If The Glass Menagerie had included a nature strikes back angle, then the result would be Squirm! Mick, a Matt Damon lookalike city slicker from New York, visits his girlfriend Geri in the Deep South only to have to battle carnivorous worms that are somehow unleashed by an electrical storm and ongoing electrical disturbances caused by downed power lines. The film is of course preposterous (and those worms sure are slow), but it is nevertheless entertaining as the young people must try to convince a disbelieving Sheriff that the worms have turned and that the townsfolk are now the bait. So, there are skeletons, worms in milkshakes, a character whose face is infested by dendrobaena veneta, and Alma's towering platform shoes in a film that does have lots of worms, but also some cool gore effects (courtesy of a young Rick Baker) and so is pretty good fun film.

Liebermann's debut may looks ridiculous on paper (a plague of lethal worms?!?) but it's much more interesting and better than you'd suspect. Apart from the outstanding shlock- effects, the best aspect about the film is the genuine location of a typical American small-town. Liebermann chose for a nasty looking Georgia swampland, inhabited by unfriendly people with darn ugly accents. During an immense storm, the electricity lines hit the swampy grounds and cause for the worms turn mental. 'Squirm' starts out a little slow, with only some atmospheric music and neat set-pieces to enjoy during the first hour. But your patience is rewarded with several terrific and convincing shock-effects afterwards. In one of his earliest films as a make-up designer, Rick Baker immediately proves he's a professional artist. The acting is hard to judge since the Georgian accents are so tough to listen to at times. I particularly liked Jean Sullivan in the role of overly worried mother. It looks like she's trying to give a certain depth of oppressed paranoia to her character. Squirm surely isn't a brilliant film but horror fans can't really afford to miss it since it's a creature feature curiosum! Killer worms!!!

A vicious storm downs a power line near a very small Georgia town. It (somehow) drives all the worms crazy and turns them into vicious man-eaters! The town is cut off from civilization and the worms attack...

The plot is just silly (flesh-eating WORMS? Come on!) but the film never takes itself TOO seriously. A lot of the dialogue is very tongue in cheek, and there are LOTS of close-ups of screaming worms (news to me--I didn't know worms could scream). So it's really hard to take any of this seriously.

The acting is all pretty bad (even Jean Sullivan the one "name" in the cast) and the plot moves in fits and starts. And it does take a while to really get going. But when the attacks happen things really get going. There are some pretty good, if disgusting, special effects (one VERY disturbing scene shows worms burrowing into a guys FACE) and seeing literally MOUNTAINS of worms squirming around is kind of queasy.

It you take this film literally you're gonna hate it. But if you accept it for the low-budget, slightly campy film it is you'll probably have a fairly good time. Worth seeing at least once for the gruesome special effects.

I saw the PG rated one on cable which (I heard) is one minute shorter than the R rated one. Purportedly all that's missing is some minor nudity (some of which was in the PG one) and some swearing. All the gore is still there.