‘Squirm’: Among the best of 1970s drive-in schlock classics

SQUIRM (1976) 

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

During the mid-1970s, schlocky exploitation films from American International Pictures and New World Pictures filled second-run theaters and drive-ins every summer across the Deep South and the United States.

Marketed with catchy titles, bizarre concepts and trailers that promised violence, horror and crashing cars, many of these low-budget quickies played to packed theaters and turned an impressive profit.

But once hooked into the theaters, it was more than obvious most of the films were pure trash – films that had no redeeming value and weren’t nearly as interesting as the trailers that advertised them.

Every once in a while, though, one of those low-budget films would click. And when they did – like the 1976 horror, flesh-eating worm thriller “Squirm” – they often turned out to be an undiscovered gem buried in the middle of an otherwise large pile of pure junk.

“Squirm” is suspenseful, thrilling, creepy and completely disgusting – anything and everything that would appeal to an impressionable, 15-year-old moviegoer like me. The movie was rated “R,” which normally meant I couldn’t see it without my parents or another adult.

But the folks at my neighborhood theater, the Kenilworth Cinema, about a 15-minute walk from the East New Orleans home where I grew up, didn’t care. I lied about my age, paid my admission and grabbed a seat in the small, narrow auditorium (the owners had twinned the once-huge single-screen theater, creating two 400-seat cinemas out of an 800-single screen – a despicable trend of the 1970s that ruined many a theater).

SQUIRM LOBBY CARD

I wasn’t disappointed. How could I be? The film supposedly was based on a “true story” in which downed power lines from a powerful thunderstorm shocked the earth and drove flesh-eating worms to the surface, only to burrow in the skin of living men and women, slowly eat away their flesh and leave them dead.

Slimy worms were all over the place: In beds, in fishing boats, pouring from the shower head onto an unsuspecting bather and – in a particularly creepy scene, piled up behind a door that one of the characters later opened. “Squirm” literally used hundreds of thousands of live worms as extras for the film.

Today, some 35 year after I first watched the film at the Kenilworth, “Squirm” remains an effective, efficient and creepy little thriller – still capable of raising the hair in your neck and eliciting gasps of horror. Credit for that goes to writer-director Jeff Lieberman, who did a remarkable job with an obviously limited budget.

Lieberman knew how to get the most from a young B-movie cast. He knew how to pace his action scenes. And he knew exactly what to show theatergoers, the “money shots” that were certain to elicit screams and send people ducking behind the seats.

Lieberman went on to direct a few other thrillers, including “Blue Sunshine” in 1978 and “Satan’s Little Helper” in 2004. “Satan’s Little Helper” was an enjoyable thriller/slasher film, but Lieberman just couldn’t top the success he managed with “Squirm.”

Others have tried their hand at animals- and bugs-on-the-rampage films (Irwin Allen’s production of “The Swarm” in 1978 comes quickly to mind). But none were as good as Lieberman’s crafty little film – among the best of the 1970s drive-in exploitation fare and well worth a look on a dark summer night.

You can purchase “Squirm” on DVD, copies of which you can often find in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart SuperCenter and other retailers. You also can rent the film or stream it to your computer or television through Netflix. “Squirm” is rated R for violence and horror.

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