From Within

Nothing trailblazing here, it's basically Outer Limits' usual habit of cobbling together bits of older movies and such. This is sort of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers clone with a zombie variation, with ample touches from 80s Stephen King movies.

It's handsomely shot and mostly looks and feels like a movie. The animation of the slugs emerging from faces is pretty horrific and even fairly convincing.

There's a surprising reminder this was officially made for the cable channel Showtime... some brief nudity, including full male frontal.

The acting is mixed. The two leads are really good and Neil Patrick Harris is terrific. The secondary actors really good to rather questionable.

Overall, a decent mini movie that does successfully meld body snatchers and zombies, along with two appealing leads who create a convincing family backstory.

A post-Doogie Neil Patrick Harris plays a mentally challenged boy who lives with his scientist sister. She is a biologist who has been handed a pile of dinosaur bones. The inciting incident involves a trio of salt miners discovering an opening in a wall. They go in to investigate and are swarmed by masses of ugly red worms. These things find their ways into body orifices, changing the personalities of the victims. They go from whatever their normal beings are to a release of the id. They become predatory, sexually aggressive, and violent. As they approach one who has not been invaded, a worm will come out of them and shoot into the flesh of the unsuspecting party. Soon the whole town is engaging in all manner of debauchery, tipping over cars, setting fires, leaving destruction in it's wake. Harris's character is left to sort things out. Apparently his simple mind rejects the invasions of the worms. He is caught between lover for his sister and an inability to act. Nevertheless, it is up to him. The sister has made it clear that if something isn't done, these things could spread everywhere. There are so many unanswered questions here and the plot is so silly. Still, it engages our interest, our wanting to know what the young man will do to obstruct the spread of these awful creatures.