Bumblevivisector Review of The Worm Eaters

The Worm Eaters (1977)

Spoiler Alert, but this dumb movie was already spoiled

[1/10 · 14 February 2007]

Now bear in mind, I love weird and even boring movies. "Big Meat Eater", "Weekend", and "City of the Living Dead" are all ones I've given ten stars to, but not this. "Videohound's Cult Flicks and Trash Pics" summed this one up pretty well: It starts out looking like a slightly gross kids movie, but quickly devolves into pointless dreck. A crazy old man accidentally raises some worms that become radioactive or cursed (I don't care enough to double check this), and 3 lost fishermen who eat them are transformed into worm men: People in sleeping bags covered with shaving cream. Soon they're putting the creepy crawlers in the town's food to expand worm society, and the whole second half of the movie is just extreme close-ups of hot dogs and scrambled eggs with worms in them being chewed. Eventually the old guy is accidentally wormified and tries to crawl into town to stop the madness, only to get flattened by a semi. Now, after the pain of sitting through the whole movie, this ending is indeed a satisfying crunch, but to quote VideoHound again, it "comes about a half hour too late to save the viewer". I recommend not even wasting a rental on this unless you really need a visual appetite suppressant. There is a scene in the beginning of the old guy playing house with his pet worms that was just cute enough that I almost gave "The Worm Eaters" 2 stars, but if this movie isn't total crap, I'm at a loss as to what is. Give me the puke-eater instead, any day!