This "horror" movie should be in the "comedy" genre. Not only was the story-line not one bit plausible, but as far as the acting and the photography involving 'killer worms' go, it was just completely laughable! I haven't had such a good laugh since... 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 camera close-ups are timeless. They show various worms wriggling around, sucking at the ground with their mouths while the sound-track generously splices in sound-bytes of 'screaming' and 'wailing' that tries to pass these harmless worms off as evil killing machines out on a path of destruction and terror.
In fact, the only thing 'terrorizing' about "Squirm" was the acting. The girl who played Geri would have most definitely taken home the Razzie Award had it existed at that time (I guess she was about four years too early). She merely stands around, quivering and murmuring like a blithering idiot (it must have been passed down from her mother) who lets her flailing hands do the acting for her.
The stereotypes in this particular 'Southern town' are a notch below embarrassing. We have the 'Sheriff' who is probably the most helpful and law-upholding man in the country. When Mick goes to him at the restaurant to tell him about the deaths of Mr Beardsley AND Willie Grimes (that's two for the body-count), the Sheriff brushes him off and decides to continue flirting with the town slut while eating a plate of spaghetti. The 'accents' are from a part of the South I have never seen nor heard of before. The mother definitely wins the award for Worst Accent. I have never heard any kind of ridiculous drawl like that before, you'd wonder if she'd had just suffered a stroke or something.
The 'special effects' are pretty funny. The worm close-ups are bad enough, but when the director photographs a 'sea of worms' thrashing around on the floor, you can see that they're obviously on a sheet of tarpaulin, with people moving underneath it, the occasional few worms flying up in the air with each 'hand push' or 'shake of the tarpaulin'. The funniest scene would probably be when Mick is making his way through the house with a candle and the 'sea of worms' part like the Red Sea before Moses. I can even picture the 'editing team' pressing "rewind" on that particular scene when the worms slide backwards (LOL!).
The death scenes are pretty laughable. The death of Mr Grimes is revealed, when Mick pulls back his shirt to reveal a few worms wriggling around on his stomach. We are shown the skeleton of Mr Beasley. The sheriff and his girlfriend meet a grim demise in a prison cell, and various town residents at the local bar are awoken from their drunken stupor to discover worms slithering around on the bar-room floor. Shocking!
Scenes of the worms attacking the town, whether it be by slithering out of a shower recess or a hole in the ceiling, were very imaginative. There is a moment where the mother spends her crazed moments staring at a hole in the ceiling... yet when the worms actually do come out, the mother is occupied with her knitting! Same goes for the scene where Alma decides to go into the bathroom and is met by a flood of worms (how exactly did she get out of that and hide in a trunk?). How about when the worms go to the trouble of knocking a tree over onto a house, when they could have instead disturbed the foundation beneath the house and inflicted damage that way? All the scenes are just too ludicrous for words! Nothing makes sense!
And what was with the 'biting' scene at the end, where Mick makes it out of the window into the tree? Is that suggesting that he will become the new 'worm man' should we be so unlucky to be served with a helping of "Squirm 2"? I would suggest that Don Scardino leave this film off his resume. I also find it highly extraordinary that both the actress/actor who played the mother and sheriff in this movie, passed away within months of each other in 2003. Coincidence? I think not. It would have paid to have left the television off at 2am in the morning and not have caught a re-run of this garbage.
I would have to say, hands down, that the best acting in "Squirm" came from Mr Beardsley's skeleton. Would it also be a coincidence that both the actor and actress who portrayed Alma and Roger, have only one film to their resume, that being this film? Again, I think not... and to think Don Scardino still barely has a career, twenty five years after "Squirm"!
My Rating - 1 out of 10
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 camera close-ups are timeless. They show various worms wriggling around, sucking at the ground with their mouths while the sound-track generously splices in sound-bytes of 'screaming' and 'wailing' that tries to pass these harmless worms off as evil killing machines out on a path of destruction and terror.
In fact, the only thing 'terrorizing' about "Squirm" was the acting. The girl who played Geri would have most definitely taken home the Razzie Award had it existed at that time (I guess she was about four years too early). She merely stands around, quivering and murmuring like a blithering idiot (it must have been passed down from her mother) who lets her flailing hands do the acting for her.
The stereotypes in this particular 'Southern town' are a notch below embarrassing. We have the 'Sheriff' who is probably the most helpful and law-upholding man in the country. When Mick goes to him at the restaurant to tell him about the deaths of Mr Beardsley AND Willie Grimes (that's two for the body-count), the Sheriff brushes him off and decides to continue flirting with the town slut while eating a plate of spaghetti. The 'accents' are from a part of the South I have never seen nor heard of before. The mother definitely wins the award for Worst Accent. I have never heard any kind of ridiculous drawl like that before, you'd wonder if she'd had just suffered a stroke or something.
The 'special effects' are pretty funny. The worm close-ups are bad enough, but when the director photographs a 'sea of worms' thrashing around on the floor, you can see that they're obviously on a sheet of tarpaulin, with people moving underneath it, the occasional few worms flying up in the air with each 'hand push' or 'shake of the tarpaulin'. The funniest scene would probably be when Mick is making his way through the house with a candle and the 'sea of worms' part like the Red Sea before Moses. I can even picture the 'editing team' pressing "rewind" on that particular scene when the worms slide backwards (LOL!).
The death scenes are pretty laughable. The death of Mr Grimes is revealed, when Mick pulls back his shirt to reveal a few worms wriggling around on his stomach. We are shown the skeleton of Mr Beasley. The sheriff and his girlfriend meet a grim demise in a prison cell, and various town residents at the local bar are awoken from their drunken stupor to discover worms slithering around on the bar-room floor. Shocking!
Scenes of the worms attacking the town, whether it be by slithering out of a shower recess or a hole in the ceiling, were very imaginative. There is a moment where the mother spends her crazed moments staring at a hole in the ceiling... yet when the worms actually do come out, the mother is occupied with her knitting! Same goes for the scene where Alma decides to go into the bathroom and is met by a flood of worms (how exactly did she get out of that and hide in a trunk?). How about when the worms go to the trouble of knocking a tree over onto a house, when they could have instead disturbed the foundation beneath the house and inflicted damage that way? All the scenes are just too ludicrous for words! Nothing makes sense!
And what was with the 'biting' scene at the end, where Mick makes it out of the window into the tree? Is that suggesting that he will become the new 'worm man' should we be so unlucky to be served with a helping of "Squirm 2"? I would suggest that Don Scardino leave this film off his resume. I also find it highly extraordinary that both the actress/actor who played the mother and sheriff in this movie, passed away within months of each other in 2003. Coincidence? I think not. It would have paid to have left the television off at 2am in the morning and not have caught a re-run of this garbage.
I would have to say, hands down, that the best acting in "Squirm" came from Mr Beardsley's skeleton. Would it also be a coincidence that both the actor and actress who portrayed Alma and Roger, have only one film to their resume, that being this film? Again, I think not... and to think Don Scardino still barely has a career, twenty five years after "Squirm"!
My Rating - 1 out of 10