girl Geri Sanders (Patricia Percy) and her boyfriend visiting from Noo-Yawk Mick (Don Scardino), begin to put together the pieces of the puzzle after discovering a skeleton in a neighbor’s yard.
The bookish Mick, who thankfully doesn’t try to fake a Brooklyn accent unlike the bad Southern ones affected by the rest of the cast, manages to spend half the film without a shirt on.
That’s a lot more than Geri, who has a semi topless shower scene in which the killer-crawlers come oozing out of the nozzle before going back up the pipe…
The performances are poor to passable, and we have a very familiar face from TV playing the useless Sheriff Reston (Peter Mac Lean), as some swaggering backwoods playboy with incongruous hair who cheaply screws his dates in a jail cell. After a spaghetti dinner, a precursor of things to come.
Mac Lean was on so many shows, especially in the ‘70s, that he must have actually lived at the Studios. He was in virtually everything.
As to the main protagonists, the worms, they look suitably creepy and have an “ewww!” factor of 8.
It’d probably be more if they weren’t screaming every time they appeared on the screen, but there you go, they reminded me of the meowing zombie snake of “Sars Wars”…
The script by writer/director Jeff Lieberman has its share of holes, but he managed to keep things moving and put in a couple jokes slightly better than groaners, so as a whole, “squirm” does work. Well, it’s certainly better than “night of the lepus”, and can be quite enjoyable some late night.
“Squirm” also has a couple gruesome deaths, and a third which Twitch film wrongly listed as one the best ‘kill’ scenes.
Not everyone associated with “squirm” went on to fame and success, but Rick Baker became an Oscar winning make up artist in later projects. If you enjoyed “tremors”, dig up a copy of “squirm” or stream it on Netflix.
Edited to add: breaking news!
“Squirm” gets four jellybeans.
I think I remeber seeing this one when I was a kid, had me being squirmish for worms for a long time 😉 Ah good times 😉
Same here, and that boat scene stayed in my head all these years, which is funny in retrospect…
Another of those movies I saw as a little girl!! So many memories…..
It’s a pity these sorts of nifty, goofy films don’t get run on TV anymore like they did back then…. A lot of kids today are missing out on some precious fun with films like this one.
Nice review…. makes me want to watch it again after a lot of years since the last time I saw it.
I don’t think there’s much of anything like the old Channel Z, anymore, other than maybe the odd local show like we have here in San Francisco called Creepy KOFY Movie Time followed by Elvira reruns.
Then again, how many times can you watch the Gila Monster..?