The Yearbook: An 'Animal House' Reunion

The Yearbook: An Animal House Reunion (1998)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fun documentary taking a look at NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE and its making. The film's director (John Landis), producers (Matty Simmons, Ivan Reitman), writers (Harold Ramis, Chris Miller), composer (Elmer Bernstein) and cast members Peter Riegert, Karen Allen, Stephen Furst, Kevin Bacon, Verna Bloom, John Vernon, Mark Metcalf, Tim Mattheson, Bruce McGill and James Widdoes are all interviewed in this 45-minute look at the film. With such a short running time you'd fear that not enough is covered but that's not the case here because just about everything you'd want to know about the production is covered. We learn the original ideas for the movie, how Universal got involved and then we go through the hiring of Landis and the casting of the film. Fans of the movie are really going to love this documentary because it has so many of the people who worked on the film and all of them have some great stories to tell. The cast does a nice job talking about the audition process and some really fun stories come about how they all stayed in character when they were filming meaning that the "prep" characters weren't allowed around the "animal" characters. There are also some funny stories from Kevin Bacon who couldn't get anyone to believe that he was actually in the movie. Everyone involved really does a nice job at keeping this thing moving as we get one great story after another. We hear about fights at a real college and the sex and drugs in the movie appeared to spill off screen as well.