Review of King Frat

King Frat (1979)
2/10
A Dismal Comedy With One Or Two Nice Touches
21 June 2000
Whether this movie is supposed to be a spoof of "Animal House" or just a cheap rip-off, it doesn't work on many levels, except for gross humor. Anyone who enjoyed "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" might actually find it funny. And one senses there may be a funny movie underneath fighting to get out -- but not fighting too hard.

The frat-house, one of the most disgusting sets every built, is not so much a setting as a central area from which the frat members go out on tangents. Some of the plotlines are very good -- such as the new kid's romance. Some, such as the member in the gorilla suit climbing a tree to stare into a sorority, has some funny ideas. But even the best ideas in this movie tend to fail in execution. It's not a good movie by any yardstick . . . but it means well, and is good-natured. There's not a mean bone in its body.

The girls are inordinately attractive for this level of film-making -- but most of the attractive ones manage to keep their clothes on.

I've rented quite a number of videos of "King Frat" over the years in different boxes with different labels, released many years apart (even Canadian versions) but it's never shown in a full version. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AMBULANCE SCENE? Only a few seconds are missing, but they're vital to understanding the best joke in the movie -- yet every version I've seen has had those few seconds snipped, between the moment the ambulance co-driver peeks in the back and stares forward again. I remember the scene clearly from having seen the movie in a drive-in in 1979; and the cut is very obvious. Yet no one has seen fit to restore just a few moments to help make the only good joke in the movie work?

If anyone knows why this movie remains incomplete, if the excised moments are lost or what, or knows where I can get a restored version, please let me know.
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