CIFF 2022 | ‘All Jacked Up and Full of Worms’ review: Yup, there’s worms, all right
Alex Phillips’s directorial horror-comedy debut positions him as the poor man’s David Cronenberg… but the poor man already has David Cronenberg.
Phillip Andre Botello and Trevor Dawkins in “All Jacked Up and Full of Worms.” Photo courtesy of Special Movies.
“When an insane man watches television and sees himself in its message, echopraxia is when he follows the message’s order.”
I would not be surprised if Chicago’s own Alex Phillips conceived of “All Jacked Up and Full of Worms” during an episode of echopraxia. Any good no-budget horror relies on quirkiness and practical effects to set itself apart, and Phillips attempts to position himself as the heir to David Cronenberg’s disgustingly fleshy throne by going all out on the blood, guts, and live (?!) worms in his feature film debut.
I’m not going to pretend I understood very much at all of what went on here, but what I do know is that the film follows Roscoe (Phillip Andre Botello) and Benny (Trevor Dawkins), who meet by chance after discovering a tin full of worms with mind-altering properties. That’s where my comprehension ends. Sure, I perceived some of the film’s various technical qualities, such as its exquisite genre-hopping soundtrack that goes from synthwave to grindcore to indie rock without a hitch, and the laudable practical effects, especially the entire set-full of viscera we see in the final act. But for the life of me, I still can’t tell you what on earth “All Jacked Up and Full of Worms” is actually about.
What I can do, from here, is give you a list of the film’s defining traits, so you can decide if this is the film for you:
Worms. Sex (mostly bad). Drugs. Worms. Sex on top of a garbage bin. Sex on top of a garbage bin, with a juggalo. Fake babies. Real babies. Fleshlight baby dolls that also somehow look like the Xenomorph from “Alien,” two mouths and all. A papier-mache stingray floating in the parking lot of a motel. Some blood. Some guts. Some more sex. A badly-aimed beer throw that turns lethal. Lots of giggling. Lots of fun. No, that was a lie. Not a lot of fun. In fact, the least fun I’ve had in a long time. Perversity. Obscenity. The revival of lo-fi shock cinema — or at least, it would be, if anyone had bothered to put any effort at all into making its script remotely comprehensible.
Oh, wait, the worms are hallucinogenic. Worms are love. Worms are up your nose. Worms are wearing bras and panties, begging you to make love to them. The Devil and God are raging inside you; they’re making you do performance art on the banks of Lake Michigan. Who the fuck are all these people — do these characters even have names? And can you overdose on worms? Nope, you’re vomiting out the worms. You’re scrabbling around in your own vomit, it feels nice. Have another worm. Worms are love. You have to unlearn your shapes. An octagon is just a misunderstanding. There are no more rules. Nothing is real, and everything is permitted. Go forth and commit grand theft worm.
Oh, and don’t forget to kiss your homies goodnight before you go.
“All Jacked Up and Full of Worms” plays at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival on October 21, 2022.
