Herman Umgar, a German hermit, has an ability to communicate with worms. One day the mayor of the town runs him off his property, so in revenge he plants worms in everybody's food. However, these worms are a special breed of mutant worms from the Red Tide, and when the people eat them they are transformed into giant worms themselves. These worm-people also become Herman's slaves. What will the remaining do?
Similar titles
Reviews
Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Admirable film.
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
The Worm Eaters (1977)* (out of 4) Ted V. Mikels produced this film that was directed, written and stars Herb Robins. In the film Robins plays a German man who has a special friendship with some worms. He eventually has a breakdown and starts feeding these worms to some of the locals who themselves turn into mutant worm creatures. THE WORM EATERS is an extremely bad movie but if you could come up with a catchy title and get it into the drive-in market then you could have a good hit on your hands and I can imagine a lot of people going to see this movie just on dares. The film runs 90-minutes, which is about thirty-minutes too long because there's really not much going on here. For the first forty-five minutes or so we see Robins talking to himself, talking to worms and just coming across as a complete weirdo. Once people finally start eating the worms these "shock" sequences really aren't all that shocking today considering many mainstream shows (Man vs Wild, Fear Factor) have gotten you used to seeing people eat worms. The scenes here are obviously done by a couple stunt worm eaters because we just see close up shots on their mouths with the worms in them but apparently no worms were injured, which seems true since we never see them bitten into. The mutant worm creatures appear to just be the actors with some sort of sleeping bags around their bottom half with various types of white foam coming out of them. Obviously this film wasn't trying to be the next CITIZEN KANE but it just needed a lot more entertainment in order for it to work. Those curious about the strange title and low-budget nature of the story might be tempted to watch it but there are certainly much better movies out there.
The mayor and town council in California want to steal dirty hermit Umgar's land.They want to build condos for yuppie tourists.Unfortunately for them Umgar discovers that when a human eats one of his worms they become a giant worm themselves.It's time for worm eating."The Worm Eaters" by Herb Robins is totally bad taste horror comedy in the vein of John Waters works.Ted V.Mikels produced and distributed this piece of utter schlock.The characters are absurd and annoying,the humor is goofy and there are some mildly disgusting close-ups of worm eating.The film is obviously not as extreme as "Cannibal Holocaust" or similar exploitation classics.If you like amateurish Z-grade cinema check this worm out.5 worms out of 10.
Ignore those folks on here that say this movie blows. It is so great! I love every minute of it. What great characters! I am serious, there are some great characters. I love Herb Robins' character, he is so unique and he makes the greatest facial expressions. Great lines of dialogue. The husband of the weird fudgies lady is so funny. Everyone does over-act, but it's in a hilarious way. Kill me for saying this, but it's the kind of over-acting that John Waters is famous for - it's just too much! But in a good way. Yes, there's worm eating, but the story itself and the acting is really great. It doesn't even need the worm eating to be a stellar movie! If you like weird movies, you should see this one. I give it a 9/10!
I collect movies like this and if done properly this could have actually been a very funny movie. What it turned out to be was a very bland gross-out movie that really has no redeeming comic or interest value whatsoever. There are tons of great comedy horror films out there. I would suggest looking elsewhere if you want some good old fashioned gross-out entertainment, as this movie will leave you wondering why you actually paid good money to buy it. It's a one time watcher at best.