"American Pie Presents: Beta House" DVD

Why this exists is utterly, utterly beyond me. Oh, sure, you could go the cynical route and say "because people were dumb enough to lap up the last one like it was so much whipped creme off a sorority girl". And you could always got the "because there's a whole lot of guys who want nothing quite so much as half-naked chicks and are willing to pay for it" route. And theren there's always the "it's the new Animal House" excuse.

But for crying out loud...Joe Piscopo's in this. There are actual urine jokes going on in the first five minutes. They parody "The Deer Hunter" using capsules of AGED HORSE SEMEN. There's a sequence of extended vomiting--TARGET vomiting. And after a stuffed bear takes a money shot, I know there can't be an excuse for this.

Oh, but in my heart of hearts I'm sure there is. I just gave like three of them in that first paragraph.

The actual plotline is something you've seen and heard at least a dozen times since "Animal House"--a bunch of mostly morons run a fraternity that gets a whole lot of women who are either idiots themselves, don't care how stupid a guy is, or are paid extremely well. These mostly morons will overcome hardship, adversity, and a sudden calamity or two to end up defeating a pompous competing fraternity full of...geeks?

That's the new wrinkle this go-round...apparently, "Revenge of the Nerds" gave a lot of guys ideas and the inevitable cultural dynamic kicked in. The geek have inherited the earth in "Beta House", and they're running roughshod over it. Being a geek myself, I can tell you that I've wondered about the shoe being on the other metaphorical foot more than once, and man, if this is what it looks like, I shudder for my people.

Would we be such petty assholes if put in power? Have we seen the enemy...and he is us? I hadn't expected to think so, but...did "American Pie: Beta House" actually make me THINK just now?

Oh, all right...credit where credit is due, I suppose. This is the first American Pie film to actually make me think about something.

The ending, meanwhile, is actually about fifteen minutes too long, because the match is actually won before the extended celebration sequence. It's as though we were watching "Return of the Jedi" and the last fifteen minutes was wall-to-wall Ewoks dancing. Yeah, I know.

All in all, despite the fact that this was the first American Pie franchise to make me actually think for a few minutes, there's still entirely too many things wrong with it to elevate it past the level of contemptible swill. This pie has clearly gone rotten.

American Pie Presents Beta House
*
DVD

Directed by Andrew Waller

Written by Erik Lindsay

Starring John White, Steve Talley, Christopher McDonald, Eugene Levy

Produced by W.K. Border

NR
2007

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