“You gonna be da’ worm face!”

Justin’s rating: Remember Wormy from Sesame Street? He’s now a serial killer.

Justin’s review: Frogs. Ants. Bees. Donald Sutherland’s butt in Animal House. The ’70s was a veritable parade of creepy-crawlies in cinema. And if you thought that we got out of that decade without an overdose of worms as well, you were a fool. A FOOL!

Thus we got Squirm, the creature feature that made me really hungry for Chef Boyardee spaghetti. At least I had that, because the odds of being scared or unnerved by carnivorous worms stayed at a rock-solid 0% from start to finish.

Welcome to Fly Creek, Georgia, 1975, where lightning strikes an electrical tower during a rough storm, which starts pouring juice into the mud, which immediately fizzles out. No, wait, it somehow wakes up the wrath of homicidal bloodworms, sandworms, and earthworms who pour out of holes to be immediately devoured by the bird population of Georgia. No wait, they actually go on a squirmy rampage that defies all logic.

As the worm revolution takes shape, we are treated to a gaggle of genuine Southerners who lay on the cheese, folksy sayings, and accents as thick as they like. The only person who didn’t major in Deep South for this film is Mick, a NYC guy who’s visiting his girlfriend Geri. But trust me, Mick is just as annoying in his own way, mostly due to being a pretentious know-it-all dweeb.

While just about nobody in this town endears themselves to us — not the local yokel, nor the grumpy sheriff — we stick around because of the promise that this movie’s going to make worms terrifying and threatening. And God bless this movie, it honestly tries.

We get “Wormface,” a guy who’s face becomes… well, you get it. We get worms spying on a girl in a shower. We get worms that keep moving a skeleton around, mostly to mess with Mick. We get worms chopping down trees to destroy houses. We get a lesson on southern tidal flats and worm farms. We get people eating spaghetti. We get absolute floods of worms. Some of it’s horror, some of it’s horrible.

The one big downside to this low-budget flick is that the story takes way too long building up the threat until we actually get to the fun stuff. I paid for worm attacks, I expect worm attacks from minute 10, not minute 45! Perhaps to save on the budget, too much time is spent on this skeleton mystery and the sheriff being a jerk to Mick just because.

Yeah, the whole premise is ridiculous and unbelievable, but that’s kind of what makes Squirm work as it takes on this premise with all gusto. Go killer worms go!

Intermission!

• Want a second dose of cult to slather on this? Squirm is one of the classic MST3K episodes, if you want robots commenting on worms and Southern culture. The director of this movie hated the MST3K treatment and said as such on the official blu-ray commentary. Many times.
• All good horror movies start with a really dull text crawl
• We really don’t need some kid singing over the credits
• Worms are known to scream from time to time
• Did you know they had naked showers in the 1970s? This movie is very educational!
• Random door dutch angle shot
• “How’s your pimple?”
• Traveling on a bus with a tennis racket and fishing pole? Nobody will like you.
• No, people don’t eat worms, dummy
• What the heck is an “egg cream?” That sounds disgusting, Mick. And it comes with a bonus worm!
• “I’m not a tourist, I’m a Libra.”
• Meeting your girlfriend’s mom while carrying a huge block of ice is not strange at all
• “What’s the matter, afraid of worms?”
• Let’s split up and immediately not split up
• Did the worms cart off the skeleton? And how did it get in the truck?
• The worm fishing scene is pretty uncomfortable
• The weird origin story of Wormface!
• It does not make much sense why Geri wanted to take a shower all the sudden, nor why the worms fell out of the spout and then reversed back up
• Worms like to eat you from the inside-out
• “THEY BITE!”
• The sheriff gives them a spaghetti head start
• Did the worms chop down the tree?
• The Shining’s blood elevator has nothing on Squirm’s worm bathroom!
• WormCam
• Creepy kid song for no reason