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Features: DVD, Widescreen
One of the most popular movie comedies of all time is also the film that made John Belushi a star. This raunchy, screwball comedy directed with madcap zest by John Landis offers a relentless spoof of 1960's college life by following the hilarious adventures of the Delta fraternity. In addition to Belushi as "Bluto" Blutarsky, the outstanding cast includes Tim Matheson, Tom Hulce, Stephen "Flounder" Furst, Karen Allen, Donald Sutherland, Peter Riegert, and Kevin Bacon, along with Otis Day and the Knights with their showstopping performance of "Shout."
"Classic Belushi vehicle..." VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever
"Obscene, absurd and hilarious, Animal House is a genre classic." Channel 4 Film
"Arguably the most influential comedy of our time." Colin Kennedy, Empire
"...Belushi made the most of his film debut, giving a truly funny performance, in this raucous, sophomoric comedy..." Find-A-Video
"Almost everyone else has at least one funny scene to equal Belushi's greatest moments." Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
"One of the all-time classic movies, and a career-defining performance by Belushi make this mandatory viewing for any movie lover." Larry Carroll, CountingDown.com
"...never settles for just funny. It always strives for double-secret funny." Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star
"...the first of those crazy-college-antics films and remains, in most ways, the best." TV Guide
Editor's Note
ANIMAL HOUSE is the film that launched National Lampoon as a comedy powerhouse. Developed by the editors at the Harvard Lampoon, the film is a collection of true-life experiences and memories with a great deal of embellishment. Nothing is sacred in this film, in which every gesture, phrase, and song became de rigueur in fraternity houses nationwide after its release. Decadence, debauchery, and delinquency prevail at Delta House, the scourge of the fraternity system at Faber College in 1962. In an effort to rid himself of the troublesome brothers, Dean Wormer (John Vernon) hatches a plan in cahoots with the brown-nosing Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) of rival fraternity Omega to have the Deltas kicked off campus. Unfortunately for them, the determination and drive of the Deltas is more than anyone counted on. In their last stand against the uptight dean, the antiheroes of Delta drink, smoke, romp, frolic, and dance--going out with a bang. This outrageous, much-loved comedy classic features the first major film role of the late, great John Belushi as John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the hard-partying, beer-guzzling champion of Delta house.
Plot Summary
In National Lampoon's first film, a parody of 1962 college life, it's campus hijinks galore as the rowdiest fraternity at Faber College battles rival fraternities and administrators, chases women, and throws toga parties. Chief animal John "Bluto" Butarsky (John Belushi) leads the fraternity in wacky hijinks and raunchy debauchery as they take on the establishment of the college. This extremely popular college comedy became an instant classic, quickly beoming one of the most oft-quoted films ever made.
| Features | Subtitles: French, Spanish | | Did You Know That? Universal Animated Anecdotes | | The Yearbook: An Animal House Reunion | | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Mono | | Scene Selection | | Where Are They Now? A Delta Alumni Update -- A Hilarious All-New Mockumentary Featuring The Original Cast | | MxPx "Shout" Music Video | | Cast & Crew Bios | | DVD-Rom Features | | Recommendations | | Interactive Menus | | Production Notes | | Theatrical Trailer |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Universal |
| Release Date: 5/5/2009 |
| Running Time: 109 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1978 | | Catalog ID: 21550 | | UPC: 00025192155024 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English | | Available Subtitles: French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
People's Choice (1979) |  | National Lampoon's Animal House, Winner, Favorite Non-Musical Motion Picture |
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| | Professional Reviews | Variety
"...There's enough bite and bawdiness in the Matty Simmon-Ivan Reitman production to provide lots of smile and several broad guffaws..." 06/28/1978Entertainment Weekly
"...Stupidly funny....Rent it again and see if you don't laugh..." 04/15/1994 p.66 New York Times
"...Cheerfully sleazy....Innocent fun..." 07/28/1978 p.C7 Total Film
"...There's sophistication under the slapstick..." 12/01/2003 p.130 Premiere
"[With an] infectious burlesque spirit and deft use of gross-out humor..." 12/01/2003 p.13 New York Times
"[J]oyously, liberatingly infantile....It's Belushi, as Delta's wildman-mascot Bluto, who informs the film's raucous, anarchic spirit." 09/05/2008 Find-A-Video 9 of 10
John Belushi made the most of his film debut, giving a truly funny performance, in this raucous, sophomoric comedy about an anarchic college fraternity's comic exploits.
DVD Verdict 10 of 10
Porky's, American Pie, Hollywood Knights, Road Trip and countless others would follow but Animal House was the original gross-out comedy and still the king...It is not often when a perfect screen comedy comes along and Animal House is such a movie. Animal House is just plain, laugh-out loud funny. Everything about the movie works. The screenplay by first timers Doug Kenney, one of the unsung heroes of American comedy in the latter part of the 20th century, Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day, Caddyshack, Stripes) and Chris Miller (Multiplicity, Club Paradise) does not miss a beat or a joke. Written with the voice of experience, it stands as the single best lampoon of college life ever produced. Like all great comedies, Animal House's humor is timeless. It's jokes are no less funny and fresh today than they were [in 1978]...The film also has razor sharp direction from John Landis (The Kentucky Fried Movie, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London). Landis had just the right sense of humor and the sense of energy that was needed for the antics in Animal House. Truly the right person at the right time, it was one of the rare cases where words and image met in perfect harmony. Outside of one or two films, I don't think Landis has ever been better. - Harold Gervais
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
"What we need right now," Otter tells his fraternity brothers, "is a stupid, futile gesture on someone's part." And no fraternity on campus -- on any campus -- is better qualified to provide such a gesture than the Deltas. They have the title role in "National Lampoon's Animal House," which remembers all the way back to 1962, when college was simpler, beer was cheaper, and girls were harder to seduce...The movie is vulgar, raunchy, ribald, and occasionally scatological. It is also the funniest comedy since Mel Brooks made "The Producers." "Animal House" is funny for some of the same reasons the National Lampoon is funny (and Second City and "Saturday Night Live" are funny): Because it finds some kind of precarious balance between insanity and accuracy, between cheerfully wretched excess and an ability to reproduce the most revealing nuances of human behavior. In one sense there has never been a campus like this movie's Faber University, which was apparently founded by the lead pencil tycoon and has as its motto "Knowledge is Good." In another sense, Faber University is a microcosm of ... I was going to say our society, but why get serious?...It takes skill to create this sort of comic pitch, and the movie's filled with characters that are sketched a little more absorbingly than they had to be, and acted with perception. - Roger Ebert
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