Movie Review: How To Eat Fried Worms
As part of a summer movie selection featuring all things that slither, live underground and otherwise make us go, “Eww,” is the Austin-filmed How To Eat Fried Worms, based on Thomas Rockwell’s timeless children’s book.
Starring Austin, Texas, the production attempted to slip in and out of town last summer, but the L.A.-based group had no idea what they were in for when they put out a call for extras. Hoping for a few hundred fresh faces, an estimated 2000 hopeful kids and their eager parents showed up at the Riverside Holiday Inn, necessitating local law enforcement to keep things in check.
The out-of-town movie people underestimated the extras casting, but had deliberately scouted Austin as a backdrop and loved what they found. At the Austin Film Society sponsored screening last Sunday, director Bob Dolman said he chose our river city because they needed a location that looked rife with earthworms. The lush green of Austin, won out over semi-arid L.A.
The Austin Diner, Town Lake, Zilker Elementary, Wimberley’s Blue Hole -- and the Austin Studios rounding out interiors -- make Worms a showcase of what our town has to offer as Everytown, U.S.A..
Dolman, who penned the screenplay for the classic Willow, tackled the adaptation from a seasoned perspective. The core of the story remains intact with not four boys, but a troupe of many, including a smart and capable female character. “When I was writing, I thought of Erika as a bird, and the boys as the worms.”
In the movie, the stakes are considerably higher, as our hero, Billy is required to eat 10 worms in a single day, taking the kids on an excursion that includes outrunning the cops, outsmarting adults and breaking and entering the riverside shack of a bait-selling witch.
Dolman assured us that no worms were harmed, scalded, boiled, blown up or even fried in the making of the movie, with the earthworm “stand-ins” made of everything from gelatin to portabello mushrooms. The expected, even sought after, ick factor is in place with the preparation of worms and their consumption, but the laughs were big for the characters dreamed up by Dolman and the seasoned child actors who portrayed them.
Cast in both L.A. and Austin, familiar faces from television shows -- Weeds, Malcom in the Middle, Freaks and Geeks, Gilmore Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Bernie Mac Show -- and recent movies -- Finding Nemo, The Insider, The United States of Leland, Johnson Family Vacation, Because of Winn-Dixie are in abundance in the cast with the Mercutio effect running rampant. (Look for a pint-sized Robert Downey Jr. look-a-like who has the voice of a favorite cartoon fish.)
Texas talent is represented by Andrew Gillingham of Houston as “Techno Mouth,” and Nick Krause of Georgetown as “Nigel,” as well as the lucky few chosen as extras.
