The Class of 1972 from Lizzie Borden High (nyuk, nyuk) is all gathering together for their ten-year reunion. All those guys you remember are back. The jock, ms. Popular, the cripple, the nobody, the class pump, the girl who sold her soul to the devil so she could get rid of leg braces and now breathes fire and has an Exorcist thing going on and let's not forget Howard Baylor. Baylor escaped from the loony bin just to get back at the poor slobs who pulled the senior prank on him (he made-out with his twin sister) and put him there to begin with. All that and a National Lampoon charter to boot…Whoa Nelly!

Certainly not the most popular National Lampoon film (it's got a serious reputation for being bad) but I actually had fun with it. It moved at a pretty fast pace with enough bad jokes and screwiness to keep me entertained. Give it a view. "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" may grow on you like that rash you got from gym.

The third National Lampoon movie* to reach theaters - it was filmed after National Lampoon Goes To The Movies - this was written by John Hughes, who was pretty unhappy with the final product. He'd tell the Chicago Tribune, "They didn't even want me around, and I was shocked when I saw the movie". My screenplay had been completely butchered, and my name will nevertheless be on the credits forever." That said, I think no one but me remembers this movie and Hughes ended up doing just fine.

The film failed at the box office and the Lampoon name would end up being hit and miss, with films like National Lampoon's Animal House and National Lampoon's Vacation being all time comedy classics and others like National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, National Lampoon's Barely Legal and National Lampoon Presents Surf Party (amongst many, many others) became a series of dwindling returns, much like the magazine would be after most of its talent left.

If you're hoping for the wit of the infamous National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, know that P.J. O'Rourke and Doug Kenney had nothing to do with this film. No, instead this is the tenth reunion of the class of Lizzie Borden High School and they're being haunted by Walter Baylor, a student who had a prank played on him, ala Terror Train and Slaughter High.

The film certainly has a great cast. I'm always pleased to see Gerrit Graham (Phantom of Paradise, TerrorVision) on my screen. Plus, there's Michael Lerner (Barton Fink),Misty Rowe (Hee-Haw, SST Death Flight),Blackie Dammett (the father of Anthony Kiedis, who is awesome in Nine Deaths of the Ninja),Miriam Flynn (Cousin Catherine from the Vacation movies),Stephen Furst (Flounder from Animal House),Mews Small (who was in the original Broadway production of Grease) and Anne Ramsey (Mama Fratelli from The Goonies).

It also has an on-screen performance by Chuck Berry performing a medley of his songs ("It Wasn't Me", "My Dingaling", and "Festival") and a theme song by Gary U.S. Bonds.

In a world of slasher silliness - I'm looking at you, Wacko, Pandemonium, Student Bodies and Saturday the 14th - this one isn't all that good. It does, however, posit something that no other slasher in my memory really has done before. It redeems its killer.

In the very same year of this film's release, director Michael Miller would make another strange slasher hybrid, Silent Rage, which features Chuck Norris against an unstoppable killer. MIller would use most of the crew from this movie and Stephen Furst for that one, too.

*I'm not counting TV movie Disco Beaver from Outer Space in the list of National Lampoon films.

I really wanted to enjoy this movie more than I did. I've heard for years from friends that it's one of the funniest unjustly overlooked and forgotten comedies from the early 80's. Well, I got a copy of this film on DVD, saw it and thought it was okay. Neither very good nor totally bad. Just okay. Please allow me to elaborate on this.

The premise certainly has potential: A wacky assortment of folks -- snobby preppie Gerrit ("The Phantom of the Paradise," "Used Cars") Graham, obnoxious fat slob Stephen Furst (Flounder in "Animal House") and crazed psychic Satanist Zane Busby among 'em -- who make up the graduating class of Lizzie Borden High ("A cut above the rest") gather together at a creepy remote old house for their 10th Anniversary High School Reunion. Alas, another unbalanced student named Walter Baylor who was horribly humiliated by the graduating class when they played a cruel prank on him also shows up to murder the people responsible for said prank.

Director Micheal ("Jackson County Jail") Miller, working from a suitably lowbrow script written by 80's teen comedy titan John ("Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club") Hughes, barely manages to wring a handful of laughs from the regrettably mediocre material. The main problem with this picture is that it crucially lacks the necessary wit and vitality needed to be as uproarious as it keeps constantly threatening to be. Moreover, while the characters are appropriately zany (said nutty characters include a blundering blind woman, a hulking transvestite, a weird vampire guy and even a Cheech and Chong-style stoner dope humor duo),they unfortunately aren't remotely likable or appealing. Furthermore, despite the occasional inspired line of dialogue ("My father didn't spend all that money to keep me out of Vienam so I can die in my own high school") or genuinely hilarious moment (the Diana Ross and the Supremes routine is positively sidesplitting),the bulk of the jokes tend to fall flat and the film runs out of steam at the halfway point, limping towards a pretty blah conclusion. On the plus side we've got a groovy theme song sung by Gary U.S. Bonds, a nifty guest appearance by Chuck Berry, and amusing supporting performances by Michael Lerner as a useless psychiatrist and late, great gnarled character actress Anne ("The Goonies," "Throw Mama From the Train") Ramsey as a grubby old battle axe of a cafeteria worker (she uses a chainsaw to cut lasagna!). Overall this feature sizes up as a strictly watchable, but altogether middling and thus forgettable diversion.