Drop Dead Fred



“Do you remember when I was little, I had a friend, he was make-believe?”

            I am sure that you reading this post had an imaginary friend when you were little. I am sure that right now you are thinking back to your childhood back when you and your “friend” had great times wreaking havoc on your mom and siblings or enjoying tea time and playing pretend. Drop Dead Fred brings back all those memories you may want to keep hidden and never tell anyone that you had an imaginary friend.

            Phoebe Cates plays Lizzie. When Lizzie was younger she an imaginary friend named Drop Dead Fred. Together the two friends made life a living hell for her mother who wanted Lizzie to be the perfect child. Fred “made” her do all kinds of insane things like pretending to rob the house in the middle of the night and making actual mud pies on the dining room table. After the mud pie incident Lizzie’s mom had enough. She takes the jack-in-the-box where Fred apparently lives and tapes the box up ending Lizzie’s friendship with her troublesome imaginary friend.

            Twenty-one years later Lizzie is all grown up and married. Unfortunately her husband is a cheat and her life is just not going the way she wanted. One night she goes back to her old house with her mother. She goes to her room where all her toys are and finds the jack-in-the-box where Fred had lived. She puts the toy on the windowsill when all the sudden the handle on the box starts to turn cranking out the jingle. Next thing standing above Lizzie is her long lost friend Drop Dead Fred!

            Before the next day even begins Fred is wreaking havoc on Lizzie’s life. Everyone begins to think she is going crazy and needing some serious help.

            Cates played Lizzie very well. She was very good as a naïve young woman who was having a hard time in her life and Fred helped her to be a stronger adult and helped her not to be pushed around anymore. Rik Mayall was a boundless amount of energy as Fred I got tired just watching him after a while. Carrie Fischer shows up in the movie as a friend of Lizzie’s.

            Drop Dead Fred to me was all about being a kid and how your inner child just never leaves you it is always there buried deep and comes out when things get rough. I am not ashamed to say when I get stressed out all I want to do is hug my stuffed animal and never let it go like my life depended on it just as if I was a little kid again. Drop Dead Fred is a good movie, it is not one of my favorites but if you have a good sense of humor and need reminding of how you miss your childhood when times when simpler you will most likely enjoy the movie.