Dead Man On Campus

I caught Dead Man on Campus on TV yesterday. I didn't even know the title of the movie until a few minutes ago. Of the actors, the only one I recognized was Alyson Hannigan of Buffy and band camp fame. It wasn't even a big role--as this movie came out in 1998, a year before band camp made her famous. Here, she was the best friend of the lead actor's love interest. And oh, her hair got burned.

A cursory check with the movie's credits in the International Movie Database revealed that the slacker roommate Cooper was played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, teen pinup from Saved By The Bell, and Josh, the nice boy gone bad, was played by Tom Everett Scott, of the one hit wonder film That Thing You Do.

As far as plot is concerned, this one doesn't have much. Here's the barebones summary from Imdb: "Two college roommates go out and party, resulting in bad grades. They learn of the "if your roommate dies, you get an A" clause, and decide to find someone who is "on the verge" so to speak to move in with them."

Their candidates included a geeky boy who thinks everyone is conspiring against him and a frat boy with a death wish. But my favorite is the British rock star wannabe whom turned out to be a poseur on all counts. "You can't be suicidal if you're into show tunes!" And he was a high school cheerleader too.

The film was billed as "the best college movie since Animal House." Call me geeky, but I personally think another college movie as more qualified. But then again, that's just me.

But forget the plot unoriginality, perhaps the best part of the movie was its opening sequence with its ingenious use of animation, SAT score sheets, human anatomy drawings, etc. In fact, the web site Forget the Film, Watch the Titles tells us to do just that. I missed the first two minutes, so here it is, courtesty of the good folks in YouTube: