{"id":6053,"date":"2008-12-30T16:55:01","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T23:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2020-12-31T23:43:20","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T06:43:20","slug":"squirm-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=6053","title":{"rendered":"Squirm (1976)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Something is making the worms go crazy.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster-192x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-60929\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster-192x300.png 192w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster-657x1024.png 657w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster-82x128.png 82w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster-173x270.png 173w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Squirm-Poster.png 711w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA city boy (Don Scardino) visiting his girlfriend (Patricia Pearcy) and her family (Jean Sullivan and Fran Higgins) in a backwoods Georgian town discovers that an electrical storm has triggered an onslaught of killer earthworms.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deep South<\/li>\n<li>Horror<\/li>\n<li>Killer Animals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nPeary is far too generous in his assessment of this unintentionally campy low-budget horror flick, which he claims is &#8220;effective&#8221; and full of &#8220;fun characters&#8221; and &#8220;clever directorial touches&#8221;.  In truth, despite writer-director Jeff Lieberman&#8217;s best efforts, <em>Squirm<\/em> &#8212; &#8220;as in Sq<em>worm<\/em>&#8221; &#8212; is poorly acted (everyone&#8217;s pacing is peculiarly off), sadly lacking in any genuine horror thrills (how scary can worms <em>really<\/em> be? gross, yes, but not scary), and resolutely <u>un<\/u>funny (the scene in which Scardino discovers a worm in his egg cream is not, as Peary posits, witty). While a handful of other critics agree with Peary that <em>Squirm<\/em> is an inspired little film &#8212; <em>Time Out<\/em>&#8216;s reviewer, for instance, argues that it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeout.com\/film\/reviews\/75219\/squirm.html\">&#8220;far better and more interesting than the obvious schlock appeal its plot would suggest&#8221;<\/a> &#8212; I was relieved to discover I&#8217;m not alone in considering it to be an undeniably <u>bad<\/u> movie, worthy of spoofing (search YouTube and you&#8217;ll find the MST3K version available to watch in 10 minute segments). Throughout his <em>Guide for the Film Fanatic<\/em>, Peary seems to be trying to champion underdog, low-budget films like this one &#8212; particularly in the horror genre &#8212; but you&#8217;re better off skipping <em>Squirm<\/em> altogether. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A few mildly gross shots of wriggling worms <em>en masse<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/squirm-worms.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/squirm-worms.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"273\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6055\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo, unless you&#8217;re in the mood for a laughably bad &#8220;horror&#8221; flick &#8212; and in that case, I recommend the MST3K version instead. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075261\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.badmovies.org\/movies\/squirm\/\">Bad Movies.org Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeout.com\/film\/reviews\/75219\/squirm.html\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Something is making the worms go crazy.&#8221; Synopsis: A city boy (Don Scardino) visiting his girlfriend (Patricia Pearcy) and her family (Jean Sullivan and Fran Higgins) in a backwoods Georgian town discovers that an electrical storm has triggered an onslaught of killer earthworms. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Deep South Horror Killer Animals Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: Peary is far too generous in his assessment of this unintentionally campy low-budget horror flick, which he claims is &#8220;effective&#8221; and full of&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=6053\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60930,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions\/60930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}