Animal House
(1978)

Rated: R
Runtime: 1 Hour and 49 Minutes

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Reviewer: Erik
Grade: A+

"National Lampoon's Animal House" is crude, rude, vulgar, distasteful and not for everyone.
Now that that's out of the way, it's also the funniest movie I've seen, with perfect comic timing, a wide assortment of funny characters and a real sense of chaos. This is a wild ride.
Hold on.

The story involves the Deltas, the worst fraternity on campus at Faber College (their motto -- "Knowledge is good"), and their usual hijinks. Despised by the dean and all the other (respectable) fraternities, they spit in the face of conformity, breaking rules by throwing toga parties or cheating on exams or belittling their pledges.

That's really all you need to know. The rest of this movie is simply comic situations, whether it be the food fight in the cafeteria, Bluto's attempt at peeping or how to deal with a vicious ROTC instructor (and his horse).

Without going into details, the Deltas foul things up, big-time. And their local draft board has been notified that they'll be available. This culminates in a hilarious speech (which shows that Bluto probably didn't attend many history classes) and a subsequent finale, where a parade is ruined and chaos rules supreme.

There's no message to this movie. It won't inspire any serious feelings, nor will it change the world. It's just serious comedy that REALLY works.

It's not a slapstick comedy, and it's not a sly comedy either. It balances somewhere in the middle, starts funny, ends funny and is funny in the middle.

This comedy smells of beer and day-old pizza and cigarette butts. It's also a soon-to-be American classic.