‘It takes more than a fire truck to stop Drop Dead Fred...’
The last thing any self-respecting film writer wants to do is shit on beloved movies from people’s childhood. Now, I never saw Drop Dead Fred as a kid and if I had, I might have been drawn to its anarchic transgressiveness. As an adult, however, I found Ate de Jong’s film to be a shrill and annoying mess…
Ignored by her parents, Elizabeth Cronin (Ashley Peldon as a child and Phoebe Cates as an adult) conjures up an imaginary friend named Drop Dead Fred (Rik Mayall) who proceeds to cause all sorts of chaos whilst also doing lots of loud shouting. She is also trying to patch things up with her douchebag husband (Tim Matheson) for reasons that are never entirely clear. Carrie Fisher is also there just generally being awesome.
There are lots of things here that appeal to me. I love Carrie Fisher, I’m in love with Phoebe Cates (shout out to Gremlins) and surely everyone loves Rik Mayall. The problem is that despite the best efforts of all involved, the titular character is just too annoying. It’s an interesting concept and Cates is as irresistibly adorable as ever but it’s simply not enough. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that Drop Dead Fred is a comedy that isn’t funny. Not for an adult watching the film for the first time anyway. I wanted to like it but by the end, I felt like I had been surrounded by those kid’s toys that repeat the same annoying sounds over and over until you smash them to pieces.
Despite being absolutely mauled by critics upon release, Drop Dead Fred has developed into something of a cult classic apparently. If you are one of the people that grew up loving this movie I’m genuinely happy for you but I can’t join you on that journey. Rik Mayall was a comic genius, of that there is no doubt, sadly, however, this is not the best example of his many talents.
