History Film / Squirm

* CreepyChild: ''I can hear the dark/If I listen hard...''

* IronicNurseryTune: ''Watching in the garden/Waiting in the yard...''

* HeroesWantRedheads: And they can ''have'' each other.

It was directed by Jeff Lieberman, who also did the [[DontGoInTheWoods backwoods]] slasher ''Film/JustBeforeDawn'', drugsploitation flick ''Film/BlueSunshine'', ''Film/SatansLittleHelper'' and wrote the screenplay to ''Film/TheNeverendingStory III''.

* CorruptHick: The Sheriff would rather make time with a local waitress than listen to some random, trouble-making city boy tell him about murderous, mutated worms who've killed several citizens - and actually, when you put it like that it's sorta hard to blame him.

* ModernMinstrelsy: Compare the Sheriff's noticeable but subdued accent to how most other "Southern" characters have an exaggeratedly twangy drawl that sounds like a banjo learned to speak English. The Sheriff's actor is actually from Georgia (the movie's setting), while the bulk of the cast are native New Yorkers.

** Less dramatically, he expects to walk into a diner in the Deep South & be able to order a proper egg cream when there's no power, and thus no refrigeration. Of course, this also begs to question ''why'' the diner is even open in the first place.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/squirm_movie_poster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Will the movie be half as exciting as this poster? We won't say; it'd [[FunetikAksent spawl the zoo-prize]].]]

[[caption-width-right:300:Will the movie be half as exciting as [[PostersAlwaysLie this poster]]? We won't say; it'd [[FunetikAksent spawl the zoo-prize]].]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's not clear if Naomi is alive at the end of the movie in the [=MST3K=] cut. The un-MST'd version shows that she was killed, when Mick finds a human shaped figure in her chair covered in worms.

* ArtMajorBiology: Needless to say electrocuting an earthworm will not turn it into a psychotic monster that tries to kill everything in its path. Also, unlike their cousins the bloodworms, they generally don't have teeth...or let out high-pitched screams.

[[caption-width-right:300:Will the movie be half as exciting as [[PostersAlwaysLie this poster]]? We won't say; it'll [[FunetikAksent spawl the zoo-prize]].]]

[[caption-width-right:300:Will the movie be half as exciting as [[PostersAlwaysLie this poster]]? We won't say; it'll spoil the [[FunetikAksent zoo-prize]].]]

[[caption-width-right:300:Will the movie be half as exciting as [[PostersAlwaysLie this poster]]? We can't tell; it's a [[FunetikAksent zoo-prize]].]]

[[caption-width-right:300:Will the movie be half as exciting as this poster? We can't tell; it's a [[FunetikAksent zoo-prise]].]]

** Less dramatically, he expects to walk into a diner in the Deep South & be able to order a proper egg cream when there's no power, and thus no refrigeration.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's not clear if Naomi is alive at the end of the movie.
** The un-MST'd version shows that she was killed, they show a human shaped figure in her chair covered in worms.

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: Roger was pretty unhinged before, but being infested with bitey worms that crawl under his skin seems to have driven him completely off his nut.

Filmed in 1976, ''Squirm'' is the tale of a LoveTriangle between: Geri, a country girl, Mick, the city boy who wants to "examine her antiques," and Roger the local boy who's dissatisfied with his lot in life. More importantly, it's about the gigantic swarm of [[LightningCanDoAnything electricity-maddened]] earthworms that seek to tear them apart...literally.

[[quoteright:200: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Squirmposter.jpg]]

%%* ShirtlessScene

It was directed by Jeff Lieberman, who also did the [[DontGoInTheWoods backwoods]] slasher ''Film/JustBeforeDawn'', drugsploitation flick ''Film/BlueSunshine'' and ''Film/SatansLittleHelper''.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's not clear if Naomi survived the worm onslaught.

It was directed by Jeff Lieberman, who also did the [[DontGoInTheWoods backwoods]] slasher ''Film/JustBeforeDawn'' and drugsploitation flick ''Film/BlueSunshine''.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Roger for Geri.

* ParodyRetcon: Jeff Lieberman claimed the film was a "goof" movie and when Mystery Science Theater 3000 mocked it that "you can't goof a goof."

* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Roger.

* ChekhovsGun: As Alma smokes pot, she accidentally falls inside the open chest which she was sitting on. [[spoiler:When the wave of worms threaten to swallow she hids in there and reveals herself to be alive in the ending]].

* CreepyChild: ''I can hear the Dark/If I listen hard...''

* FishOutOfWater: Mick, a college boy from big city in a deep south town, which is mistrustful to strangers.

* IdentificationByDentalRecords: Mick breaks into dentist's office to determine if the skull that he is holding really is Mr. Beardsley's.

** Less dramatically, he expects to walk into a diner in the deep south and be able to order a proper egg cream, when there's no power, and thus no refrigeration.

* NoisyNature: Who know worms could roar?

* ParodyRetcon: Jeff Lieberman claimed the film was a "goof" movie and when Mystery Science Theater 3000 mocked it that "you can't goof a goof".
* PoliceAreUseless: The sheriff is immediately antagonistic towards city boy Mick, and while he humors him and Geri and follows them to the first body (which goes missing) he then refuses to lift a finger for anything after that, even when they barge in saying that they know who the first victim is and that they've found another (and also that Roger was injured and has gone missing).

* TheSwarm: The worms in climax are a sea of squirming and all-devouring little bodies.