''Feed me."
The Worm
is an animated horror short film and part of the Don't Walk Home Alone After Dark series. It was released on October 13th, 2023 and is available for free on YouTube.
A psychologist, Dr Jacob Merrick, becomes determined to find out what troubles his teenaged patient Sparrow Moon. But in digging deeper, he might get more than he bargained for.
Not to be confused with Worm, the first novel in the Parahumans series.
Contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Criminal History: Played for Horror. It's never fully detailed what Sparrow did to get her landed in a mental hospital, but it's implied to have been pretty serious, with the narrator stating that when he met Sparrow he'd been half expecting an “uncontrollable monster” and that it was hard to reconcile the small, quiet teenager in front of him with what she had done. A newspaper in one shot states she was taken into custody over her suspected involvement in the murder-suicide of her friends and an older man, but it's unclear what exactly went down. In the comment section on the video, Andy Coyle simply said that Sparrow did "What she had to…"
- Awful Truth: The doctor eventually gets some answers to what happened to Sparrow that caused her mental break, including what "the Worm" is, but he wishes he hadn't. Sparrow and her friends were told about the Worm, a malevolent entity that feeds off fear, by an old man. The Worm began to torment them and they slowly realised that the Worm is spread to new hosts via their current host telling another person about it. Because the doctor pushed Sparrow into telling him about the Worm, he’s been infected too. And now he's told us as well.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The therapist becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Sparrow that caused her and her friends' mental break, going as far as to perform unethical treatments on Sparrow to get the answers he seeks. He gets answers alright, but comes to seriously regret this as his own mental health starts to deteriorate as a direct result of Sparrow telling him about the Worm.
- Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: The psychologist drugging Sparrow to get her to tell him what's troubling her ends up getting him infected with the Worm. Could be invoked by the viewer as well, as by listening to the psychologist's story from start to finish the viewer has become the new host.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Notably averted with Sparrow. The psychologist mentions that Sparrow had a completely normal and happy childhood, making her suddenly snapping and committing the act that got her institutionalized even more strange.
- Decoy Protagonist: Initially it seems like the short will focus on Sparrow and her losing battle against the Worm, only for the psychologist to become the central character after the first dream sequence and Sparrow to take on more of a secondary role..
- Downer Ending: Or at best a very dark Bittersweet Ending. In forcing Sparrow to reveal the reason behind her unspecified actions, the psychologist has made himself the Worm's next host. Desperate to escape the Worm, he passes it on to the person who has been listening to this story this whole time - you.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Worm is revealed to be this; it's some kind of ancient parasitic entity that can latch itself onto a person who knows of its existence and manipulate their dreams, feeding off their fear and slowly driving them insane. In the nightmares, its true form resembles a giant worm-like creature with five sets of limbs (with two little arms on its mandibles), a long tail with spines, multiple glowing eyes and huge jaws; even then it's not clear if this is its true form or just how its victims perceive it in their dreams.
- Emotion Eater: The Worm feeds on its victims' fear and dread, intentionally inducing nightmares to get its meals every time its current host goes to sleep.
- Expository Hairstyle Change:
- In an old photo of Sparrow happily hanging out with her friends and at the start of the story before things go wrong for her, she wears her hair tied back off her face. Following her institutionalisation, she leaves her bangs loose to hide her face. In the ending, after the Worm’s influence over her has weakened, she's wearing her hair partly off her face again, indicating she's on the mend.
- Sparrow also gets expository hair colour change; before being institutionalised, Sparrow dyed her hair red (with her roots starting to show at the beginning), with the passage of time being indicated via how much Sparrow’s hair has outgrown the dye.
- Fate Worse than Death: Sparrow says that the Worm doesn't kill its victims because what it wants is to feed off their fears and be spread to other hosts "like any virus". Instead, it torments its victims with their worst fears every time they fall asleep, with Sparrow saying the best you can hope for is to "wake up before it starts to feed". Its victims begin slowly going mad and physically deteriorating due to the lack of sleep and constant stress (which may eventually lead to death anyway, one way or another). The only apparent way to lessen or shake off the Worm's influence is to pass it on to someone else by telling them about it, meaning you'll have to knowingly subject someone else to this living nightmare, or you could do it unintentionally to numerous people if you didn't understand what was going on.
- Final Girl: It's implied Sparrow was this to the Woodfield Five. While her four friends eventually all succumbed to the Worm, Sparrow managed to survive and contain it long after. Unusually for this trope, it's implied that Sparrow herself was involved in the other deaths.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The short film ends with the psychologist apologizing to the viewer since, by telling them about the Worm, he has made them its new host.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Downplayed and in the end subverted with the psychologist. He's a blonde man who really wishes to know the reason for why Sparrow did what she did. While this seems to be out of a genuine desire to help her at first, the way he recalls the story implies that it was a matter of professional pride as well. In the end when the psychologist becomes infected with the Worm, he doesn't try containing it like Sparrow did, but instead willingly passes it on - to you, the viewer.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sparrow was willing to stay infected with the Worm, trying to fight it off and slowly deteriorating mentally and physically, for the rest of her life, telling no one to avoid spreading it. She hoped that when she eventually died, the Worm would die with her. Unfortunately, her efforts were in vain thanks to her therapist.
- Hippie Name: Sparrow’s full name is Sparrow Anne Moon; it’s mentioned her mother was part of an “offbeat spiritual commune” at the time Sparrow was born before leaving to start a new life.
- Nightmare Weaver: The Worm can manipulate its victims' dreams, psychologically torturing them with their worst fears and hunting them down to feed off their terror.
- No Name Given: While we get the patient's name (Sparrow Moon), the psychologist never introduces himself. However, there is a brief shot of Sparrow's patient file which gives the psychologist's name as Jacob Merrick, and the soundtrack refers to him as Merrick too (on the track "Merrick's Nightmare").
- Noodle Incident: By the short's present, Sparrow has done something so extreme that she was checked into a mental hospital and the court considers to have her transferred to an isolated psychiatric ward. We never find out what she actually did.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Aside from what it does, nothing about the Worm is known. Not where it originated, not what exactly it even is. The Worm isn't even it's name. It's what Sparrow came to call it due to not knowing what it actually was.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Sparrow doesn't know the name of the parasitic creature that latched itself onto her and her friends, or if it even has one, so she just calls it "the Worm".
- Parasitic Horror: The Worm is a psychic parasite; it can latch itself onto the psyche of anyone who knows it exists and torments them in their dreams, feeding off their fear and other negative emotions. It can be spread from person-to-person by having someone already infected tell someone else about it.
- Sanity Slippage: Sparrow was an ordinary teenager with a happy, uneventful childhood, no known personal problems and no family history of mental illness when something happened that caused her and her friends to suffer a shared psychotic break, ultimately resulting in Sparrow’s friends dying violently and Sparrow’s institutionalisation. She appears far more rational in the present-day, besides engaging in self-harm, having trouble sleeping and barely saying a word to her therapists, so it’s a mystery as to what happened to her and her friends. She became infected by a malevolent parasitic entity, which slowly drove her insane due to preying on her worst fears.
- Self-Harm: Following her mental breakdown and institutionalisation, Sparrow often sports self-inflicted scratches on her arms.
- Sole Survivor: Sparrow is the last survivor of the Woodfield Five, the name given to a group of teenage friends from the small northern town of Woodfield who all suffered severe mental breakdowns, sometimes resulting in violent outbursts. The others all died save for Sparrow. While it's unclear what exactly happened, it’s strongly implied Sparrow was involved in their deaths, resulting in her being sent to a mental hospital (a briefly-seen newspaper article states her friends and an older man were killed in an attempted murder-suicide, with Sparrow being taken into custody). It's all but stated that the friends killed each other and/or themselves because they were infected with the Worm.
- Teens Are Monsters: Played with regarding seventeen-year-old Sparrow Moon. She'd done some terrible things that landed in her a mental institution (it's strongly implied she was involved in the deaths of her friends), but her therapist finds her to be extremely subdued and reticent; she doesn't engage much in their sessions but she doesn't rebel or lash out either, only harming herself. It's also mentioned that prior to her and friends suffering some kind of shared psychotic break, Sparrow was a happy, well-adjusted teen who wasn't in any kind of trouble. It turns out Sparrow isn't truly a bad person; her mental state deteriorated because of the Worm's influence and she's doing her best to fight it to protect others.
- Wham Line: Shortly after the doctor relays Sparrow’s explanation of how the Worm is spread – simply by telling someone else about it – he speaks directly to the viewer: "You have to believe me. I am sorry for this. Now that I’ve told you, I don’t know when, but sooner or later in your dreams the mist will come…And with the mist always comes the Worm."
- Wrench Wench: In the opening dream sequence, Sparrow is shown happily working on her car in the garage while listening to music.
