More animal horror. Yeah, bugs count when there are a bunch of them, and there are a bunch of screaming worms with sharp teeth. Already, the movie sounds stupid as hell, right? Well, it's actually surprisingly watchable.
After a major storm in Georgia, the worms are squirming amok. Some nerd visits from NY and finds out firsthand how dangerous a worm can be when provoked. Throw in a skeptical sheriff, an irritable retarded handyman, and a few piles of bones and there's a story in there somewhere.
I think this movie had some influence on The Faculty. There's a part where worms are digging into some dude's face and the effect is pretty cool, much like that final bit in The Faculty. Also, I used to think the guy on the poster art for Squirm was Josh Hartnett, but I knew it couldn't have been since the years were a big mismatch.
The worms are gross though. And there are so damn many of them!
The amount of sea worms used in the film was countless, as the production would order shipments of 250,000 Glycera worms at a time. The production would end up wiping out the New England fishing industry's supply of Glycera worms that year.
And whereas I'm not so sure about that ozone connection in Day of the Animals, there is at least some scientific basis for the chaos in this movie:
The inspiration for the film came from a childhood experiment between director Jeff Lieberman and his brother. One evening the two hooked up a train transformer to wet soil and used the electricity to drive hundreds of worms out of the ground. Young Lieberman noticed that the worms tried to get away from the glare of the flashlight that the boys were using to see by because worms are sensitive to light. It became the scientific basis behind this film and the story of the experiment is re-told by the character of Roger Grimes.
Pretty decent track record for director Jeff Lieberman. He seemed a tad annoyed when I'd mentioned that I haven't seen Squirm yet, so I had to remedy that. Good flick.
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