AmateurMovieReviews.com

By Brandi M. Seals

For nearly as long as I can remember, my family has settled in to watch our favorite Christmas movie - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It is watched every year like clockwork along with How the Grinch Stole Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life. However, National Lampoon's stands out from the rest.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation stares Chevy Chase, Juliette Lewis and Randy Quaid. It is a cult classic and airs on television almost every year. The film details a Christmas at the Griswold's that has gone awry.

The whole film is viewed from Clark Griswold's (Chevy Chase) point of view. It is his dream to have a big old fashion family Christmas. In order to make his dream come true, Clark invites both sides of the family over at once despite his wife's objections. Clark does everything imaginable to make Christmas a delightful experience that everyone will remember. He takes the family out and chops down a great big tree. He covers the house in Christmas lights (25,000 twinkle lights in all) and even plans for a special Christmas surprise.

However, anyone familiar with the National Lampoon's franchise will know that like always, things do not go as planned. Everyone will remember Clark's big old fashion Christmas. Not because they had a great time, but because everything goes wrong.

The Christmas tree is too big and is eventually burned down by Uncle Lewis. The last minute replacement tree has a squirrel in it, but he does not stay there for long. The squirrel jumps out and chases the family around the house.

The Christmas lights do not work at first. Finally the flip of a light switch is all it takes to get the whole house to light up. However, it is so bright that the power plant has to use nuclear power to compensate for the rise in electrical use and the grouchy neighbors are blinded by the lights.

And, Clark's Christmas bonus also does not come through, which spells the end for his surprise.

In addition to things gone wrong, a parade of long, lost relatives appear. Each of them has their own quirks that add to the hijincks. Cousin Eddy (Randy Quaid) is a country bumpkin that pulls up in an RV and camps in the yard with his family. He does not know how to behave and can be seen emptying the septic tank on his RV into a storm drain, all while wearing boxers and a robe. Cousin Eddy brings along Kathryn (his wife) and two disturbed kids. Cousin Eddy also comes complete with a dog named Snots that possesses a peculiar nasal problem.

Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lewis also make an appearance. These two are so old that they do not really know what is going on. Bethany is so confused that she wrapped up her cat as a present and makes a lime jello mold with cat food sprinkled through out it. Lewis is simply a cranky old man with a very bad toupee who likes to smoke cigars.

The Griswold family Christmas is so bad that it has to top any bad Christmas experience you may have had. The writers seem to have taken everything that could go wrong and make it go wrong. Kick back with the family and watch the hilarity ensue as disaster after disaster strikes the Griswold family Christmas. Far from the good old fashion Christmas Clark imagined, Clark's Christmas is more like a hellish experience that just will not end.

Watching the film will take you back to all of those bad Christmases gone by. Hopefully now you will find the humor in the situation. This December if you are looking for a movie to lighten the mood or are otherwise looking for a good laugh, rent National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

If you have never seen a National Lampoon's movie before, I would recommend renting some of the others first. A number of them were made after Christmas Vacation, so you would only want to watch those made beforehand. You also only want the ones that deal with the Griswold family. The movies will give you more background information on the kooky Griswold family. You would want to rent National Lampoon's: European Vacation, Natonal Lampoon's Vacation and National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation.