Drop Dead Fred

I had fun watching Drop Dead Fred, but I want to take special care not to raise expectations unrealistically by overpraising it. The movie is no comic masterpiece, but it is consistently amusing in a way that sometimes reminded me of a kiddie picture and at other times of a more sophisticated comedy. Read full review

Drop Dead Fred is an erratic stab at making madness sensible, a slapstick nightmare that goes too sane, that tries too hard to be both good and rotten. Read full review

Oscillating between long arid stretches, inspired explosions of slapstick and disarming warmth, Drop Dead Fred [suggested by a story by Elizabeth Livingston] has an almost irresistible premise - kid's imaginary friend comes back to help the grown woman work out her problems - but it's probably too slow and mushy for kids and too sporadic in its rewards for adults. Read full review

Whether or not you're a fan of De Jong's earlier work, Drop Dead Fred is clearly an extension of it. There's even a touch of Peter Pan and Wendy in the relationship between Mayall and Cates ("He's like my best friend, and yet I'm scared to death of him"), who has a ball with the role. Read full review

There is scarcely a laugh to be had unless you are six years old or immoderately fond of such wheezes as depositing dog poop on a white carpet. Read full review

Children may delight in some of DROP DEAD FRED's fanciful effects sequences, but they're likely to be bored by Elizabeth's grown-up problems. And adults may identify with its self-help message, but the rest is squirm-inducing. Read full review

This boisterous comedy allows Mayall to be completely naughty, to shock, to offend...and to exasperate beyond belief. Read full review

It's rare that a movie so cleverly conceived is so poorly executed.

The problem with the realization of this concept, Drop Dead Fred, is its lack of subtlety. The filmmakers go too broad. Where there should be whimsy, there is grating farce. The character of Fred is like "Laugh-In" comedian Alan Sues doing Monty Python comedy skits on Billy Idol for "Sesame Street." Whenever he's onscreen, he's picking his nose and slinging food and muttering insults. Early into the movie, he gets on your nerves. [24 May 1991, p.52]

Drop Dead Fred wants to be an offbeat cross between "Harvey" and "Beetlejuice," but it is more like a shrill, interminable episode of "I Dream of Jeannie." Read full review

Somewhere between conception and execution the movie turned sour and most of the cuteness was replaced with venom and malice. Read full review

The film is in desperate need of flow. It plays like a collection of bits, skits that have been thrown together with little eye to continuity. Read full review

Mayall`s hyper portrayal of Fred, while psychologically sound, is dramatically torture. Read full review

I found it to be extremely annoying, childish and simple-minded. [24 May 1991, p.G11]

Billed as a comedy, it's draped over dreary gags and irritating manic overacting on the part of its co-star, British comic actor Rik Mayall. [24 May 1991, p.E7]

Fred is DOA, but he and the Diceman will kick up a storm at December's 10- worst time. [24 May 1991, p.7D]

While in theory this seems like an altogether valid notion, in practice it falls apart because Fred is such an obnoxious boil of a character. Instead of wanting to release him you want to deposit him in a Davey Tree Grinder. Painful death, that's what this trickster deserves. Read full review

As the naughty ghost pal of Phoebe Cates, an obnoxious British actor named Rik Mayall is like Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice without the juice. In Drop Dead Fred, all he does is smash and spill things and say many, many potty words. Read full review

This is easily one of the worst films I`ve ever seen. Read full review