Further supporting the belief that late August is the dumping ground, graveyard, or junkyard -- if you will -- of the summer movie season, "Dead Man On Campus" is a one note comedy that's not very funny when it could have been quite morbidly clever. Produced by Viacom siblings Paramount Studios and MTV -- and directed by one of the latter's non-music video directors -- this film might marginally play well with college-age crowds, but even they should be less than impressed with this film's lackluster execution.
Based on the decades old rumor that if one's college roommate perishes during the school year, automatic high grades will be awarded to the "survivor," the film has plenty of black comedy potential, but mostly squanders all of it away due to its weak and unimaginative plot.
If a film's going to use suicide as its core theme -- a tricky and touchy proposition that has to be handled just right -- it can come off as deliciously wicked satire. Burt Reynolds tried to do that in the 1978 goofy comedy, "The End" and while that film wasn't great, it seems magnificent when compared to this near meaningless production.
While we certainly don't condone such activity, if the story's going for black comedy and its protagonists need a suicide, then they need to be rather proactive in their means and the subject matter needs to be taken to the extreme. While the characters here set out to find the right candidate, and do what they can to get any of their three choices to move in with them, they drop the ball once they accomplish that goal.
Although a brief "scare" scene occurs when their paranoid suite-mate finds the "roomies" in the shower holding a noose and knife, that's about it for their efforts to push them over the edge. (Note: The film never explains how suite-mates qualify as roommates -- meaning their demise should only warrant straight C's at best). Instead, the guys sit back and wait for something to happen and the humor is presumably supposed to originate from their reactions to their "whacked out" new suite-mates and their idiosyncracies.
While a few laughs occasionally pop up -- including one where a girl's hair catches on fire in the true juvenile spirit of "There's Something About Mary" -- the rest of the material falls flat on its face. Previously unproduced screenwriters Mike White and Michael Traeger are mostly to blame, for their script neither hits the necessary wicked comedy marks, nor does it capture or paint any new outlook on college life that we haven't already seen in countless other films.
Taking around thirty minutes before getting around to the deceased roommate element, and another twenty minutes or so before finally meeting some potential candidates, they've filled their script with long, laborious scenes (featuring quick, but ineffective MTV style editing) that are decidedly not very funny.
Of course, one can't solely fault them, and thus we point out director Alan Cohn who also makes his feature film debut after working on MTV programs such as "The Real World." Other than for a few brief laughs, Cohn doesn't do much with the material or elicit much of anything substantial from his cast.
As such, the performances are what you'd expect from a standard teenage/college comedy. Tom Everett Scott, who made such an impressive debut in "That Thing You Do," partially redeems himself from appearing in the awful "An American Werewolf in Paris," but still raises the question about whether he's a one hit wonder (or "oneder" as his band was called in that Tom Hanks film).
Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who appeared for years playing Zak on TV's "Saved By The Bell," makes his feature film debut with this picture. Other than looking like something of a cross between actors Dean Cain and Matthew Perry (from TV's "Superman" and "Friends" respectively), though, his performance is unremarkable.
All of which leaves the supporting cast to take up the slack. Lochlyn Munro is occasionally funny in an absurdist type of way, but a little of his hyper, over the top student routine goes a long way. Randy Pearlstein plays the stereotypical paranoid geek with glee, while Corey Page does an okay turn as the despondent, but poetic punk rocker.
About as lame as one would expect from a teen comedy released during the garbage run of the summer season, this film will only find a limited audience before quickly "graduating" to the video shelves of your local rental store. Missing a golden opportunity to really let loose with the black comedy, "Dead Man On Campus" is an unremarkable and easily forgettable film. We give it just a 2 out of 10.