Squirm

A downed power line electrifies the wet Georgia soil and drives the local earthworms into a flesh-burrowing frenzy, and the film wrings surprising tension out of the least threatening creature imaginable. Rick Baker's early effects, worms erupting from a man's face, are the reason it endures.

Jeff Lieberman directs it with a genuine sense of rural unease, and the slow build to the worm-flooded finale is better than the premise deserves. It later became a favourite target of Mystery Science Theater.

More effective than a killer-worm movie has any right to be.