How To Eat Fried Worms (2006)

Joe Guire is an asshole. So is his older brother. Neither deserves any sympathy for how they treat other kids.

And yet, one is seen as the bigger villain and, in the end, the only villain. From where I sit, they are mirror images of each other. If they swapped bodies, nothing would change. And no one would even notice the difference.

Joe is the ginger you don’t want to fuck with. The second he lays his beady eyes on you, he already knows how he’s going to torment you. This miserable little shit even wears a “death ring” for extra heel heat. One slug to the gut and you eventually die because the poison the death ring supposedly contains takes a while to work its way into your system. It’s obviously bullshit but you only have two choices: snatch the ring and examine it for yourself or wait until you reach the eighth grade to find out for sure. And it’s easier to wait in fear then get your ass beat.

Silly ring gimmick aside, I knew kids like Joe. They were relentless bullies until an adult would intervene and they would finally back off. One would take pleasure in throwing my hat over a neighbour’s fence that was so high you wouldn’t be able to climb and retrieve it. (He later tried making headphones out of plasticine but they stuck to his ears and wouldn’t come off. Karma can be wonderful.) Another would fill my toque with snow and put it right back on my head. (He had teeth like a beaver and looked like a stereotype.) It has been decades since I suffered from their cruel antics and I hope never to see them again.

Young Billy feels the same way about Joe. He’s the new kid in school and absolutely hates it. Leaving his friends behind because his dad is starting a new job in a new town, from the moment he arrives he is instantly targeted. It does not help that the humourless principal palms the top of his head while introducing him to his new classmates.

During his first lunch break, Billy discovers his thermos has been sabotaged. Expecting to pour out a drink, out come a pile of worms instead. The fiendish Joe is firmly in control or so he thinks. Billy, a dedicated soccer player, does something no one has ever done before. He fights back. He pretends he likes eating the creepy crawlies and then throws one right at Joe’s stupid face. He should’ve thrown the whole lot.

This, of course, does not solve the problem (but it does get him over as a babyface to the whole school). Joe doesn’t take kindly to those who fight back. It only encourages him more. And thanks to his equally bullied co-conspirators (one of whom looks like a young Robert Smith with his unusually spiky haircut), Billy is seemingly on his own. But after his first encounter with Joe, he is befriended by the very tall Erika and shortly thereafter, a dancing fool named Adam. Both will remain loyal, although Billy probably doesn’t deserve Erika’s support the way he treats her sometimes.

Things come to a head when a bike chase leads to a breaking point. Tired of all this bullshit already, Billy makes a terrible bet with Joe. He has to eat 10 worms by 7 p.m. on Saturday, their first day off. The loser has to shove worms down their pants while walking through their school hallway on Monday.

With a title like How To Eat Fried Worms, there’s no room for subtlety or nuance, nor should any be expected. You can’t say you’ve haven’t been warned about the gruesomeness you’re about to subject yourself to.

But since this film deviates so much from its original source material I was very surprised by how triggered I was and how depressing it is to see so much unnecessary, unjustified cruelty in a kids movie. There is nothing funny about any of this.

Erika is repeatedly mocked for her height and her name. ”Erk! Erk! Erk!” Joe and his kowtowed cronies constantly chirp at her. I’m pretty sure they would stop altogether if she brought her bow and arrow to school and threatened to use it. (Billy spots her expertly practicing her archery in her backyard.) Because of what happens during that pivotal lunch period, Billy is forever referred to as “Wormboy.” Even the dopey principal is given a demeaning nickname - Boiler Head – which doesn’t even make sense. ”Pencil-necked geek” would be more accurate.

It’s not just the names themselves that aggravate me so (although they’re obviously not the worst thing you can be called; this is a PG movie, after all), it’s the intention. It’s always the intention. The constant degradation and dehumanizing of these characters makes for an unpleasant viewing experience. You’re not laughing, you’re cringing and getting angrier. Like Billy, you just want it all to stop.

And then there’s the sheer absurdity of the bet itself. Billy, it is established right from the start, has an unusually sensitive stomach. Whether it’s watching his annoying little brother drool or eat disgusting food that somehow remains mostly on his face, following the spin cycle a little too closely while their MILF of a mom does laundry or simply riding in a car, it does not take much for him to hurl.

So how are we to accept the very idea of him eating and swallowing worms without provoking a similar episode? I mean he doesn’t even dry heave! And he’s not eating them raw, remember. The worms are cooked and deliberately covered & mixed in increasingly unappetizing muck to the point where if this was Sal Vulcano being punished on Impractical Jokers, he would quit the show.

By the end, Billy comes up a little bit short because of an unforeseen problem. Feeling guilty for not winning legitimately, he predictably comes up with a compromise solution. All of this only happening because he and the others who have slowly but eventually switched sides see how Nigel mistreats Joe. Sorry, but this little bastard is “a joke”. I certainly wouldn’t be standing up for him. I’d be throwing him in the lake.

Realizing he’s been checkmated by a determined foe while obviously appreciative for the belated support, an embarrassed Joe instantly softens and the bullying stops. And we end with two people humiliating themselves for the sake of fairness before everyone enjoys a collective dance break, only briefly interrupted by the aforementioned scold in charge. Come on. What world are we living in here?

Depriving us of the joy of a true prick getting his comeuppance is the last straw for me. It doesn’t even have to be violent retribution, nor even truly vengeful. It just needs to be satisfying, an exclamation point that more convincingly ends the hostilities. Bullies are a scourge and a cancer and should never be celebrated. And they sure as hell are not your future friends unless they genuinely become better people and stay that way. I don’t remember Joe saying, “I’m sorry,” or even begging for forgiveness.

The message of How To Eat Fried Worms is a cold one irresponsibly masquerading as heartwarming reconciliation. Billy has to literally torture himself just to stop his own torture and make these dimwitted goons his friends. It hardly seems worth it.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, January 29, 2024
11:01 p.m.