Directed by: John Landis
Starring: John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Peter Reigert, Bruce McGill, Stephen Furst, Tom Hulce, John Vernon, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Verna Bloom, Mark Metcalf, Kevin Bacon
Animal House is full of spirit, energy, and big laughs. However, it is not a free-for-all. Co-written by Harold Ramis and directed by John Landis, there are actual characters here and a controlled madness. In between the partying, beer drinking, and general anarchic behavior these guys exhibit often, they also create memorable people who live in our minds to this day. There is a method to their lunacy, directed at the other snobby fraternities and a dictatorial dean at fictional Faber college circa 1962.
Yes, the Delta House throws loud parties where "Louie, Louie" is sung in unison as the group's anthem, but when you compare their antics to those of the ROTC fraternity in which pledges are paddled in the ass, you side with the Deltas. The Delta House is forever a thorn in the side of Dean Wormer (Vernon), who takes extreme measures to kick the group off campus. In a normal movie, we would applaud the dean for doing his job. In the world of Animal House, things are skewed because we just like these guys so much.
The Deltas consist of guys like D-Day (McGill), who drives his motorcycle up the frat house stairs and plays the William Tell Overture while flicking his throat. Words don't adequately describe this. Also on board is Otter (Matheson), a ladies' man out to seduce the dean's wife, Flounder (Furst), a guy to whom Wormer advises, "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life," and Boon (Reigert), who makes no bones about his desire to get drunk every night as a rule. Then, we have Bluto (Belushi), who guzzles a fifth of whiskey and says, "Thanks, I needed that" and inspires the gang to throw a toga party. Oh, and he can wolf down an entire hamburger in one fell swoop without chewing. It is quite a talent. He has others too.
Animal House doesn't rest on its laurels. It builds on itself with a road trip in which the guys find themselves in an unfriendly all-black nightclub, a disciplinary hearing in which Boon and Otter try to act like civilized attorneys, a Delta pledge deciding whether to bang a passed-out girl with an angel and devil materializing on his shoulders to give advice, a fabulously failed mid-term exam, and a horse who dies as the result of a gunshot, but not in the way you would expect. Is this in borderline bad taste? Yes. Is it funny? Absolutely. Great comedies know how to take difficult material and somehow make us laugh despite ourselves. You hear about a horse dying and you would be appalled, but if you see the events leading up to it, they make a certain amount of sense and the payoff is even funnier.
The Deltas do not back down when facing expulsion and hatch a scheme to win back their place at school by invading the annual town parade. Only they can cause the mayhem that ensues and dare ask the dean for one more chance. Wormer looks at the camera tired and defeated, saying, "I hate those guys," as if resigned to the fact that he just can't get rid of them. The villains here operate under a façade of civility and decency, but they are basically just pricks we are happy to see get their comeuppance.
Animal House takes place before Kennedy's assassination and the Vietnam War. The world had not yet been engulfed in the controversies and struggles which would define the decade. The Deltas are fighting their own personal war against Faber College and against growing up. It was ingenious to set the film in this period before everything went to hell. There is a certain innocence about the Deltas fighting for their right to party just before the terrible events occur that would change the world forever. Which is not to say that the movie ignores them. Before the end credits roll, we get "where are they now" updates on some of the key participants. One of the villains becomes a Nixon staffer involved in Watergate and soon after raped in prison. The other, the leader of the ROTC, is shot and killed in Vietnam...."by his own troops." Are we the least bit surprised?
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