The Great Outdoors

Chet Ripley, his wife Connie and their sons head to a lakeside cabin in Wisconsin, where Chet hopes to fish and spend quiet time with his family in the outdoors he remembers from childhood. Their plans are disrupted when Connie's sister Kate arrives unannounced with her husband Roman Craig, a wealthy and self-satisfied businessman, and the couple's twin daughters. The two families have little in common, and a week together in close quarters produces friction, competition and comic mishaps.

The film was directed by Howard Deutch and written by John Hughes, who also produced it through Hughes Entertainment with Universal Pictures. It was Deutch's third feature, following Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful, and it continues his run of collaborations with Hughes. John Candy plays Chet, with Dan Aykroyd as Roman, Stephanie Faracy as Connie, Annette Bening as Kate, Chris Young as Buck and Lucy Deakins as Cammie. The credited cast runs to twenty-seven names.

Released in June 1988, the comedy runs 91 minutes and cost about 24 million dollars to make, going on to take roughly 43 million dollars worldwide. Its critics' rating sits at 4.9 out of 10 from 36 reviews, while audiences are more favourable: on IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 57,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 out of 10 from several hundred votes.