Drop Dead Fred is supposed to be a comedy about a woman who's life goes to crap. Within the first ten minutes her fiancé leaves her then her purse gets robbed and then her car gets stolen. She then loses her job forcing her to move back in with her stuck up mother who makes her sleep in her old (very pink) bedroom. Then her childhood imaginary friend Fred (Rik Mayall) comes back into her life. He is an annoying, loud, demonic, destructive figment of her imagination. But yes it's supposed to be a comedy...You could put horror music over this film and it would work great as a Exorcist type phycological film. Carrie Fisher is also in it and she lives in a house boat (she is also crazy). Her new boyfriend is also crazy. But her mum wants her to get back with her old boyfriend (who cheated on her) It's just a stupid film which is probably better to watch if you are drunk.

I had seen the poster and DVD for this film many many times, so I always knew who the leading British actor was, who sadly passed away a year before I watched it, I had many times heard that this film had either mixed or negative opinions, probably the latter, I was still going to give it a go. Basically Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Cronin (Phoebe Cates) is having the worst time of her life, she has her purse and car stolen, she is fired from her job, and she finds out that her husband Charles (Tim Matheson) has cheated on her, but she cannot stop loving him, despite support from her friend Janie (Carrie Fisher) she is unhappy. In misery, Lizzie remembers her happy times in childhood as a young girl (Ashley Peldon), specifically playing with and messing about with her imaginary friend, Drop Dead Fred (Rik Mayall), and all of the sudden, Fred reappears. Fred has a sole purpose, to cheer Lizzie up, but this is not going to plan, especially with Lizzie's quite cold mother Polly (Marsha Mason) around, who wants to turn her daughter into a younger double of herself. Lizzie works to get Charles back, and even though she is overjoyed to see Fred again and remember the fun times they had when she was a child, he only seems to cause trouble for her. After a number of unforgivable action, which Lizzie blames Fred for (just like in the past), her mother takes her to "get help" and get rid of Fred forever, Lizzie is given medication to take, but she realises as she is about to take the final pill that Charles has not changed, Fred is the only person she can trust. She follows Fred to a dream world and gets the chance to conquer her greatest fears: her mother, Charles's infidelity and the little girl inside her dealing with loneliness, unfortunately the only way she can truly rid herself of these fears is to lose Fred for good and realise she does not need him anymore. In the end Lizzie kisses Fred goodbye, waking from this dream she leaves Charles, she initially argues with Polly, who she blamed for her father leaving, but the mother and daughter reconcile, and meeting up with Mickey Bunce (Ron Eldard) they seem to express interest in being more than friends, she notices his daughter Natalie (Kelly Benson) playing and causing trouble, blaming Fred, even though she can no longer see him Lizzier realises Fred is now Natalie's imaginary friend, she smiles. Also starring Bridget Fonda as Annabella, Keith Charles as Murray and Daniel Gerroll as Nigel Cronin. Mayall with his big red hair and bright green clothes does bring the manic high energy you'd expect from him, and Cates is nice as the girl who is the only person who can see him, it might have been a good idea, but it goes from amusing to irritating a fair amount, and is predictable and almost completely unfunny, stick to James Stewart classic Harvey if you want a film about an invisible friend, this is a mess of a fantasy comedy. Adequate!

Daughter of control freak mother has an imaginary (English) friend who she can blame for doing all the malicious, obscene and childish stuff her mother has tried to suppress in her. Except she's an adult - for some of the movie, that is.DDF takes an age to get going. By the time it does, you're failing to understand why Elizabeth (Phoebe Cates) hasn't been sectioned long ago. Is it because her mother is apparently very rich? There is just not enough subtlety in the way Elizabeth's disastrous dependence on Fred is portrayed. Time and again she acts out her most disgusting and destructive impulses in some stilted slapstick, only for the blaming of 'Fred'(Rik Mayall) to make everything all right.As a kind of primer in psychological metaphor, DDF has a lot going for it. But then it's a Disney children's film. Oh no it isn't, it's a gross-out comedy - no, wait, it's a rom-com. It all comes down to whether you can find any time for Rik Mayall's "punk Gene Wilder" act. Very clever, very hard work, and some pathos among the madness, but the movie's premise is developed so slowly the whole thing gets very tedious.

Drop Dead Fred (1991)Watching Drop Dead Fred as an adult is 100% different from watching Drop Dead Fred as a kid. Yes, I know that certain movies are like that - you'll pick up on jokes that you didn't get when you were eight years old...however, most don't give you an entirely different experience. If you haven't seen Drop Dead Fred, the basic synopsis is about a girl who goes to live with her (terrible) mother after she loses her car, her husband, and her job. As a kid, I remember cracking up at Fred's antics, flinging boogers at people and looking up the skirts of unsuspecting women. As an adult, this movie really ventures into dark territory. It's about a girl, verbally (and possibly physically) abused by her mother - so much so that her father ends up leaving. Finally an adult, she escapes the throngs of her household only to find herself completely co-dependent on men, and ends up in another abusive relationship - this time with an abusive husband. All the while, she conjures up an imaginary friend named Fred (who has a British accent, much like her father).Watching this as an adult, this movie has some heavy things going for it. Lizzy, the main character, definitely has issues upon issues. It's actually fun to see her transformation from co-dependent to independent. Fred's humor doesn't exactly do it for me anymore, but the scenes in which he's simply making Lizzy's body move are still hilarious (a standout scene in an Italian restaurant comes to mind). The acting is fairly pedestrian, the only real standout being Phoebe Cates as Lizzy. Since this, the director went back overseas and hasn't done any movies that I've heard of since then.Kids movies were definitely different back then. Watching this now, I can honestly say that I don't think this is a good movie for kids, but if you saw it when you were younger, it's definitely worth another exploration now.Final Score: 3/5