Home of Phobia

A fair-to-middling low-budget comedy, "Freshman Orientation" has some good-natured fun lampooning the stereotypes and clichés of college life. Kewpie-faced Clay Adams is an undergrad frat pledge who pretends to be gay in order to snag the girl of his dreams. Just how this paradoxical turn-of-events comes about need not be reiterated here. Suffice it to say that it involves fraternity and sorority initiation pranks that wind up at cross purposes with one another.

Suffering from its own case of identity confusion, director Ryan Shiraki's screenplay reinforces stereotypes even as it's working hard to beat those stereotypes down. Gays, in particular, may find themselves evenly divided between encouragement and dismay over how they are portrayed in this film.

Still, there are enough moments of loopy charm to make the film worth seeing on a slow, rainy afternoon, and Sam Huntington and Kaitlin Doubleday have appeal and charisma to spare as Clay and his girl. And, as an added bonus, they are joined by John Goodman and Rachel Dratch in minor supporting roles.

I was extremely disappointed with this movie. It looked like it might be one of those unheard of movies which end up making you laugh for hours. I instead found myself groaning every scene as gay stereotypes are reinforced and the entire depiction of life in college and gay rights activists is warped so severely that it becomes unrecognizable except as a caricature to be used like a punching bag for the movie's comedy. The superficial perspective on LGBTQ life highlights this movie's writers' affinity for stereotypes that would make even a Westboro Baptist Minister blush. My gay friend commented this movie sets back the view of gay people by 15 years and I would have to agree. The IMDb title "Home of Phobia" is jarringly accurate.

You know, this movie have that light comedy that I like to watch sometimes, its not that kind of movie that tries to make you laugh every time, but its still funny. The title in Spanish was translated and it means "How to seduce a girl?" I think it makes the point, but you'd better watch it. Sam Huntington its a very good actor, another movie of him that I consider a 10 its "Detroit Rock City" even if you are not a rocker you enjoy it a lot, the story is simply funny and original, as this one but you know in this case I gave to Home Of Phobia a vote of 9 that is still good. Note: If you are homophobic you better don't watch this movie

i went expecting to see a really stupid teen comedy, and was a bit surprised, because it exceeded my expectations but in a good way. it really starts with all the clichés you can expect, but later develops into something really watchable and entertaining. after the first few minutes then i was ready to leave the cinema - i went to watch the movie at a free 'Advance Movie Screening' in Cinema Village and expected that it is a new movie, so after the first few minutes i thought 'why are they still making stupid movies like this? don't they think we had enough of this crap already'? but now that i see it was released in 2004, i'm kinda relieved :) so...after the first about 10 minutes, as the movie develops, i began to see some real story develop, with nice dialog, funny moments (even grossly funny, but hm...in a good way :)

actually - why am i writing such a long comment? 3 years after its release, there isn't a single comment on this movie here, and even at the free prescreening there were so few people....i actually intended to go see 'Lust, Caution', but apparently the interest there was huge...

but to get to my point - this is actually a good movie, you just need to give it a chance, and i believe you'd enjoy it

peace

Good watch, could watch again, and can recommend.

Sam Huntington, Marla Sokoloff, and Kaitlin Doubleday are all extremely underrated actors and do excellent jobs.

I'll give you that this premise is potentially problematic, but it does have a positive edge to it. What really holds the movie back (or forward for some) is how sociopathic the main character starts.

There has to be a low to grow from, but yeesh. It is a coming of age and self discovery story for about 6-20 people, depending on how you count, and there is a lot of good work that goes into balancing and keeping so many character plot lines to quality.

A couple of the characters literally stop to shake off how much is going on in the movie at certain points.

In the end, this is full of absurdist comedy with a sweet core.