directed by: Herb Robins
runtime: 90 mins
THE WORM EATERS is a funeral dirge played entirely on kazoo. My disappointment with this movie is boundless. In my endless naivete, I assumed that a movie called “THE WORM EATERS”, wherein worms are eaten, and people subsequently turn into gigantic worms, would be right up my alley. Boys and girls you may be shocked to hear it, but when I let THE WORM EATERS pass through my alley, it stopped, squatted, and took a fat, meaty shit all over the place. It shit itself to death to tell you the truth! And now I’m stuck scraping THE WORM EATERS from the pavement of my alley. Gravel and bits of broken glass jut out from its steaming mounds of disrespect. Somebody lend a hand and grab me a hose!
Herman Umgar (played by the film’s writer and director, Herb Robins) is a German immigrant hermit man with pet worms. The mayor wants to run him out of town. Umgar will not stand for this! Rather than filling pies with rabies in the vein of that child in I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, Umgar sneaks worms into people’s food. But those are no ordinary worms! They are worms of the Red Tide, and they have the ability to transform the consumer…
Going in I already knew that THE WORM EATERS probably only cost nine dollars and thirty-seven cents to make, but I wasn’t going to let that deter me, as some of my favorite movies only cost four dollars and twenty-two cents to make. What would have been a deterrent is knowing the amount of kazoo in the soundtrack. Or, knowing that when people turn into worms that they only turn from the waist down! Had I been aware of the lack of effort on anyone’s part to include even one special effect in this piece of shit… Or had I heeded the warning of “Ted V. Mikels presents”… And you know, that really should have been all I needed to see. Of all the shit-churners of the silver screen, I probably have the least reverence for Mikels. I’d rather watch Al Adamson or Andy Milligan films than a Ted Mikels shit pile. But I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt going in, since Mikels was only credited as the producer and not the director. My mistake. Shit.
You ever fucking drive somewhere and then wonder how the fuck you got there? Highway hypnosis means that your conscious mind was not into play during the drive. THE WORM EATERS sent me into highway hypnosis. I just watched this thing and recall fuck-all about it, other than the kazoo sounds and the close-up worm-eating sequences, which were gross but not worth the price of admission. That price being that of my sweet, sweet fucking time. And you know, I know it’s a lot to complain about a bad movie when nobody forced me to watch it in the first place, and people are literally freezing to death in Texas, but I assume you came here to escape reality for a few minutes right? Oh god, why did I bring up Texas? Why am I sabotaging my own review by bringing in such sad national news? I could even go back and delete that rather than whatever the hell it is that I’m doing right now! Help, I think THE WORM EATERS has poisoned my poor innocent brain!
In conclusion, stay far away from this one. Sorry for the vulgarity. Have a lovely week, my friends.
And seriously, stay safe.
-Elliot
Spook du jour 