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Dom Robinson reviews
Universal Pictures Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 8200160
- Running time: 104 minutes
- Year: 1979
- Pressing: 2004
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 36 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras: “Where are they now?” featurette with key talent, MxPx music video “Shout”,Movie anecdotes, Theatrical trailer, “The Year Book – an Animal House reunion”
Director:
- John Landis
(An American Werewolf In London, Beverly Hills Cop 3, Blues Brothers, Blues Brothers 2000, Innocent Blood, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Oscar, Slasher, Spies Like Us, The Stupids, Trading Places, TV: Dream On)
Producers:
- Matty Simmons and Ivan Reitman
Screenplay:
- Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller
Music:
- Elmer Bernstein
Cast:
- John Blutarsky: John Belushi
Eric Stratton: Tim Matheson
Dean Vernon Wormer: John Vernon
Marion Wormer: Verna Bloom
Larry Kroger: Thomas Hulce
Dave Jennings: Donald Sutherland
Kent Dorfman: Stephen Furst
Chip Diller: Kevin Bacon
Doug Neidermeyer: Mark Metcalf
Stork: Douglas Kenney
Hardbar: Chris Miller
Katy: Karen Allen
David Schoenstein: Peter Riegert
National Lampoon’s Animal Houseis an outrageous, screwball comedy set atFaber College, a small NorthEastern campus, in 1962, following the hilariousoff-the-wall adventures of the rowdy Delta fraternity. The mayhem is centralisedaround Bluto Blutarsky – and he and the cast get up to a number of things youwouldn’t normally do such as smoking pot with your teacher, assassinating ahorse, a Toga party that they’ll never forget – and that’s not to mention theperformance of an impression of a zit being popped – and the problems ofgetting an erection while standing on a ladder peeking through the window to agirl’s dormitory…
Animal House began a whole series of films from the ‘National Lampoon’ stable,including the two ‘Vacation’ films starring Chevy Chase and BeverlyD’Angelo, although in the opinion of this reviewer it’s always the earlierfilms which have been the best.
Leader of the pack in this comedy is without a doubt, John Belushi, whoalso shone in other comedies such as The Blues Brothers andNeighbors. Those other members of the cast that stand out are JohnVernon as the embittered Dean of the school, Thomas Hulce as theone of the new guys who looks the least likely to participate in the crazymadcap happenings, Stephen Furst who suffers as the fall guy in a numberof sketches against the pranks carried out by the cooler members of thefraternity – and Donald Sutherland as the politically incorrect teacherwho has more than an eye for the ladies… 🙂
Most of the rest of the cast are people who have familiar faces, but havecertainly not had their fair share of fame since this outing, but one thatstands out is Mark Metcalf as Doug Niedermeyer, one of the egg-headsat Omega House, the first place Larry and Kent come to, who also starred in amore recent John Landis film, The Stupids, although I remember him bestas an angry teacher in the Twisted Sister promo video, “I WannaRock”. He’s one of the best people-who-shout-in-films and could be a finecontender to R. Lee Ermey‘s performance in Full Metal Jacket.
There’s no problems with the picture, which is in the original 1.85:1widescreen ratio, so definitely an improvement overthe 1998 fullscreen PAL laserdisc.The print may not look vibrant, but that’s because it’s portray college slumsfull of drunks, and has definitely had a good clean-up so looks as good asyou’d expect.
The sound has been remixed for Dolby Digital 5.1, but isn’t a massive advancementover the original mono, although it sounds a lot clearer.
The extras on this Special Edition disc are as follows:
- Where Are They Now? (23 mins):A featurette interviewing various key members of the cast, but in theircharacter guises only. Not as funny as I thought it would be. Got throughthree of these and then found it a bit boring.
- MxPx music video (4 mins):A cover of the Lulu song “Shout”, but I never particularly liked the original.
- Did You Know That? – Universal’s Anecdotes:A series of factoids which you can elect to be switched on during the movie,if you so feel inclined since there’s no audio commentary on here.
- Trailer (3 mins):It trailers the film in 16:9 letterboxed widescreen like all the previousextras.
- The Year Book – an Animal House reunion (45 mins):The documentary proper, with key cast/crew members all giving their opinions,but this was already on the DVD released two years ago (but now deleted),so if you have that already and can live without the rather pointless ‘update’then do so.
Subtitles are in English only, there are 36 chapters and the menu featuresa few clips from the film rotating until you’ve had enough of them.
This disc is less of a “Special Edition”, more of a “re-release”. Note thatthe picture above is of the Region 1 edition as I couldn’t get a decent bigpicture of the new one, but it’s not much different.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.