On D List of Movie Reviews

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Dead Man on Campus (1998)

Rate: 8
Viewed: 2/21

2/21: For a MTV picture, Dead Man on Campus scores big time.

Right off the bat, it's Michael Traeger and Mike White's writing that's impressive which may be the primary reason why everybody signed on the project. Getting Tom Everett Scott and Saved by the Bell's Mark-Paul Gosselaar for the cast is the clincher.

The result is true comedy. It's a funny, clever movie. The two principal stars work off each other very well: Scott and Gosselaar as Abbott and Costello, respectively. Adding a few more guys into the mix makes it more insane in terms of hijinks: Lochlyn Munro, Jason Segel, and Randy Pearlstein.

I find it funny if a roommate commits suicide, everybody living with him will automatically get all A's as a consolation. That being said, I kept the concept in mind when I went to college for the first time, and two murders happened in a six months' time. The killer lived one floor above me, and I had talked to him a few times before. Academically speaking, which had nothing to do with the murders, I had too many B's, and it would be the first and last time this happened. Unfortunately, after the second murder, everything changed, and my college experience started to suck, prompting me to transfer out the following year. Of course, the B's that I had weren't automatically converted into A's.

All in all, Dead Man on Campus is a well-made black comedy picture with a fantastic script and strong performances.

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