Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update

Where Are They Now? The Delta Alumni Update (2003)

*** (out of 4)

This mockumentary from John Landis doesn't work as good as one would hope but there are enough fun moments to make fans of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE want to check it out. What we basically get is Landis going around to various members of Faber College as he interviews about what they've been doing since they left college. Peter Riegert, Karen Allen, Verna Bloom, John Vernon, Tim Matheson, Stephen Furst, Otis Day, Martha Smith, Chris Miller, James Widdoes, Kevin Bacon and Bruce McGill all appear here playing the characters that they did in the movie. They're all interviewed and discuss what they've been doing the past few decades and what they ended up becoming. This 23-minute featurette isn't the greatest thing ever made and some of the jokes miss but there's no denying that it's pretty special getting to see everyone gathered back to discuss the film. Some are better than others when it comes to fitting back into their original roles but the bit with Vernon is hilarious as is the stuff with Riegert and Allen. With there already being a couple documentaries about the making of the actual film, this here was a clever way to get the update on the characters and fans of the film will certainly want to check it out.

This is the bonus material in the 2003 rerelease of Aminal House on DVD (Double scret probation edition). It is a mockumentary that basically catches up with the various characters sometime later (80's or 90's).

The math is a little funny as the characters would be a whole lot older then the actors who portrayed them. So the visuals were off as basically no effort was made to make the actors look older.

That peeve aside, Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update just was not funny enough to watch more then once out of curiousity. There are some vaguely amusing bits, but it has a feel of something just thrown together for bonus material on a DVD rather then anything done to be seriosuly funny.

Upon recieving the "Double Secret Probation" DVD version of Animal House, I immediately sat and laughed at the original movie. However, the "Where Are They Now?" mockumentary was stunningly perfect as a tribute to the original Deltas. In fact, if you're a fan of Animal House, you may have to pick this up for the sheer principle of it.

Years after the events of Animal House, this shows us the fates of the people in it. With the film itself being essentially pointless other than saluting meaningless, destructive, crude, obnoxious, noisy behavior and partying, this is an utterly unnecessary addition that just further highlights how much it did not need to be made, and almost has you wondering why the original movie was, too. I didn't care for or about a single one of these characters(and they remain nasty and unappealing in this) in the flick(I could just barely tell them apart), and this is nothing but expanding on the "what happened to" freeze frame throwaway gag near the end... why was this mockumentary made? It features clips from it, and is notable only in their managing to track down all these actors. There's a Woody Allen impersonation in this(intentional or otherwise), and the material is just plain weird. There's something about pregnant women's urine, my brain blacked out. Nearly all of the jokes are unfunny, at best, they're silly. Well, the born-again Christian stuff with Bacon made me smile. This is 21 and a half minutes sans credits, and about 23 with. There are mature themes and language in this. I recommend this to people who must watch anything connected to the '78 piece. 5/10