13 Jul Review – Assault of the Party Nerds

FlixFling Contributor, Jordana Lipsitz reviews Assault of the Party Nerds

When it came to choosing my next movie to review, it was almost love at first sight.  I saw Assault of the Party Nerds (1989) as a title on the list of movies and my mind was automatically made.  It was sunshine and butterflies and romance. Who doesn’t love movies with college parties and ridiculous nerd vs. jock antics?  Not a fool, a darn fool!

Assault of the Party Nerds is the story of four unusually nerdy frat boys of Lambda Eta Tau:  Ritchie (Richard Gabal), W.O.L.A (Richard Rifkin),TK (Joe Whyte), and Scott (Marc Silverberg).  In order to continue on their legacy, they aim to throw the grandest pledge party of the year. Meanwhile the other fraternity, Zeta Alpha Mu aims to completely screw them over.  It was a beautiful idea.

However, little did I know Assault of the Party Nerds was also a bit of a soft-core pornography. It was quite an exciting development! So many breasts! I sat, blushing tremendously while my male roommates giggled excessively.  The film was full of innuendos and full out topless female nudity from the female girlfriends of the characters. However I can’t decide if it was really that brazen or if I was just being a bit prudish.  Does partial nudity of the male and female form mean brazenness? Who decides that?

The innuendos were the (less than subtle) mentioning of their homosexual yearnings, which made me uncomfortable. The homosexuality of the jocks Cliff (Kevin Glover), Bud (C. Paul Dempsey), and Chip (Robert Mann) seemed more like a punishment for their horrendous behavior.  It seemed like the idea was that they were horrible people because they were gay. I am not an expert on the history of comedy so I found it interesting how recently homophobic comedy was appreciated.

Despite this I appreciated one aspect of the movie’s goofy antics. College parties are not ever what they seem in the movies. It was sort of a disappointment at my first fraternity party when nothing much happened except that I threw up on one of my friend’s feet. However, in Assault of the Party Nerds, I felt like the party the guys threw was actually a pretty accurate party: Nothing too crazy, just a normal party that a great deal of money was spent on. I appreciated it and this party situation including its fast cuts impressed me. This made all the annoying issues go away.

I could potentially watch this move again if I needed something to watch when I wanted to make fun of something and just laugh at the stupidity and low budget nature of the movie. I’m reasonably excited for the sequel, Assault of the Party Nerds 2: The Heavy Petting Detective (1995). I think it might be one of those occasions where a sequel is much better.