{"id":46618,"date":"2020-02-27T10:35:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T17:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=46618"},"modified":"2024-04-18T00:53:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T07:53:26","slug":"national-lampoons-animal-house-animal-house-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=46618","title":{"rendered":"National Lampoon\u2019s Animal House \/ Animal  House (1978)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;If the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn&#8217;t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Poster-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-46619\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Poster-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Poster-85x128.jpg 85w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Poster.jpg 666w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nDuring pledge week in 1962, two young college students (Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst) find themselves joining a raucous fraternity &#8212; whose members include a &#8220;smooth-talking, skirt-chasing president&#8221; (Tim Matheson), a student (Peter Riegert) whose girlfriend (Karen Allen) tries to convince him to &#8220;settle down&#8221;, and two &#8220;resident wild men&#8221; (John Belushi and Bruce McGill) &#8212; which the strait-laced dean (John Vernon) is determined to shut down.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>College<\/li>\n<li>Comedy<\/li>\n<li>Donald Sutherland Films<\/li>\n<li>John Belushi Films<\/li>\n<li>Karen Allen Films<\/li>\n<li>Misfits<\/li>\n<li>Verna Bloom Films<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response to Peary\u2019s Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nPeary writes that this &#8220;influential&#8221;, &#8220;raucous, raunchy film that became the highest-grossing comedy of all time&#8221; &#8212; directed by John Landis &#8212; &#8220;still inspires films that can&#8217;t compare to it&#8221;. He notes that there &#8220;is a lot of destruction&#8221; as &#8220;the fraternity fights back&#8221; against Dean Wormer&#8217;s (Vernon&#8217;s) attempts to &#8220;close down Delta House and expel all the members&#8221;, and points out that this &#8220;uninhibited film is often hilarious; like his characters, director Landis exhibits inspired lunacy&#8221;. Meanwhile, &#8220;the characters are so likable that we aren&#8217;t turned off when Belushi peeps into sorority girls&#8217; windows while they undress (he gives <em>us<\/em> a great devilish smile); when Belushi, McGill, and Furst are responsible for the death of a horse in Vernon&#8217;s office; when Belushi spits food all over obnoxious students; &#8230; or when Matheson manipulates a girl to make love to him by pretending he is the grieving former boyfriend of her recently deceased roommate.&#8221; While Peary argues that the &#8220;finale is too wild, and hackneyed&#8221;, he writes that &#8220;before this there are numerous funny moments and scenes&#8221; &#8212; though he points out it&#8217;s &#8220;not for all tastes&#8221;. Most distressing are the scenes positing non-whites as perennial outsiders, and\/or &#8212; in the case of a visit to a black music joint &#8212; menacing threats; but I suppose it could be argued that this simply highlights the white characters&#8217; inanity, paranoia, and unfounded prejudices. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong> Watch for Donald Sutherland in a small role as a hip, grass-smoking professor, and Kevin Bacon in his debut role as new pledge &#8220;Chip Diller&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John Belushi as Bluto<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi-1024x555.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"347\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-46621\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi-1024x555.png 1024w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi-300x163.png 300w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi-128x69.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi-768x416.png 768w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi-1536x832.png 1536w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Belushi.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon-1024x555.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"347\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-46620\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon-1024x555.png 1024w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon-300x163.png 300w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon-128x69.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon-768x416.png 768w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon-1536x832.png 1536w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Animal-House-Vernon.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nYes, as a cult classic. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Categories<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?page_id=1784#cult\">Cult Movie<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0077975\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tcm.com\/this-month\/article\/78388%7C0\/National-Lampoon-s-Animal-House.html\">TCM Article<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespinningimage.co.uk\/cultfilms\/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=4234&#038;aff=13\">Spinning Image Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1978\/07\/28\/archives\/screen-animal-housedaffy-deltas.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;If the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn&#8217;t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general?&#8221; Synopsis: During pledge week in 1962, two young college students (Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst) find themselves joining a raucous fraternity &#8212; whose members include a &#8220;smooth-talking, skirt-chasing president&#8221; (Tim Matheson), a student (Peter Riegert) whose girlfriend (Karen Allen) tries to convince him to &#8220;settle down&#8221;, and two &#8220;resident wild men&#8221; (John Belushi and Bruce McGill) &#8212; which the strait-laced dean (John&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=46618\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-responses-to-peary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46618"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95836,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46618\/revisions\/95836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}