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