This film is the perfect example of a great idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. Typically, I enjoy spoof movies, so the idea of packaging three short spoofs in the same film sounds reasonable enough to me. Attaching the National Lampoon name to the project, their first offering since Animal House, is an even more inspired decision.

Unfortunately, those of us that live in the 21st Century know that the Lampoon never again reached the heights they achieved with Animal House… or even came close. …his movie, or collection of three movies, is a spoof of other bad movies… except someone forgot to tell the writers that most spoofs actually have “jokes” in them. Basically what that means is that this disc amounts to three poor and cliché films (based on three poor and cliché film genres) that try to be funny buy aren’t. There is truly nothing sadder than a comedy that is just not funny. When you go to see a poor comic in person, you can pelt them with insults and rotten vegetables. When you do it at home, all you get is upset family members and a ruined television set.

Audio

It would be bad enough if the problem was just that his film is in Mono. What’s worse is that there is not a consistent volume level throughout the film. You know you are really starting to hit rock bottom as an audio engineer when you can’t even keep the master levels even through out an 83-minute film. As a result, much of the dialog is often times hard to hear, which might be a blessing, considering how bad the script is. The sparse score is also poorly conceived, arriving out of nowhere for emphasis on truly pointless scenes in the film. This disc just keeps going from bad to worse.

Video

This film is presented on a two sided flipper disc, with the widescreen presentation on one side, and the full screen presentation on the other. Obviously, for the purposes of this review, I viewed the widescreen side of the disc. The transfer is actually better than what I expected from an obscure 1983 film. I didn’t see any problems with grain or blemishes throughout the viewing, though the colors were quite washed-out, in much the same way as the reruns of Animal House look when broadcast on the USA network. I guess the saying is true; you really can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Special Features

The only thing in the way of extras on this disc is a theatrical trailer that, no surprise, is actually funner than the film itself. Now, that’s not to say that it is a great trailer, it is just that it is slightly amusing, whereas the film itself is most certainly not.

Conclusion

I long for the days that a miracle comes to the Lampoon, and it actually becomes funny again. They have had projects in the past that have been sincerely hilarious, including the magazine that started it all, so I know it can be done. Their web site is sometimes amusing, so I at least know that they have some idea of what is funny. It seems that over the past few years, however, they have been putting more and more money into marketing the brand, but have done nothing to try to revitalize the products. What this results in is greater consumer awareness of how bad National Lampoon’s products, including their films, really are. This company needs a makeover in a hurry.

Special Features List

• Theatrical Trailer