Animal House

1978
Universal City Studios
Director: John Landis
Length: 109 min.
Country: USA
Format: Video
Date Viewed: 6 April, 2006

Animal House is another example of mysteriously overrated '70s cinema. Sure the film has some funny jokes in it, and it can be appreciated for, if not inventing, than certainly popularizing and setting the trend an entire subgenre of comedy - the slobs versus the snobs picture. But when it's all boiled down, it's just another half-baked gross-out comedy that can only succeed with rather low expectations from the audience along with the eager anticipation of lots of bare breasts.

Director John Landis would be much more successful later, following up Animal House with a great one-two punch of The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. And when it comes to dumb, zany comedies, Landis didn't get better than with Spies Like Us, a great guilty pleasure and a comedy much more satisfying than Animal House.

For low-brow entertainment, you could do worse than Animal House, but you could do quite a bit better, too.