Squirm (1976)

SQUIRM (1976) Three stars

You either have a predisposition for liking a silly creature feature like SQUIRM or you don’t.

I thankfully do.

Just a couple quick statements.

1) That’s a lovely title.

2) It’s produced by American International Pictures (1954-80), one of the best production outfits in the motion picture business.

3) I’d rate SQUIRM the second-best killer worm picture right after TREMORS.

Granted, I’m not exactly sure how many killer worm movies there are in existence.

SQUIRM, written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, reminds yours truly of the 1972 classic from American International, FROGS.

American International promoted FROGS with the immortal tagline “Today the pond, tomorrow the world.”

Meanwhile, SQUIRM received, “This was the night of the crawling terror!” Crawling terror in all caps! Like CRAWLING TERROR!

The opening title card informs us that SQUIRM is “based on a true story.” Are you gonna fall for that one?

Intense storms hit Fly Creek, Georgia and electricity from downed power lines + wet soil creates mad worms … and they develop an insatiable taste for human flesh. Of course, they do … or we’d not have much of a movie, at least not much of a one worthy of the title SQUIRM.

We have two gingers for our protagonists: Mick (Don Scardino), a no-count city slicker who seems to get on just about everybody’s bad side, especially good ol’ boy Sheriff Jim Reston (Peter MacLean) and creepy romantic rival Roger Grimes (R.A. Dow), and Mick’s romantic interest Geri (Patricia Pearcy).

Right off the top of the old noggin, I cannot think of another film headlined by a pair of redheads.

Mick starts off on the wrong foot real quick when he orders an egg cream. An egg cream in Fly Creek, Georgia? Only a city slicker would make such an order.

What’s an egg cream? Milk, carbonated water, and flavored syrup, apparently, and it does not contain eggs or cream. New Yorkers loved them some egg cream. Why do them old Pace Picante commercials leap to mind?

Mick encounters a worm in his egg cream and freaks out. Boy, oh boy, he’s not making friends very fast around here.

It all sort of reminds you of Dustin Hoffman’s work alienating the natives in Sam Peckinpah’s STRAW DOGS.

Many years ago, I brought in a DVD haul that included AFTER HOURS, ERASERHEAD, and FROGS.

Just from that day alone, I could have started the “So You’re Think You’re Having a Bad Day” Film Festival.

SQUIRM could make the cut, just based on what happens to Roger alone.

Shakespeare, “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it come.”

Roger “dies” a thousand times in SQUIRM. At least it seems that way. You can’t keep a good creep down.

He’s the SQUIRM character remembered most.

I read an interview with Lieberman where he recounted how most of the inner-city audience in a 900-seat theater rooted for Roger and wanted both redheads to die either by Roger or the worms.

SQUIRM amounts to a whole lot of fun, but take my word with a grain of salt especially since I have a predisposition to like this kind of movie.

squirm /skwərm/: wriggle or twist the body from side to side, especially as a result of nervousness or discomfort. Synonyms: wriggle, wiggle, writhe, twist, slide, slither, turn, shift, fidget, jiggle, twitch, thresh, flounder, flail, agonize.

“SQUIRM made late Atlanta Braves broadcaster Skip Caray squirm.”