Animal House

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE (Blu-ray)
Universal Pictures

Release date: July 25th, 2011
Certificate (UK): 15
Running time: 104 minutes

year of production: 1978

Director: John Landis
Producers: Matty Simmons, Ivan Reitman
Writers: Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller

Cast: John Belushi, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Tom Hulce, Donald Sutherland, Verna Bloom, Stephen Furst, Peter Riegert, Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon, Otis Day and the Knights

They say your college years are the best years of your life and to a certain extent that’s definitely true. While I was there I enjoyed my lectures, researching for essays and my endless hours at the library, but then I guess I was something of a nerd.

While busy with all this studiousness, it appears I missed out on the practical parts of being an actual student, such as the pranks, food fights, parties and 24 hour binge drinking sessions that Animal House so proudly showcases.

Directed by John Landis and set in 1962, it’s about a group of students at Faber College whose hi-jinks culminate in a near riot during the homecoming parade. It all starts when two well meaning freshmen, Larry Kroger (Thomas Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst), try to join the prestigious Omega Theta Pi fraternity but their nerdishness renders them unwelcome almost immediately.

They then find the crumbling and decrepit fraternity house next door is a little more inviting since they’ve significantly lowered their criteria for new pledges.

The Delta Tau Chi House will take anyone who’s willing to put up with them. Headed by Otter (Tim Matheson) and Boom (Peter Riegert), and together with the oafish Bluto (John Belushi) who’ll eat or urinate on just about anything in sight, the new recruits end up on the wrong side of Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), the Dean of Faber College who’s already got the entire fraternity on probation.

As the Dean is desperate to kick the Deltas out of Faber, he gets Omega president Gregg Marmalard (James Daughton) to make sure they continue to mess up at every given opportunity and puts them on “Double Secret Probation”. For the Deltas, messing up is their middle name!

From the bullying cadet commander Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), to the Dean’s randy alcoholic wife, Marion (Verna Bloom), and Boon’s girlfriend Katy (Karen Allen), Animal House assembles a potent mix of characters that makes for one hell of a party, complete with Otis Day and the Knights and their amazing show-stopping rendition of “Shout”. Donald Sutherland does a great turn as Dave Jennings, a professor who’s having an affair with one of the students and enjoys smoking pot during his free time and there’s an appearance by a very fresh-faced Kevin Bacon.

While I might have missed out on such activities during my time as a student, I can’t say I regret it. Watching Animal House is probably a great way to live vicariously through those reckless characters without having to wake up from a coma with a hangover from Hell. As their futures are revealed at the end, some are surprising, some aren’t, but who could guess what Bluto would grow up to be?!

Patrick Samuel

The founder of Static Mass Emporium and one of its Editors in Chief is an emerging artist with a philosophy degree, working primarily with pastels and graphite pencils, but he also enjoys experimenting with water colours, acrylics, glass and oil paints.

Being on the autistic spectrum with Asperger’s Syndrome, he is stimulated by bold, contrasting colours, intricate details, multiple textures, and varying shades of light and dark. Patrick's work extends to sound and video, and when not drawing or painting, he can be found working on projects he shares online with his followers.

Patrick returned to drawing and painting after a prolonged break in December 2016 as part of his daily art therapy, and is now making the transition to being a full-time artist. As a spokesperson for autism awareness, he also gives talks and presentations on the benefits of creative therapy.

Static Mass is where he lives his passion for film and writing about it. A fan of film classics, documentaries and science fiction, Patrick prefers films with an impeccable way of storytelling that reflect on the human condition.

Patrick Samuel ¦ Asperger Artist

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