National Lampoons Animal House

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE COLLECTOR’S EDITION
Universal Pictures Video
DVD Release Date: 26th January 2004

"My advice to you... Is to start drinking heavily"

Way before National Lampoon films just spoofed other movies, before the Griswalds, at the very beginning, there was Animal House. First shown in 1978 Animal House has been re-released on DVD and is still the funniest college movie ever made. It has aged well and is hard to beat if you are looking for a very very good comedy that you will want to watch with your mates repeatedly until you are quoting all the best lines much to everyone else’s annoyance.

As with modern college comedies in Animal House you find characters that you went to college/university/high-school with. We all know the smooth ladies guy, the dork, and the mad as a brush funny guy, hell maybe one of them is/was you.

The story concentrates on two college fraternity houses, one with an exemplary academic and sporting record - The Omega’s, the other with an unsurpassed reputation for partying, debauchery and flunking - The Deltas. The Dean of the college wants the Deltas out (he puts them on ‘double secret probation’) and the Omega’s are only too happy to help them on their way. The story is simple but it is fun watching the Deltas combust and then reap their revenge!!

TOGA!! TOGA!! TOGA!!

Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson) is the smooth talking stifler type character, Donald "Boon" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert) has some lines worthy of Groucho Marx and the films star John Belushi, playing Bluto, is irrepressible, totally mad and hilarious. At one point you see him down an entire bottle of Jack Daniels and you find yourself thinking, 'Did he really do that or was it just brown liquid?' the chances are he really did do it, the guy was THE Party Animal on and off screen.

A young Kevin Bacon is an 'asshole' sports jock (I never did like him much after seeing Sleepers...), and there are some other actors in it that you will recognise from stuff today. At the time the actors were pretty much all unknowns apart from Donald Sutherland whose presence in the cast list actually got the then fairly controversial project signed off by the studio producers.

Some of the behind the scenes stories are worth listening to as well. The film was filmed at Oregon university and the cast got in a fight with one of the real frat houses on campus during a pre-filming party. The footage of Belushi off camera is fun to watch too, and I think it is a credit to the producers of this release that they don't dwell on his premature death, instead choosing to highlight his talent.

At the end of the movie the credits tell us what the fictional characters went on to do, (Belushi became the president - If only...) The DVD includes newly filmed interviews with those characters, carrying out those professions today. Some of these are a bit dull but it is worth watching just to see John Vernon, the Ex Dean Wormer of college, sat with his nurse, as disturbed as ever by the antics of the Delta fraternity that caused chaos on his campus.

If you like Road trip and American pie and all those other college comedies take a look at this as it is the prime influence on all of them and is still funnier - highly recommended.

Jamie O'Connell