Strange occurrences are abound when an oil production plant inadvertently awakens a colony of carnivorous, gigantic worms out in the remote Mongolian Desert. A treasure seeker named Daniel (Sean Patrick Flanery) is on hand to save the day however, as he finds himself entangled with the worms whilst helping a local humanitarian hospital. Will Daniel find the elusive tomb he’s been searching for, the very same tomb the worms are supposed to protect? If so, will he survive long enough to cash in on that sweet reward?
This is a Syfy TV movie, most of their flicks tend to be cheesy, quasi-family orientated nonsense. This one, is much the same but it’s not too bad truth be told. It’s definitely watchable.
The acting quality in Mongolian Death Worm is OK. Sean Patrick Flanery’s character Daniel is annoying in parts but Sean does a decent job with the script he’s got. The same could be said for the rest of the cast. None of the characters really stand out in any big way, they’re the generic types, greedy company men, rough but good hearted loners, naive but caring medical volunteers, it’s the usual stuff.
Without a doubt though the star of the movie are the worms themselves. Whilst perhaps not as scary as say the worms in Dune or Tremors, for a made for TV movie they’re not too bad. I guess the inherent problem, which is something common place in almost all Syfy movies, is the abundant use of CGI. It really detracts from the believability of the worms and consequently it reduces the movies fear factor.
Gore is pretty minimal, you’ll see the occasional non-descript splatter (more like fountain) of blood but it’s naff and nor is it visceral enough to be noteworthy. There are moments when Mongolian Death Worm can be tense, especially near the ending but generally speaking this movie is not scary.
Even though it’s not the most exiting movie i’ve ever watched there is something strangely likable about it. It has a charm, which is commonplace in Syfy movies, which is difficult to put a finger on. Hence i’m going to recommend Mongolian Death Worm but only to people who dig Syfy movies. For sure though, if you can catch this one on TV (as i believe it’s currently showing on Syfy) then yeah, you could do much worse than spending your time watching this.
Movie Details
Director: Steven R. Monroe
Writers: Steven R. Monroe, Kevin Leeson, Neil Elman
Actors: Drew Waters, George Cheung, Victoria Pratt, Nate Rubin
Release Year: 2010