As a satire of new-style collegiate types, this MTV production actually evinces a few germs of rancid wit. If only the laborious high-concept plot had been deep-sixed -- and, along with it, the cynically blah heroes.
Dead Man on Campus (1998)
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Synopsis: Dark comedy based on the apocryphal university policy of awarding straight A's to students whose roomates kill themselves. Two freshman dunces seek to boost their academic performance by inviting a series of depressed, self-destructive classmates to share their dormitory suite.... Dark comedy based on the apocryphal university policy of awarding straight A's to students whose roomates kill themselves. Two freshman dunces seek to boost their academic performance by inviting a series of depressed, self-destructive classmates to share their dormitory suite. [More]
Genre: Comedies
Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Poppy Montgomery, Lochlyn Munro, Randy Pearlstein
Producer: Gale Anne Hurd
Screenwriter: Michael Traeger, Mike White
Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh
Reviews
It is a movie whose appeal will diminish in direct proportion to the number of years it has been since you were a sexually-frustrated, pimply-faced undergrad.
This limp 1998 comedy tries hard to be both irreverent and ethical by suggesting that deceit motivated by self-interest is OK as long as no one gets hurt.
Surpise, surprise! This college comedy is better than you'd expect.
Dead Man will remind any college grad of the fun and freedom of freshman year, and the wide variety of personalities met there.
Some of the endless drug-sex-rock-’n’-roll gags are cute, but most are so paper-thin they disintegrate on contact with fresh air.
If you have a roommate you really want to see suffer, here's a suggestion: Buy him or her a ticket to Dead Man on Campus.
Maybe it was my low expectations, but I actually think that people will not appreciate how much suckage was avoided in the making of this film.
The trouble is that it's not remotely funny enough not to seem merely strained, silly and even disgusting in its ultimate endorsement of conning your way into academic survival.
All three would-be suicides are over the top and fun to watch. Too bad the film they're in seems to have been at least partly written and directed by Beavis and Butt-head.
Have you seen the one about the college kids who try to get their roommate to kill himself so they can get straight As? Oh, you have?
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