SyFy: 'Mongolian Death Worm' is slooooooo ... ... ... ooowly coming to eat you!
When an American oil company sets up an experimental drilling plant out in the vast deserts of Mongolia, they awaken a nest. The deadly creatures begin to breed and spread, devouring everyone in their path. The only person who can stop them is a treasure hunter and adventure seeker who spent his life searching for a legendary tomb, fabled to be protected by the Death Worms. He knows he must do what he can to kill the creatures, but stopping these
monsters may mean destroying his life's work forever!
A SyFy Original Movie on a Saturday night is at best PG. PG for Probably Good. They're low budget productions notorious for their cheeseball nature and are mostly harmless. Some would say it is not even worth the time to critique any of these films because they are so low brow. When a SyFy Saturay night movie is your Last 'Resort' On Your Left, so to say, there can be no expectations. But that's not going to stop me because while there are intentional cheesefests like Mega Phirannha a film like Mongonlian Death Worm tries to sell it straight faced.
The problem I have with this movie is these Mongolian Death Worms are such a minor part of the story I'm left wondering why call your film that at all. They aren't threatening anyone or overrunning any village until well late into the film, think Tremors meets HGTV, and only then do we find out it only takes one shot to kill them. If they weren't simply mindless overgrown banana slugs with larger teeth they could just sit back and let the humans try to kill each other off because that is what happens throughout most of the movie. The story puts so much emphasis on the story between its human characters but you know the worms are hanging out on the peripheral for so much of these story lines. You know they're out of the corner of your mind's eye and you wish they would step into the picture. Oh, They show up once and a while, grab a quick bite, and then everyone runs away. 'Oh no. The Mongolian Death Worms are slooo-ooowly inching towards us'! Their sense of timing is bad or impeccable depending on which side of the protruding jawed tongue you're on. But you're left wondering, doesn't anyone use salt in Mongolia? Spread some of that shit around your home, that'll keep those pesky buggers off your prized begonias and children.
Sean Patrick Flannery is really the only bright spot. And that's not because the rest of the film is sub standard. He actually pulls off a convincing anti-hero. With an almost Jack Burton-esque quality. Give him a better written part in a true horror comedy and I think he can do better. What has he done to deserve this fate? Okay, Victoria Pratt is still a fit and attractive woman but she's given a window dressing role. I guess remnants of my Sam Raimi produced Cleopatra 2525 crush still lurk about.
But, where the hell are the worms? Why does this script spend so much time with people? There is so much miss opportunity here. Everything that could have made this better, an opportunity to build up excitement for Genghis Khan's treasure, more Death Worms more often. They remove any opportunity for mystique about the creatures. There is no discovery. Our adventurous treasure hunter and the locals know about them already. No sense of WOW THAT'S A GIANT MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM. I'm more scared of the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle.
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