1012 – Squirm
with short: A Case of Spring Fever
éééé
Things I liked in the movie:
The supercharged southern accents.
The growling and screaming noises the worms make.
A bathroom full of worms.
Everything about Roger, the wormface.
Impressions
Short
An incredibly obnoxious infomercial for springs. The riffing is fun, though.
Movie
I think this movie is the inspiration for Tremors. It’s stupid and campy and stupid. Mike and the ‘Bots do a good job of mocking it. It’s funny by itself (unintentionally) but funnier with their help.
Synopsis
Short
An unfortunate and sad man has to fix his couch springs. This is apparently in the old days before people threw their couches into the nearest farmer’s field and just bought another one. He futzes with the springs for a few minutes and then, in a fit of frustration, he wishes for no more springs. This causes to come into existence the world’s most obnoxious cartoon spring named Coily. Coily terrorizes him for a few minutes by removing springs from everything and then when things don’t work, Coily yells “No springs!” in a demonic shrill. The poor guy takes back his wish and Coily has mercy on him and replaces the springs. The guy turns into an annoying spring lover and drives all his friends away like Cliff Claven. I can’t imagine what this short was trying to do. If it was to sell the idea of the value of springs, just about anything would have been better. A spring eating a baby stuffed with a puppy would have made me like springs more than this thing. I hate springs now.
Movie
The plot is familiar. A small, semi-remote Southern town fights off monsters but no one outside ever really knows what happened. In this case, the “monsters” are lots of worms who are intelligent and aggressive as a group. It’s similar to Bug (1975), It Happened at Lakewood Manor, Tremors, The Blob, Arachnophobia, etc.
This particular Southern town is populated by the Southern-accent-sportinest hicks you ever saw. It’s policed by a creepy, smarmy sheriff. The towns main income seems to be worm farming, but it’s really hard to tell. The worm farmers are so pathetically inbred and backward, you have trouble believing they can even dress themselves, much less operate a worm truck, but somehow they do.
The plot is really a lot like The Blob. A downed power line electrifies the ground near a worm farm. This causes the worms to form large masses and eat people whole. A couple of 30-year-old kids figure out the worms are killing people but the sheriff doesn’t believe them. The worms kill half the town and then somehow spontaneously stop without clear reason. I think we’re supposed to understand that they stopped when the power line was fixed.
There is a sub-plot about a love triangle between a whisper thin lonely girl named Jerry and the only man she’d ever met who knew the difference between a noun and a verb – Mick. Mick is from New York, so he gets a lot of crap from the uppity Southern folk who thinks city fellers is rude. The local eligible bachelor is Roger, the creepy, retarded heir to his father’s worm fortune (he owns a truck and all). Roger is a sympathetic simpleton but Jerry will never love him. That doesn’t stop him from being insanely jealous of Mick.
Various misadventures ensue, mostly involved with running back and forth between Jerry’s home and Roger’s worm farm, falling down, screaming, and antiquing. In the end, the worms kill the Sheriff (yay!), Roger’s father (yay!), Roger’s face (huh?), and Jerry’s house. When the repair man fixes the power line, he ironically complains that no one in this town answers their phones. Booiinnnnggg!
Host Segments
Prologue: Mike and the ‘Bots are doing a safety
check. Nothing works because they used
all the safety equipment for pranks.
Pearl is planning a Castle Forrester Fair. She’s going to use this fair as step one to taking over all the
fairs in the world. She asks Mike what
he’s doing for the fair. Tom and Crow
have a giant pig. Pearl goes to the ape
hair booth and gets a tray of it.
Second: Mike and the ‘Bots discuss the fact that
every inanimate object has a spry, satanic sprite that appears whenever someone
wishes that item no longer exists. Crow
wishes Mike away, and a tiny Mike sprite appears and acts like Coily in the
short.
Third: Tom Servo is afflicted with severe southern
belleness. Mike and Crow apply various
northerner home remedies.
Fourth: Mike is working on electrifying a worm. He’s trying to make his worm farm into a
race of killers. But he’s just been
frying them one by one. Mike makes the
best of it by seasoning and eating the blackened worms.
Final: Crow is dressed as Jerry’s tall sister by
using super tall shoes. Pearl explains
they plan to have a new ride at the fair.
She forces Brain Guy to demonstrate it.
Stinger: Roger yelling, “You gonna be the worm face!”
Funny Riffs
During the long, scrolling explanation at the beginning:
Mike: We thought you’d enjoy reading your movie.
The first dialog is two people with outrageous accents.
Mike: They’re WAY over southerning.
A doofy Roger comes into the house and looks around coily.
Crow as Roger: I accidentally married one of the sheep.
Girl: Hey, Ma . . .
Crow: Who’s Pa again?
The not too masculine Mick is admiring Jerry as she walks away.
Crow as Mick: Wow, she’s nice. If I was just a little straighter.
The sheriff has a wave in his hair. Mick just has an unkempt afro sort of thing.
Crow as Sheriff: My hair challenges yours to a fight.
Mick: If only we knew whose bones those are.
Crow: We’d better start looking for a boneless person.
Mike as Jerry: Do you like things? I sure do.
Mike as Roger: I will dye my hair clown red for you.
Mick looks very white with his shirt off.
Crow: He looks like sentient tooth plaque.