How to Eat Fried Worms

Luke Benward
Hallie Kate Eisenberg
Thomas Cavanagh
Kimberly Williams
Clint Howard
Directed by: Bob Dolman

Loosely based on the best selling children’s novel by Thomas Rockwell, How to Eat Fried Worms is the story of a boy that moves to a new town. As the new boy he is tormented by the local bully and decides to stand up for himself. He makes a bet with the bully that he can eat 10 worms in a day. The loser has to make a fool of himself in class the next day.

The screenwriters of this film took a few liberties in putting together a screenplay based on a book most of us have read as a child. While the changes make the film a little angrier than the book, How to Eat Fried Worms does keep with the gross out humor that made the book such a fun read. This film is definitely geared towards boys between 8 and 15. The presence of only one girl in the film (Hallie Kate Eisengberg, who is a standout in a film of very adolescent acting) and the overabundance of pre-teenage boys running around acting like pre-teenage boys will probably turn off girls of the same age. This film has a very limited audience but that audience will totally enjoy this movie. As an adult, if you enjoy juvenile gross out humor and want to share that experience with your children, this is the movie for you. Plus, you don’t have to feel too guilty about it.

There is a nice moral to the story along with a happy ending. Even if all you walk away with is the vision of a group of boys feeding worms covered in lard to another little boy.

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