Movies
Interview with ‘All Jacked Up And Full of Worms’ director Alex Phillips
All Jacked up and Full of Worms showed this year at Brooklyn Horror Film Fest under its “Head Trip” category. I genuinely can’t think of a better way to describe this movie. It was raunchy and disgusting, so definitely not for the faint of heart. BUT I’m always here for some good body horror, and All Jacked up and Full of Worms did not disappoint on that front.
One thing that I liked about All Jacked up and Full of Worms is that it often follows dream logic. Things don’t always seem to make logical sense, and the film moves from one sequence to another without fully explaining how we got there. I think this works well for a film in which worms are taken to the same effect as an ecstatic hallucinogen, or some other wild drug.
I was able to chat with writer/director, Alex Phillips, and special worm effects artist, Ben Gojer after the screening to get a peak behind the curtain.
Bash: Can you tell me about the meaning behind All Jacked Up and Full of Worms?
Alex: “It’s about being crazy and looking for love and meaning in a world where there’s a lot of different ways to replace that sense of love and meaning – drugs, religion, sex, or violence. And then also the terror that comes with confronting yourself and confronting the world around you.”
Bash: I feel like the dream logic fits well with the film’s subject matter. Can you tell me how you decided on utilizing it in the movie?
Alex: There’s an intellectual reason behind it, but also a very literal one. This is the way that I write, and the way that I want to tell stories. I don’t try to filter it through any top top-down structure until after I’ve conceived of the idea or written the script. The dream logic comes from wanting to convey raw emotions and feelings, and turn it into a narrative that still has a throughline and an upward trajectory and still has a resolution. I think it also mirrors the experience of living through certain traumas where experiences are condensed in time and space and there’s a rhyme to the way you experience the world.”
Bash: “There’s a lot of really great surrealist artists out there. Where do you draw inspiration from?”
Alex: “I really borrowed a lot conceptually from the Cronenberg adaptation of Naked Lunch. I found the text that I had written had a lot of rhyme in terms of content. And turning something that’s crazy into a plot structure is something he can do. In writing you can be more abstract, but in film you do need more of a beginning, middle, and end. So I was my own Burroughs and Cronenberg for better or for worse, to translate my own automatic writing and turn it into something that makes sense.”
Bash: The characters have their own monologues that get repeated throughout the film. I’m really interested in Benny and his approach to queerness. What was the purpose of his monologue?
Alex: “I wanted to approach that monologue and also that character from how a dumb mammal of a man would feel around, blindly confronting his desires and landing at an openness that is actually almost progressive, but also comically stunted. I see him as having broken down the walls of right and wrong by ramming his stupid head against them, and by reluctantly accepting himself he can therefore understand how other people might also have a similar interiority. It’s not in a way to validate any of his desires, but there’s a real rawness and openness to experience.
Bash: All Jacked Up and Full of Worms has some pretty sexually explicit moments. What’s your purpose for showing this on film?
Alex: “I want to be sex-positive and represent desires, good and bad, on film. For the challenging moments, we have literal distance from the bad stuff. It’s a performance, it’s fiction, and it’s on a screen. There should always be freedom to play with transgression in art. That’s why art exists, to explore the depths of human experience. If you don’t want to engage with the film you don’t have to. I’m confident in my relationships with the actors and also what they’ve consented to do. They were down to be naked on film, and were down for the sexually explicit moments. I wanted to show that in a way that is uncanny, and blatantly horny, and run it up against horror to discuss or at least dramatize our repressed approach to sex. Instead of coming up with a thesis statement about sexuality, I wanted to represent the anxieties and horrors associated with sex.
Bash: “I think that’s part of the merit of surrealism – learning through experience rather than being told.”
Bash: “Can you tell me a little bit about the character that repeatedly appears on the TV in the motel?”
