The Great Outdoors

The Great Outdoors is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Howard Deutch, written and produced by John Hughes, and starring Dan Aykroyd and John Candy with supporting roles done by Stephanie Faracy, Annette Bening (in her film debut), Chris Young, Lucy Deakins, and Robert Prosky. The film is about two families spending a vacation at a lake resort in the fictional town of Pechoggin, Wisconsin. Aykroyd, Candy, and Young reprise their roles from Hughes' previous film, She's Having a Baby. The film was met with mixed reviews, but has since gained a cult following. Plot Chicagoan Chester "Chet" Ripley, his wife Connie, and their two sons Buckley "Buck" and Ben are spending a week vacationing at Wally and Juanita's Perk's Pine Lodge Resort in Pechoggin, Wisconsin, for the summer. They get a vacation cabin called The Loon's Nest from its owner Wally. All goes as planned until Connie's sister Kate, her investment broker husband Roman Craig, and their twin daughters Mara and Cara arrive uninvited. Ghost stories after the family BBQ include one of a man-eating grizzly bear that Chet met directly when he was younger. Chet says that while he and Connie were honeymooning at the same lake, he was attacked by a giant grizzly bear. When he fired at it with a shotgun, the buckshot shaved the hair off the top of the bear's head and from then on, it was known as the "Bald-Headed Bear" of Clare County.