Review: Jeff Lieberman’s ‘Squirm’ on Special Edition Kino Cult Blu-ray

Jeff Lieberman’s Squirm cheekily suggests what Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds might’ve been like had it been scripted by Tennessee Williams. The film’s deft blend of animal-attack horror and Southern Gothic strangeness yields an experience that’s likely somewhat different than what you might expect when you hear the high-concept pitch: “Killer earthworms run amok in a tiny Georgia town.” Distributor AIP made a few trims to some grisly early FX work from Rick Baker, and a few flashes of frontal nudity, making sure that Squirm would squeak by with a PG rating, thereby allowing an entire generation of underage viewers to be exposed to its gruesome spectacle.

Lieberman takes his time with the buildup, carefully sketching in the dynamics of the Sanders family, whose household serves as the film’s central location. Matriarch Naomi (Jean Sullivan) seems lost in reveries about her dead husband. Hip teen Alma (Fran Higgins) keeps up with Cosmo and secretly smokes dope. Her older sister, Geri (Patricia Pearcy), seems torn between small town comforts and the lure of the big city as represented by her boyfriend, bespectacled wiseacre Mick (Don Scardino), who arrives in Fly Creek in the aftermath of a violent storm that has left the town without electricity.

Unbeknownst to the citizenry, downed powerlines are dumping billions of volts into the muddy ground, rendering the area’s earthworm population unnaturally aggressive. As with most successful monster movies, Squirm keeps its writhing beasties mostly off screen until the final act, except for the occasional tease: In one instance, worms writhe in and out of a showerhead in an amusing paraphrase of Psycho’s most famous scene, while in another a lone worm leaves a slimy trail down the wall of Geri’s kitchen, only to have left no trace in the next shot.

For most of the film, Lieberman cleverly alternates between two different plot strands. One details Dashiell Hammett-enthusiast Mick’s deepening investigation into an uncannily disappearing and reappearing skeleton. The other concerns the developing emotional triangle between Mick, Geri, and handyman Roger (R.A. Dow), whose character gets some nicely shaded nuance owing to his troubled relationship with his abusive father (Carl Dagenhart). As a result, Squirm is almost as much brooding character study as it is creature feature.

Roger’s family situation points to one of the film’s key themes: the decay of the patriarchy under pressure from the generation gap. Fly Creek’s fathers are either present and abusive, like Roger’s, or dead and therefore absent, like Geri and Alma’s. A sort of middle ground is occupied by Sheriff Reston (Peter MacLean), who, in true genre fashion, takes an immediate, almost comical, dislike of city-slicker Mick. Though he regularly threatens to run Mick out of town on a rail, Reston also proves disinterested in the strange goings on around town.

It’s telling that the film’s vermiform cataclysm essentially strips Fly Creek clean of its decadent adult population. Rather than attempt to portray the full extent of the disaster, which, after all, his budget would’ve curtailed, Lieberman keys in on the demise of several of the town elders: Mrs. Sanders, Quigley (William Newman) the bartender, and Sheriff Reston all succumb to the deluge of multifarious worms. As far as the viewer knows, only the younger generation represented by Mick, Geri, and Alma survive the onslaught.

Lieberman handily sums it up in the final shot where the trio reenter the Sanders home, not so much to reconstitute some alternative family unit, but more as a united front dedicated to starting over. Yet the shot goes on, the camera tilting down, until the frame shows only shrubs and pockmarked dirt. This evocative moment is an ironic reminder that while the threat may have temporarily subsided, perhaps only rendered dormant by the daylight, everyone in the end will amount to little more than prey for the conqueror worm.

Image/Sound

Kino presents Squirm in a solid 1080p HD transfer that does well by Joseph Mangine’s gritty cinematography, with reasonably vivid colors, appreciably deep blacks, and lots of fine details on display. Audio comes in a Master Audio two-channel mono mix that cleanly delivers the Southern drawl affected by most of the cast, and nicely puts across Robert Prince’s eerie score.

Extras

The lively new commentary track from the late Lee Gambin and fellow critic John Harrison conveys a lot of information about the film’s themes and visual strategies, as well as the careers of various cast and crew members, but it really excels when it comes to setting Squirm squarely in the context of 1970s eco-horror and animal-attack films. The archival commentary by writer-director Jeff Lieberman delves into the film’s production history, including the childhood experience that inspired him, lifting stock footage from Lewis Milestone’s Ocean’s Eleven, and almost casting Kim Basinger, Martin Sheen, and Sly Stallone as the three leads.

In the making-of doc “Digging In,” Lieberman recounts some of the same anecdotes, bolstered by fresh contributions from actor Don Scardino. A brief location tour actually consists of Lieberman visiting his childhood home and recreating the experience that inspired him. It’s all done with tongue firmly in cheek, which more than makes up for the repetitive content.

Overall

Striking a delicate balance between funny and truly creepy, Jeff Lieberman’s Squirm is an engaging entry in the animal-attack subgenre that was all the rage in the mid-1970s.