The Stuff of My Little Sister's Nightmares: Squirm

Great poster or greatest poster?

There was a time, not so long ago, that my family was sitting around the dinner table having a nice conversation when it came out that my little sister has an irrational fear of worms. Much gentle prodding and needling of this revelation commenced and while the rest of us were having a grand old time, my sister was getting increasingly anxious and unhappy. This wasn't like the time we found out she didn't like the sound of coughing and everyone (including my young niece) started consciously coughing. No. That ended up in laughter. The worm fun ended with me joking about what would happen if I went out into the yard and dug up some worms and brought them inside. My sister, clearly nervous and touchy, proclaimed in all earnestness that she would leave immediately and get a hotel for the night. It would have been funny if she wasn't so adamant (OK, it's still funny because she's afraid of worms!).

I was really hoping I'd be able to sit her down to watch Squirm (or at least try to trick her into watching it) had it been a good movie, but it's just not. I admire the filmmakers for trying a slow burn approach and letting the characters and town establish themselves. The pacing reminded me a lot of Tremors, actually, just without the charismatic performances. Weird stuff is happening, people are discovered missing, the odd worm pops up now an then and does something unusual like biting an arm. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Ron Underwood and his Tremor team used this film a bit for inspiration.

There's a giant red flag that writer/director Jeff Lieberman isn't very confident in his threat and that is the presence of a human danger. Clearly Lieberman doesn't trust that the audience will be sufficiently creeped out by the crawling menace so he added something that can deliver faster, more "exciting" scares. The threat's presence doesn't really make sense, either. Did the worms take him over? Why didn't they eat him like the rest? In the end, it's exactly the type of movie that makes a better trailer than a film. At least I won't have to sit my sister down for an hour and a half to terrify her.