National Lampoon's Animal House

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests—we did.But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but I for one am not going to stand here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!
      --------- Eric "Otter" Stratton

One of the films that I find the most fun, National Lampoon's "Animal House" provides the funniest, smartest, dumbest, most obnoxious characters you will ever see on film. I can honestly say one of my favourite comedies of all time, it  was directed by John Landis who also directed the classic "Thriller" video by Michael Jackson. 

The story starts when 2 freshmen Larry Kroger (Thomas Hulce) and Kent "Flounder" Dorfman (Stephen Furst) from Faber college unsuccessfully joins the prestigious Omega Theta Pi House. Rejected but not out of hope they immediately get accepted by the Delta Tau Chi House that was next door to the Omega's.

The Delta's are led by their rush chairman Eric "Otter" Stratton, the unofficial leader and probably the most sophisticated of all the Delta's (when it comes to women), Donald "Boon" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert) is Otter's best friend who continually has problems choosing between the Delta's and his girlfriend Katy (Karen Allen). Robert Hoover (James Widdoes) is the Delta's clean cut president who tries to maintain a sense of normalcy between his Fraternity and the Dean Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), Simpson D Day (Bruce McGill) the biker who really doesn't look like a student and John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) the loose cannon of the group who is in his 7th year at Faber.

The Delta's are probably one of the most unruly and original band of misfits ever seen on film, they don't care about the rules and they try to get into every trouble they can. One notable example is when D Day and Bluto tries to teach Flounder a few Delta tricks when they try to sneak a horse that is owned by ROTC cadet officer  and Omega member Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf) to the Dean's office.

They give Flounder an empty gun and tells him to shoot the horse to get even, but instead of frightening Flounder the horse dies of a heart attack because of the noise made by the gun which was one of the funniest scenes on the film. This is the movie that defined Belushi's persona as the wild party animal that he is known today, the role was perfect for him since he didn't have much lines and it gave him a perfect vehicle to let his inner wildman loose. Another of my favourite scenes is the date that Otter and the Delta's make with the girls that they meets on their way to meet Otter's would be sweetheart Fern who actually passed away in a lab accident. They were able to persuade the girls to a date and enters an all african american bar but they run off in haste when 2 men asked to dance with their dates.

But the character that featured the most was Bluto, the loose cannon that is put into unusual situations because of his rebellious streak, like the ladder scene where he peeps into naked sorority girls touching each other or leading the dance at the infamous "Toga party", but the most memorable for me has to be the "zit" gag in the canteen that he starts that ended up in a "food fight" when he provokes Omega president Marmalard (James Daughton) and their newest pledge Chip Diller (Kevin Bacon).

This film is also memorable for the actors that co starred in film who were already successful particulary Donald Sutherland who briefly appeared on the film playing the stoner Professor Dave Jennings and other actors who went on to have succesfull careers like the young and beautiful pre Indiana Jones star Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon, Thomas Hulce and of course Tim Matheson who played the charismatic ladies man Otter my favourite character on the film who also provided probably one of the most idiotic speeches I have heard in my life.

It should come to no surprise then that a lot of people thought the movie was too tastless and tacky for a mature audience, but years later it is now often referred as a classic film that helped spawn the gross out movie genre most notably films like "American Pie" and "Jackass". This film is certainly worth seeing. 

Grade: A-