Drop Dead Fred (1991)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	95:06 (Case: 93)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Ate de Jong
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Phoebe Cates Rik Mayall Marsha Mason Tim Matheson Carrie Fisher Keith Charles Ashley Peldon Daniel Gerroll Ron Eldard Eleanor Mondale Bob Reid Peter Thoemke Sjoukje De Jong Douma
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Randy Edelman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Czech Danish German French Hungarian Dutch Norwegian Polish Finnish Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Rik Mayall was born to play Drop Dead Fred. No one else could capture the character so vividly. It's not easy for an adult to act like a wilful five-year-old.

    Drop Dead Fred is the invisible friend of a boisterous young girl, Lizzie Cronin (Ashley Peldon). No one believes he exists, but he does. When Lizzie says that Drop Dead Fred did something, she's telling the truth.

    21 years later, Elizabeth Cronin (Phoebe Cates) is splitting up with her husband, Charles (Tim Matheson, portraying an unfaithful sleaze). Her mother, Polly (Marsha Mason, playing a dominating mother rather well), insists that she come home. While in her old bedroom she finds a jack-in-the-box that's taped shut. When she takes off the tape, out comes Drop Dead Fred, who has been trapped there all those long years. Fred is eager to resume where they left off, treating her as though she were a young child, and involving her in all manner of hijinks.

    It emerges that Fred cannot leave until she is happy, and she is far from happy. And Fred's ideas of fun and helping are not suitable for an adult...

    This is rather an interesting idea: that invisible friends do exist and only "their" child can see them. But the script doesn't make the most of the material, and even the excellent cast don't seem to be able to rescue this film from having some stale bits in the middle, and a fairly limp ending. It's a real shame, especially given the verve with which Rik Mayall approaches his part: he really is perfect.

    I saw this film on its initial release, and watching it again now confirmed my opinion then: this is a "missed opportunity" film, one that could have been special, but isn't. It's worth watching, but not one to go out of your way for. Pity.

Video

    This DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. That's the intended aspect ratio.

    The image is soft, and looks a little grainy. Shadow detail is rather poor. Low-level noise does not appear to be a problem.

    Colour is a bit dull and lifeless, especially at the start — that might be deliberate, reflecting Elizabeth's life. Still, there are no obvious colour artefacts.

    There are plenty of small film artefacts. There is occasional aliasing, but it seems mollified by the softness. There are no MPEG artefacts.

    There are subtitles in eleven languages, including English. The English subtitles are English for the Hearing Impaired, but they miss more than a few audio cues. Apart from that, they are rather accurate, well-timed to the dialogue, and easy to read.

    The disc is single-sided, single layer. No layer change, and there's little enough material, so it fits easily into the one layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English, German, French, and, unusually, Russian. The English, which is all I listened to, is Dolby Digital 2.0 (not surround encoded) at the basic 192kbps.

    The dialogue is clear and mostly comprehensible. There are no visible slips in audio sync.

    The score comes from Randy Edelman. It's not an awful score, but it does get a bit repetitious in using the primary theme.

    This stereo soundtrack doesn't make any use of the surrounds or subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent.

    The Region 1 disc was released last year. I considered buying it at the time, until I discovered that it is a pan-and-scan atrocity. That makes the choice easy — the Region 4 disc, being in the original wide screen, and 16x9 enhanced, is definitely the preferable version.

    One of those "what a waste" movies, given a decent, but unexceptional, presentation on DVD

    The video quality is reasonable, but rather soft.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are completely missing.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall