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Sometimes, when you want a [[Grotesque Gallery|really scary]] monster, a [[Attack of the Fifty Foot Whatever|giant insect]] just won't do. They've been done to death and look really [[Special Effects Failure|cheesy]] to boot. But you still want a bug monster - what do you do?
 
Well, you call this guy. He isn't just ''one'' bug - he's ''[[The Swarm|millions]]''! Millions of tiny creepy crawlies make up his body, as if his entire body is composed of [[Synchronized Swarming]] controlled by a [[Hive Mind]]. Sometimes it's worms, sometimes it's insects - [[EverythingsEverything's Worse With Bees|bees]] are always good - and sometimes it's just any creepy thing you can think of. Don't worry; The Worm That Walks can make them all into petrol for subconscious terrors. Could be considered the [[Blatant Lies|logical]] extreme of the [[Totem Pole Trench]]. Just don't confuse him with [[The Worm Guy]], or [[Earthworm Jim]], or [[The Phantom (Comic Strip)|The Ghost Who Walks]]. See also [[Combining Mecha]] for the mechanical counterpart of this trope.
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== [[Advertising]] ==
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Beelzebub in ''[[Six Six Six Satan|666 Satan]]''.
* ''[[Naruto]]'' has Shino Aburame and the rest of the Aburame clan, who while not made of bugs, house swarms of energy-draining beetles in their bodies since sortly after their birth - perhaps even more disturbing than simply being composed of the insects. A "[[MesMe's a Crowd|Bug Clone]]" technique also exists, in which the user creates a clone of himself out of those beetles, more true to this trope.
** {{spoiler|Orochimaru's ''true'' true form (yeah, he seems to have a lot of those) is that he's made of snakes, while being a giant snake himself. What do the snakes look like? Well, they certainly don't do anything to take away his reputation as a creepy boy watcher.}} Even before that was revealed, it was evident he was made of {{spoiler|snakes}} when he got cut in half and had them spring out of his halves to pull them together.
** Tsunade's Summon, Katsuya the Slug, could dissolve into many smaller slugs, each of which talks and behaves like the original.
* Mrs. Robinson in ''[[Jo JosJo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Steel Ball Run]]'' (a ''man'' with a [[Gender Blender Name]]), supposedly was killed by men and hung out on a cactus only to revive. Similar to Shino, he used his body to store various insects which he could control. What is ''really'' creepy is that his power didn't stem from a Stand... almost as if it was entirely fueled by some kind of horror propane.
* Arachne from ''[[Soul Eater]]'' hid herself by turning her body into 3000 spiders that spread across the world, and then hid her soul inside a giant Golem.
* In ''[[King of Thorn (Manga)|King of Thorn]]'', the Medusa manifestation of {{spoiler|Peter Stevens}}'s psyche takes on this form.
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* Played in a hilarious fashion in the Disney sequel, ''[[Halloweentown (Film)|Halloweentown: Kalabar's Revenge]]''. Sophie and Dylan realize that Alex, believed to be Carl's father, is in fact a golem created from the villain Kalabar to distract Gwen. The golem (wearing a frog costume) eats a fly Sophie conjures with her magic, breaking the illusion. An angry Gwen then blasts him with magic, turning him back into a pile of frogs.
* [[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah|Destroyah]] is a truly massive example, although as its component creatures are microbes, it appears solid to the naked eye.
* In the live-action modern version of ''[[The SorcerersSorcerer's Apprentice (Film)|The Sorcerers Apprentice]]'' (with [[Nicolas Cage]] as the sorcerer no less!), the villain, Maxim Horvath, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VZllR44gdA first appears] as a swarm of cockroaches scurrying out of a matryoshka doll and assembling themselves into a human figure, complete with clothes.
* In ''[[Fright Night]] Part II'' the undead . . . thing . . . Bozworth spends most of the film catching, identifying and then ingesting insects. When finally killed, he bursts open to reveal he's pretty much skin, skeleton, and lots of squirming little bugs.
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney)|Aladdin and the Return of Jafar]]'' has a variant, where the Genie and Abu's picnic is attacked by a swarm that spiders that pile together before turning back into Jafar. The bugs weren't his true form, however--apparently [[For the Evulz|he just wanted to freak them out]].
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== [[Literature]] ==
* The Nesk from ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' are ants that form themselves into larger bodies, as per this trope. Given that the same book includes a [[Historical in In-Joke]] about broccoli being introduced from an alien world, it's entirely possible that normal ants on planet Earth are the descendants of the alien Nesk.
** This is, in fact, [[Word of God]]. Kinda puts the fact that ants were the morph that terrified the protagonists more than any others in a new light, eh?
** Also the Valeek in the first ''Megamorphs'' book was a tornado made out of alien bugs.
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** It may be worth noting that the Scarab walkers in ''Halo 3'' are partially comprised of a whole bunch of those orange worms. The manual for ''Halo: Reach'' implies that they are not so much true vehicles as massive suits of [[Powered Armor]] for the worms.
*** Heck, in the level "The Covenant", one of the two Scarabs that drop from orbit rears up and roars.
** Once the colony grows large enough, it also splits into two seperate Hunters. Cue [[Back -to -Back Badasses]], and a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] if one of them dies within sight/hearing of the other. They're actually fairly intelligent and even without armour they were enough of a match for the Elites that the Covenant had to [[Death From Above|orbitally bombard them]] to get them to fall in line.
* The boss of the [[Nostalgia Level]] in ''[[Castlevania]]: Dawn of Sorrow'' is Bat Company, a pack of red bats that assumes various forms as one. [[Dracula]] himself is often shown moving around as a pack of bats.
** Also the reoccurring Boss Legion is a giant Sphere of Zombies covering a giant monster.
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[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:The Worm That Walks]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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