Review: Animal House (1978)

I’ve been to college, it was never like this, ever, at any point!

Written By: Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller & Harold Ramis
Directed By: John Landis

I grew up on raunchy and randy comedies, they were a major staple of my youth. I think I will surprise quite a few people then when I tell you that Animal House is actually quite tame, very stupid, and not incredibly funny. It is a classic example of a movie hyped to the point where it’s no longer reasonable to have low expectations going into your first viewing. It’s not the all-time classic comedy that was sold to me, nor is it any sort of age defining movie for the college student.

That’s not to say that Animal House was a bad movie, because it wasn’t. It was funny and it featured some very likable characters as well as unlikeable characters with a lot of likability. The college setting is a good place for the sort of gags and broad comedy that Animal House wanted to pull off. For the most part it worked and I did find myself laughing more often than not. The movie also moved at a very quick pace, never really allowing you to think about how preposterous the situations were or how completely unbelievable most of the characters were.

Comedy is indeed very subjective and I know plenty of people who do consider Animal House one of the greatest comedies ever made. I don’t happen to be one of those people and as much as said people will disagree with me, if anything I find Animal House to be a lesser Old School. The same gags, the same preposterous storyline, but one was consistently funny while the other wasn’t. I’m just as sure that somewhere else some other writer will write the exact opposite when reviewing Old School, declaring it to be an inferior version of Animal House. But, like I’ve said numerous times, comedy is subjective, so I’m okay with that. And in my humble, and not worth that much, opinion Animal House is a fun movie that will make you laugh from time to time but it’s certainly not anything worth going out of your way to see.

Rating:

***

Cheers,
Bill Thompson