Apr 29, 2010

Overrated films part 24

Sometimes you find yourself watching a film that's considered a classic from ages ago and you're left with an overwhelming sense of meh. Such was an incident that happened last night.

Kelly and I decided to finally watch 'Animal House'. Neither of us had seen it, although I felt a little guilty not doing so as it's often regarded as a comedy classic. I've often heard about it being the original gross out comedy, that it spawned the genre of college films from 'Revenge of the Nerds' to 'PCU'.

I threw in the DVD hopeful for a load of laughs. The opening credits rolled and I saw a list of top comedy talent. With a cast and crew of this caliber how can we go wrong?

Easily.

As I've stated before it's ridiculous to argue what's funny or not, but even the dullest of comedies I can understand their appeal. I can see why a four year old would laugh at Nickelodeon shows even though I'm not their target demographic. Even at some level I can get why people laugh at Tyler Perry's awful humor, but I was left scratching my head wondering why anyone laughs at Animal House. I couldn't find a joke to even give a brief chuckle. I wasn't alone in my feelings.

Maybe if I saw it while I was younger and I wanted to wax nostalgic I probably would've enjoyed it more. It's possible that if I were in my teens when the film was first released, before lazy writers borrowed liberally from the National Lampoons staff, I may have laughed. Still I couldn't muster a smirk when watching this film so it's hard for me to say this classic can stand the test of time.

I like a lot of old comedies, from 'Sixteen Candles' to 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World', and I was hoping Animal House would fall into that category of films that will never stop being funny.

"I never liked this. I never will. My apologies to all its diehard fans." - Alex Sandell

6 comments:

JLee said...

I know what you mean! I saw this on tv one day and thought it was so dumb...

wigsf said...

No, this movie was hilarious. Stop pretending to not like it just because your better half doesn't like it.

Mattbear said...

I think it's more of a time/generation thing. It was aimed at people just a little older than us, who generally had a little different sense of humor. Most of my friends who love this movie are 40+.

Miss Ash said...

I think movies like this are more funny to us as adults if you've seen them as a child...I've never seen Animal House but I adore 16 Candles!

Princess Pessimism said...

id NEVER compare Animal House to PCU....PCU was way better...

Claire said...

I was always "meh" on that movie.

Cxx