Animal House is
the frat-house movie. Its success launched a wave of imitations and variations. But
when it comes to portraying the juvenile behavior of young men lurching their
way through college as they encounter freedom outside the nest, no other film
does as good a job. What makes Animal
House great is an underlying
theme that the heroes of the film were losers and misfits before they got to
college; once there, they
were still losers and misfits to such an extent they were expelled.
During all of this they do one thing: party. One of my favorite moments of Animal House is at the end of the movie
when viewers read what happens to our heroes in the years to come. Each of them
found a life filled with revelry, and you know that they did it just like they
had in college. That was the main theme of Animal
House, to live life as a party its moral. Of the frat movies that followed,
the weaker ones latched onto gross-out scenes or crass antics. The better ones
managed to touch a theme similar to Animal
House. The wonderful fount of revelry portrayed in Animal House gives the movie its legs and sets it above the rest.
It’s just as funny, crass, and entertaining now as the day it was released.
