American Class

This movie is one of my favorites!

All of the characters are hilariously developed and the actors who play them do a wonderful job. I've loved this movie since I was a kid and every once in a while I quote from it or think of one of the characters (my favorite being Delores).

It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this movie. It's somewhat hard to find but if you seek it out it is well worth it!

Gerrit Graham is a great actor....but he can not star in a movie. Much like football, Gerrit has the talent to run the ball in for a touchdown but can't. However, he is a guarantee 3 points every game. Here, Gerrit is good but does nothing as the star of the movie. The entire cast has there moments, but nothing worth keeping your attention for an entire 90 minutes. The movie at times seems too low budget to be anything great like Animal House or Chritmas Vacation. The story is pure humor, nothing but quick and sometimes witty fart jokes that only make you laugh for a second or two. Nudity is added just for pure laughs, nothing terrific. All in all, it is a quick comedy with nothing to show for it. The movie starts out good with a potential story but ends quick and corny.

Remember National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook Parody? It's a work of absolute genius, a laugh-out-loud example of the Lampoon in its glory days. Well, back in the early '80s, I read somewhere that the Lampoon was going to produce a movie based on the yearbook parody. With the hilarity of Animal House still fresh in my mind, I was beside myself with excitement--I couldn't wait for a movie based on the '64 yearbook.

Unfortunately, the next Lampoon movie to be released was Class Reunion, a witless mess that looks as if it were edited with a dull hacksaw. I remember seeing it and thinking "They made THIS instead of a movie based on the yearbook parody?"

And after that I was afraid they thought Class Reunion WAS a movie based on the yearbook parody. In any event, it's horrible.

The Class of 1972 from Lizzie Borden High (nyuk, nyuk) is all gathering together for their ten-year reunion. All those guys you remember are back. The jock, ms. Popular, the cripple, the nobody, the class pump, the girl who sold her soul to the devil so she could get rid of leg braces and now breathes fire and has an Exorcist thing going on and let's not forget Howard Baylor. Baylor escaped from the loony bin just to get back at the poor slobs who pulled the senior prank on him (he made-out with his twin sister) and put him there to begin with. All that and a National Lampoon charter to boot…Whoa Nelly!

Certainly not the most popular National Lampoon film (it's got a serious reputation for being bad) but I actually had fun with it. It moved at a pretty fast pace with enough bad jokes and screwiness to keep me entertained. Give it a view. "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" may grow on you like that rash you got from gym.

National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982)

1/2 (out of 4)

Really awful horror-comedy starts off in 1972 when a man has a cruel prank played on him. Flash-forward ten-years and it's the high school reunion and before long people involved in that prank are being murdered.

Wow, what a really, really awful film this is. Obviously NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE was a huge hit and a flat-out masterpiece but this film crashed and burned with fans and critics and it's not too hard to see why. There are all sorts of problems with this movie but the biggest can be aimed at John Hughes screenplay. This was his first solo screenplay credit but I must say it's quite awful but thankfully he would quickly turn that around and it would lead to some classic comedies.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. It's obviously spoofing some of the slasher movies of the era but nothing is really done with this. You've got a killer with a paper bag over his head and that's it. The murder sequences are all bland and boring and there's certainly nothing creative going on. Even the comedy elements are a big disappointment because there's nothing creative going on here either. I mean, one of the running gags deals with a lunch lady picking up the food with her hands. Really? When you've got a "spoof" that isn't funny and doesn't have anything going for it you're just left with a dead movie that drags even with its short running time.

It should be noted that there aren't any Saturday Night Live members here. Gerrit Graham, Michael Lerner and Stephen Furst are all good actors but they're given very little to work with. There are a couple very small gags throughout the film but certainly not enough to keep you entertained. Chuck Berry shows up for a quick sequence but the film doesn't have any "fun" with him as he basically plays a couple songs and disappear.

All in all, NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CLASS REUNION is a film that has pretty much been forgotten and it's easy to see why. The Lampoon guys would eventually get back on track but this film here is just a complete misfire from start to finish.