National Lampoon’s Holiday Reunion (Telefilm)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Telefilm: D

 

 

A long time ago, National Lampoon was a magazine with edge and an audience.  They even had made some theatrical films with some importance and impact in the Comedy genre, like Animal House and the Vacation franchise, at least initially.  Now, it has become a spoof of itself and a series of really, really, really horrible films keep coming out with the magazine’s name on them, including recent duds like Van Wilder, Dorm Daze (trashed elsewhere on this site) and now Holiday Reunion.

 

Judge Reinhold and Penelope Ann Miller pick up paychecks for doing a hundredth-generation pseudo-comedy about dysfunctional family, southern stereotypes, bad relatives, and vacations.  This one was co-produced by Superstation TBS in an inexcusable bankruptcy of talent and material unacceptable for a big company like TimeWarner.  Is it the AOL influence?

 

Anyhow, this is a disaster from the word “go” and is a torture test throughout.  The result is one of the worst TV cable films we have ever seen, and we have seen our share here on the site already.  The Chevy Chase series has been dead for years, so watching this animated corpse is just sad.  The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 TV wide image and 5.1 Dolby mix are of a passably good quality, which means you can see and hear how bad the film is more clearly than you will ever need too.  A 1.33 X 1 version is also here, like that matters.  The only extra is a preview for the new Fox sitcom Arrested Development, which we hope to cover soon, especially to get this nightmare out of our heads.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo