Drop Dead Fred

Unusual. Uncontrollable. Unleashed. Unreal.

DROP DEAD FRED (12)

D: Ate de Jong

New Line/Working Title/Polygram (Paul Webster)

USA 🇺🇸 1991

99 mins

Comedy

W: Carlos Davis & Anthony Fingleton

DP: Peter Deming

Ed: Marshall Harvey

Mus: Randy Edelman

Phoebe Cates (Elizabeth Cronin), Rik Mayall (Drop Dead Fred), Marsha Mason (Polly Cronin), Ron Eldard (Mickey Bunce), Carrie Fisher (Janie)

Drop Dead Fred is a rather tasteless and vulgar one-joke comedy whose driving force is mainly to be as annoying as possible.

Phoebe Cates plays a young woman whose marriage breaks down, causing her to move back into her childhood home with her conservative mother. She wishes her mischievious imaginary friend from her childhood back to life and her life becomes even more chaotic.

The crude slapstick on display here mostly revolves around Rik Mayall as the irritating imaginary personality, causing mischief merely for the sake of it, with no real motivation for his existence.

Overall the film is far too puerile for adult audiences and some of the jokes are a little too unsuitable for children, leaving the whole film stuck in a rut. Rik Mayall's rubber face routine cracks a few smiles, but it's all very much "seen it all before". It's been deemed a bit of a 90's classic by those who enjoyed watching it during their childhood, but re-watching without a nostalgic filter it really isn't very funny, unless you find someone picking their nose and eating it hilarious.

5/10