Alex: “I wanted to create a world of this motel where someone is piping in fundamentalist Christianity, crossed with Mediterranean paganism, but it’s like worm Christianity: propaganda basically. The TV also operated as a formal device to move in and out of rooms and through people’s heads and dreams. That stuff is borrowed from my childhood. I’d watch a religious talk show after Saturday morning cartoons. But in the film, it was all meant to lend to a wider sense of the worm conspiracy, that these worm drugs could offer salvation and Godly truth.
Bash: I’m interested to hear about the special effects in the film. What were some of the challenges you had to overcome?
Ben: “Figuring out a way to have people vomit worms was tricky because a lot of times a vomit rig just has fluids and not also solids in it, so getting something that wouldn’t be clogged up once it had something flowing through it took experimenting. Also, doing that in the wintertime in Chicago is hard because a lot of liquids don’t flow the same way in near-freezing temperatures. Then once Covid happened, we got shut down in the middle of production, and we had to finish shooting the movie using Covid protocols which makes everything harder, especially when you have liquids involved that are kind of gross looking. It doesn’t make anyone feel comfortable.”
Bash: “Can you talk a little bit about the prosthetics at the end of the film?”
Ben: “That was a couple of different prosthetics. That also was tricky, and getting worms to flow through that was tricky. That didn’t even end up working totally right on set. It was a lot of trial and error.
Alex: “Both Ben and I wore masks for some shots. That helped solve some problems.”
Ben: “There’s some stuff we ended up shooting with us because we wanted to get as much good coverage as we could. It’s always tricky doing an interview about effects stuff because it’s like: do you want to be a magician who tells how you do your tricks, or do you want to let people enjoy it?”
Alex: “I always tell Ben to err on the side of: Biff’s face did transform, and it did explode with worms. It was a documentary.”
Bash: “Finally, what’s next for your team?”
Alex: “The next thing is called Anything that Moves. It’s an erotic thriller, or as I call it a “himbo giallo”. It’s about this guy who works as a bike delivery driver and is a sex worker on the side. All of his clients come from different walks of life, and it’s chill, almost magical at first. He can provide to them their deepest desires. But then the clients start to get brutally murdered. He’s got to run for his life, clear his name, and figure out who’s doing the murdering.
If you love surrealism and watching people’s lives get out of hand. This movie is a wild, funny, and chaotic ride. Buckle up!
All Jacked Up and Full of Worms will be available on Screambox starting November 8th and will have a limited run in theaters which can be found here.
I was late to the Radio Silence party. However, I do not let that stop me from being one of the loudest people at the function now. I randomly decided to see Ready or Not in theaters one afternoon in 2019 and walked out a better person for it. The movie introduced me to the work of a team that would become some of my favorite current filmmakers. It also confirmed that getting married is the worst thing one can do. That felt very validating as someone who doesn’t buy into the needing to be married to be complete narrative.
Ready or Not is about a fucked up family with a fucked up tradition. The unassuming Grace (Samara Weaving) thinks her new in-laws are a bit weird. However, she’s blinded by love on her wedding day. She would never suspect that her groom, Alex (Mark O’Brien), would lead her into a deadly wedding night. So, she heads downstairs to play a game with the family, not knowing that they will be hunting her this evening. This is one of the many ways I am different from Grace. I watch enough of the news to know the husband should be the prime suspect, and I have been around long enough to know men are the worst. I also have a commitment phobia, so the idea of walking down the aisle gives me anxiety.
Grace Under Fire
Ready or Not is a horror comedy set on a wealthy family’s estate that got overshadowed by Knives Out. I have gone on record multiple times saying it’s the better movie. Sadly, because it has fewer actors who are household names, people are not ready to have that conversation. However, I’m taking up space this month to talk about catharsis, so let me get back on track. One of the many ways this movie is better than the latter is because of that sweet catharsis awaiting us at the end.
This movie puts Grace through it and then some. Weaving easily makes her one of the easiest final girls to root for over a decade too. From finding out the man she loves has betrayed her, to having to fight off the in-laws trying to kill her, as she is suddenly forced to fight to survive her wedding night. No one can say that Grace doesn’t earn that cigarette at the end of the film. As she sits on the stairs covered in the blood of what was supposed to be her new family, she is a relatable icon. As the unseen cop asks what happened to her, she simply says, “In-laws.” It’s a quick laugh before the credits roll, and “Love Me Tender” by Stereo Jane makes us dance and giggle in our seats.
