Plot
Billy Forrester has a weak stomach and vomits easily. He and his parents, Mitch, Helen, and his little brother, Woody, have just moved to a new town. Billy tells his mother he doesn't want to go to school because he will be "the new kid". She assures him he will make friends and everything will be okay.
Billy becomes the target of the school bully, Joe Guire, his two "toaders" Plug and Bradley, and the rest of his gang: Benjy, Techno-Mouth, Twitch, and Donny. Plug and Bradley steal Billy's lunch box. Billy sits behind Erika "Erk" Tansy, an unusually tall girl whom people make fun of.
At lunch, Billy opens his thermos and pours out a pile of live earthworms. Sickened, he almost vomits. Joe asks Billy if he eats worms. Billy says "I eat them all the time", then throws a worm at Joe's face. A nerd named Adam Simms was sure that Joe was going to punch Billy with "The Death Ring"; it is rumored that whoever Joe punches with the ring dies in 8th grade.
Joe, Plug, and Benjy catch up with Billy as he heads home. Joe proposes a bet: Billy will eat ten worms on the coming Saturday without throwing up, or he will have to walk around the school with worms in his pants. Billy knows that he cannot back out of the bet, so he accepts.
The next day, Billy is teamed up with Adam. While the boys cook the first worm "Le Big Porker" in the park they are chased by a park ranger for using a grill without adult supervision. Adam then takes them to his uncle Ed's restaurant The Brown Toad, and cooks up the second worm in an omelet. However, his uncle takes the omelet and gives it to their principal who then eats it. Adam then has to cook the second and third worms again, dubbing the creation "The Greasy Brown Toad Bloater Special," (where he dunks the worms in the fryer and smears liver juice on them). When Ed discovers the worms, he kicks the boys out of his restaurant. After Billy eats the fourth worm, "The Burning Fireball," and burns his mouth, Twitch and Techno-Mouth quit Joe's team and become his new best friends. Billy, Techno-Mouth, Twitch, and Adam then go to a convenience store. They find Adam playing Dance Dance Revolution , and one of the boys spills his drink, causing the machine to blow up and they get kicked out. At the playground, Billy eats the next three worms, "Magni-Fried," "Barf mal lo," and "Peanut Butter and Worm Jam Sandwich."
After dinner, the boys go to a bait shop, where Billy eats the next two worms, "The Green Slusher" and "Radioactive Slime Delight," (where Donny puts the worm in the microwave) while the owner is out, but her unexpected return leads to her briefly chasing them for breaking into her bait shop. Erk is able to use her archery skills to get the final worm needed to Billy. After Joe cheats in an attempt to keep Billy from eating the last worm, "Worm A La Mud," by throwing into a brook, all of his gang turns on him and encourage Billy to go after it. He manages to do so and eats it before the deadline. Nigel Guire, Joe's brother, tries to bully and humiliate Joe; but Billy and the rest of the gang stand up for him, telling Nigel to leave him alone, and he leaves.
After thinking it over that night, Billy returns to school. He explains to Joe that the second worm was eaten by their principal, Burdock, when Adam accidentally put it in his omelet at the Brown Toad. They come to the conclusion neither of them technically won so they both put a bunch of worms down their pants and walk through the hallway. They are then interrupted by Burdock, who nearly catches them when a worm falls out of Billy's pants, which Joe covers up with his shoe. After Burdock returns to his office, the kids all run outside and celebrate as Billy and Joe both take the worms out of their pants and throw them into the air.
Differences from the book
Though the film and the book share the concept about a bet between boys to eat earthworms, the nature of the situation differs significantly. In the book, the characters consist of four boys who are friends hanging around during the summertime. Billy has to eat fifteen worms in fifteen days, and the terms of the bet are fifty dollars, which he intends to use to buy a dirt bike.
Many of the film's subplots, that he is new in school, that Joe is a bully, that Billy has a weak stomach, and that Joe threatens him with a Death Ring, do not appear in the book. Unlike in the film, his parents eventually find out about the bet, which he ultimately wins instead of tying. All the worms he eats in the book are nightcrawlers, and Erika, the girl who helps him in the film, is not introduced until the book's sequel, How to Fight a Girl.
Reception
Box office
The film debuted at #11, with $4,003,537 in the United States and Canada. It closed seven weeks later, with a total of $13,040,527 domestically, and $55,787 overseas, for a worldwide total of $13,096,314. [1]
Critical reception
The film mostly received mixed-to-positive reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 61% of 76 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "This Fear Factor for kids is good-natured and tasty enough." [7] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [8]
The Filthy Critic gave the film four out of five "fingers" for its realistic portrayal of how children act. ReelViews' James Berardinelli gave a mildly positive review (21⁄2 stars out of 4) but thought the potential audience too narrow: "It's aimed at pre-teen males and doesn't make many concessions to members of other demographics." He went on to say: How to Eat Fried Worms belongs to a vanishing breed – live action family films. Even the best of the genre (like Holes and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants ) don't draw large audiences, so mediocre productions like this one face an uphill struggle. [9] The Boston Globe 's reviewer – Ty Burr – gave it a 2 stars out of 4 and said when comparing the book to the film: There's a kid named Billy, and he eats worms on a dare, and that's about all the movie has in common with its source. Truth to tell, that's all the movie needs to have in common with its source. "This is really disgusting," my 9-year-old's friend whispered to her during the screening. Then he added, "But I like it."
From a parent's viewpoint, two feet higher off the ground, How to Eat Fried Worms is lackadaisical stuff, easily the least of the unpretentious children's book adaptations produced by family-oriented Walden Media ( Because of Winn-Dixie , Hoot , Holes). [10]
