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Here’s yet another film that was originally on the docket for last year’s Marathon of the Soul, Drop Dead Fred. At the time, I was at the height of what you might call my British Comedy phase: Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, QI, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Jeeves & Wooster, old school Who’s Line Is It Anyway? and of course The Comic Strip Presents…,The Young Ones and Bottom. I consumed them all, wholly and voraciously, and in so doing I decided to reflect that in my choice of films. Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits made an appearance, but at the last minute I decided to go with Guest House Paradiso instead, starring Bottom stars Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson (pretty fun comedy, by the way). Since this list seems to be headed towards a retrospective direction, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and toss it in. See what happens, you know?
The story to Drop Dead Fred is something we’ve probably all seen before: A schmuck who is currently at the bottom of shit valley has their life turned upside by a wacky character who by the end of the film manages to give the schmuck the confidence to succeed and so everyone lives happily ever after (except for those dickhole antagonists). The schmuck in this case is Elizabeth (Phoebe Cates), a girl so cowed by her domineering mother and her scumbag ex-husband that she seems one stapler away from being Stephen Root’s character in Office Space, and the wacky character is her manic imaginary friend Drop Dead Fred (Rik Mayall playing virtually the same character he played in almost every role he’s had, except with bizarre costumes and cartoon physics). Encino Man, My Favorite Martian, Mallrats, it’s a tried and true formula for comedy films, as much as ‘silly foreigners’ and ‘two people of opposing beliefs and personalities must work together to accomplish a shared goal’.
This is a weird one, though. From the surface you expect it to be some kind of goofy, Halloweentown style Disney original movie, but then it turns out to be closer to an early Tim Burton joint. But it isn’t quite like Burton either, because that high level of whimsy isn’t there.to compliment that faux-goth darkness. If I had to put a term to it, it’d be ‘try-hard’. Phoebe doesn’t seem like a Potter-esque figure to pity as she does a co-dependent masochist, quietly mumbling about her stapler as the Bill Lumbergs of the movie move her ass to the basement. Fred is the same frenzied petulant twat that Rik Mayall perfected over the years, which works out for a bratty child like character, but he doesn’t seem like an actual friend either. The moments where we touch upon Fred and Lizzie’s friendship seem few and far between, and 90% of the time Fred comes off as some violently schizophrenic asshole, compelled to insult and assault the person he exists to befriend. Every other major character seems like some sort of exaggerated caricature, generally dickish, and I’m pretty sure that Mickey has a collection of human heads in his basement. I’m not the most social man in the world, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t how humans are meant to act, even if they exist in a black comedy universe.
However I really do enjoy Rik Mayall as an actor, which is probably what saves this movie honestly, as he provides the lion’s share of the comedy and sentiment. I also quite like design aesthetic, the costumes, the effects etc., a slightly unhinged vision of how a child might view the world. Plus seeing Carrie Fisher is always pretty cool. So if Halloween comes around and you’re looking for something with your significant other (maybe not with the kids ironically, as there is a bit of language you might not appreciate), I think Drop Dead Fred might be a good, relatively inoffensive choice. It won’t even matter that she’s imaginary this time.
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