Ready or Not Proves That Maybe She’s Better Off Alone
It is also a moment in which Grace is one of many women who survives marriage. She comes out of the other side beaten but not broken. Grace finally put herself, and her needs first, and can breathe again in a way she hasn’t since saying I do. She fought kids, her parents-in-law, and even her husband to escape with her life. She refused to be a victim, and with that cigarette, she is finally free and safe. Grace is back to being single, and that’s clearly for the best.
This Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy script is funny on the surface, even before you start digging into the subtext. The fact that Ready or Not is a movie where the happy ending is a woman being left alone is not wasted on me, though. While Grace thought being married would make her happy, she now has physical and emotional wounds to remind her that it’s okay to be alone.
One of the things I love about this current era of Radio Silence films is that the women in these projects are not the perfect victims. Whether it’s Ready or Not, Abigail, or Scream (2022), or Scream VI, the girls are fighting. They want to live, they are smart and resourceful, and they know that no one is coming to help them. That’s why I get excited whenever I see Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s names appear next to a Guy Busick co-written script. Those three have cracked the code to give us women protagonists that are badasses, and often more dangerous than their would-be killers when push comes to shove.
Ready or Not Proves That Commitment is Scarier Than Death
So, watching Grace run around this creepy family’s estate in her wedding dress is a vision. It’s also very much the opposite of what we expect when we see a bride. Wedding days are supposed to be champagne, friends, family, and trying to buy into the societal notion that being married is what we’re supposed to aspire to as AFABs. They start programming us pretty early that we have to learn to cook to feed future husbands and children.
The traditions of being given away by our fathers, and taking our husbands’ last name, are outdated patriarchal nonsense. Let’s not even get started on how some guys still ask for a woman’s father’s permission to propose. These practices tell us that we are not real people so much as pawns men pass off to each other. These are things that cause me to hyperventilate a little when people try to talk to me about settling down.
Marriage Ain’t For Everybody
I have a lot of beef with marriage propaganda. That’s why Ready or Not speaks to me on a bunch of levels that I find surprising and fresh. Most movies would have forced Grace and Alex to make up at the end to continue selling the idea that heterosexual romance is always the answer. Even in horror, the concept that “love will save the day” is shoved at us (glares at The Conjuring Universe). So, it’s cool to see a movie that understands women can be enough on their own. We don’t need a man to complete us, and most of the time, men do lead to more problems. While I am no longer a part-time smoker, I find myself inhaling and exhaling as Grace takes that puff at the end of the film. As a woman who loves being alone, it’s awesome to be seen this way.
The Cigarette of Singledom
We don’t need movies to validate our life choices. However, it’s nice to be acknowledged every so often. If for no other reason than to break up the routine. I’m so tired of seeing movies that feel like a guy and a girl making it work, no matter the odds, is admirable. Sometimes people are better when they separate, and sometimes divorce saves lives. So, I salute Grace and her cathartic cigarette at the end of her bloody ordeal.
I cannot wait to see what single shenanigans she gets into in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. I personally hope she inherited that money from the dead in-laws who tried her. She deserves to live her best single girl life on a beach somewhere. Grace’s marriage was a short one, but she learned a lot. She survived it, came out the other side stronger, richer, and knowing that marriage isn’t for everybody.
My New Year’s resolution is to spend more time watching my favorite app. Luckily, Shudder is not taking it easy on us this holiday season, so I may meet my quota this January. The streamer is bringing in the new year with quite a few bangers. We have classics from icons, a new title from the first family of indie horror, and a couple of lesser-known films that have finally found a home. So, I am obviously living for this month’s programming and think most of you will too. I have picked the five films that I believe deserve our collective attention the most. Get into each of them and start your 2026 off on the right foot.
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
Carrie (1976)
A sheltered teen finally unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated for the last time. Carrie is the reason I thought proms might be cool when I was a kid. This Brian De Palma adaptation is one of my favorite Stephen King adaptations. It is also an important title in the good-for-her subgenre. I cannot help rooting for Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) when I watch her snap at this prom and then head home to accidentally deal with her mom. The only tragedy of this evening is that Carrie had to die, too. I said what I said, and I will be hitting play again while it is on Shudder. This recommendation goes out to the other recovering sheltered girls who would be the problem if they had powers. I see you because I am you.
You can watch Carrie on January 1st.
Marshmallow (2025)
A shy 12-year-old gets sent to summer camp and finds himself in a living nightmare. While Marshmallow did not land for me, I know plenty of people who love it. Which makes this the perfect addition to the Shudder catalogue. I am actually excited to see more folks fall in love with this movie when it hits the streamer. If nothing else, it will help a few folks cross off another 2025 title if they are still playing catch-up with last year’s movies. It also gets cool points from me for not taking the easy route with the mystery it built. I hope you all dig it more than I did, and tell your friends about it. Perhaps you could even encourage them to sign up for the app.
You can watch Marshmallow on January 1st.
Chain Reactions (2024)
Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre cemented his horror legacy over fifty years ago. So, it is long overdue for a documentary where horror royalty can discuss its impact on them and their careers. I have been waiting for a couple of years to hear Karyn Kusama and Takashi Miike talk about Hooper’s work and how he inspired them. So, I am super geeked that Shudder is finally giving me the chance to see this film. The streamer is also helping the nerds out by adding The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 (1986) this month. If you are also an overachieving couch potato, I will see you at the finish line next week.
You can watch Chain Reactions on January 9th.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
An insurance investigator discovers the impact a horror writer’s books have on people. I love chaos, and John Carpenter chaos happens to be one of my favorite kinds of chaos. While we talk about The Thing and Halloween all the time, this maestro has given us plenty of horror to celebrate. In the Mouth of Madness is very much one of those titles vying for a top spot among the best of his filmography. To sweeten the batshit pot, this movie features Sam Neill. You know that he only shows up in our genre if the movie is going to be legendary. You cannot tell me this is not a Shudder priority this month.
You can watch In the Mouth of Madness on January 10th.
Mother of Flies (2025)
A terminally ill young woman and her dad head to the woods to seek out a recluse who claims she can cure her cancer. The Adams Family has been holding court on Shudder for years, so it feels right that Mother of Flies is a Shudder Original. More importantly, this fest favorite has one of the best performances of 2025. Which makes it a great time for people to finally get to see it and get in line to give Toby Poser her flowers. Whatever you think your favorite Poser role is, it is about to change when you see her as Solveig. I am being serious when I say that this movie might be the first family of indie horror at their best.
You can watch Mother of Flies on January 23rd.
New year, but same Shudder. I would not want to go into 2026 any other way, personally. I hope these horrific recommendations bring you the good kind of anxiety. Or at least distract you from the state of the world for a bit.
‘Night Patrol’ Review: Vampiric Cop Horror Undone by Messy Execution
The 10 Most Satisfying Deaths in Horror Movies
‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Review: Nia DaCosta Has the Cure
The Horror Press Podcast Episode 54: Heated Rivalry & Yahtzee
‘Sleepy Hollow’ Review: Seeing Really Is Believing
‘Ready or Not’ and the Cathartic Cigarette of a Relatable Final Girl
‘Carrie’ Review: A Look At Two Adaptations
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Shudder in January 2026
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Netflix in January 2026
‘The Taking of Deborah Logan’ Review: An Overlooked Gem
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Horror Classic
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ and The Story of William Afton Explained
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
V/H/S Franchise Ranked, Best to Worst
Everything You Need to Know About Jason Voorhees
The 11 Most Disturbing Horror Movies Ever, According to an Actual Horror Fan
[REVIEW] ‘Cherry Falls’ (1999) Brittany Murphy Shines in This Cult Classic Slasher
