Squirm 1999 Horror Movie Review

You’ve starred in this movie or identify with any of its characters. Easily among the most inexplicably awful things I have ever laid eyes on, Squirm could practically serve as a guide on how not to make a movie to the aspiring film maker. This is not so bad it’s good, it’s not even something to watch for horror completists sake, it is literally a complete waste of your time.


Squirm starts out on a semi-promising note. The opening credits tell of a storm that sends electrical currents into the ground, turning earthworms and millipedes into supercharged carnivorous killers. Corny and cliche? Yes, but it could have easily turned into an inadvertently hilarious nature gone bad movie such as Slugs. Sadly this is not the case. Instead we head off to backwoods Georgia and meet the most southern set of characters possibly ever featured in a movie. Our main character, a pallid redhead with an accent thick enough to cut with a knife, invites her city slicker boyfriend to come visit her. After they discover the skeleton of what they believe to be a neighbor, they slowly piece it together and deduce that the area is swarming with killer earthworms. He even hypothesizes that electricity is to blame for the fiasco. Smart fella.


After a few meet their death by worms, some guy walks by and says he fixed the power lines, which apparently is supposed to serve as a satisfactory conclusion to the whole riveting experience. Normally my reviews don’t contain spoilers, but even in the off chance that you actually give a crap about what happens in Squirm, you’ll thank me later.


There isn’t a single character in Squirm that isn’t a complete stereotype. We have the yuppie city slicker boyfriend that none of the townsfolk approve of. We have the total a-hole small town sheriff that would be quicker to bash you in the head with a night stick than help you. Plus who could forget the ignorant, slack jawed yokel who has a thing for the heroine? However there is a unifying theme to all the characters: They are all unlikable. As far as the worm effects go, it varies from nature stock footage with weird screeching sounds dubbed over, a few scenes containing real worms, and strips of red rubber for any scenes involving an abundance of worms. Top that off with an annoying theme song comprised of a little kid singing off key for five minutes…This movie should literally bear a warning label for those prone to suicide and self-harm.


Even for the bottom shelf movie that it clearly is, Squirm is bad. I did look into the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that this was featured in and it made the experience way more enjoyable, that is the only way I’d recommend it. Avoid like the plague.