Director: Alan Cohn Release Date: August 21 1998 Screenplay: Mike White, Micheal Traegar Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes Cast: Mark Paul Gosslaar, Tom Everett Scott, Jason Segal, Poppy Montgomery, Alyson Hannigan Rating: R Genre: College, Comedy
Review
If you are looking for a movie to just kick back and watch a movie about two goofball roommates then Dead Man on Campus is the movie for you.This film is labeled a stoner comedy and when you watch it you can see why it has a list of goofy characters and the standard use of drug culture that was prevalent in nineties pop culture but it also covered the issues that still plague colleges around the world today like suicide, mental illness and, the stress of not performing well in school. I would recommend Dead Man on Campus as long as you have a thick skin when it comes to crude humor and the like. The movie follows a student named Josh (Tom Everett Scott) and his roommate Cooper (Mark Paul Gosslaar) through their first semester at Daleman college. These two roommates fall into the trap of constant partying and having more fun then studying which causes the two of them to be failing at midterms. This revelation causes the two to look up an obscure rule in the school charter to save their skins. This film is a nineties stoner comedy that follows the antics of two freshman students at Daleman college. This films run time is one hour and thirty-six minutes.
Dead Man on Campus highlights the struggles that college students face when it comes to trying to do well in school so that they do not disappoint their parents. Dead Man on Campus follows Josh through his first semester in medical school and how the new freedom and tough classes cause him to waver from his path of success and causes him to worry about losing his scholarship and causes him to worry about disappointing his mother. Josh has to find a way to keep his scholarship after falling off the wagon which most college students can relate to during their on freshman year.
Dead Man on Campus also portrays how the stress of being in college and trying to do well can have negative effects on a person's psychological health and well being. This film shows three different types of psychological illnesses that could cause someone to feel like they have no way out except through suicide. The three psychological illnesses that this film displays is schizophrenia, paranoia and, depression. These three psychological could drive anybody who is in the mind set of hopelessness to commit suicide. The three potential victims for Josh and Cooper's antics each display one of these psychological conditions and the duo try to use their conditions to help save their own hides so that they can stay in school at someones elses expense instead of hard work.
The acting in Dead Man on Campus is decent at best but that is fine because the characters that are in the film are funny to watch all of the way through the film. The best acting was done by Mark Paul Gosslaar who portrays Cooper as the spoiled rich kid with no worries well which is to be expected considering that he also portrayed a similar character on the television sitcom Saved by The Bell when he played Zack Morris. The rest of the cast were good characters as well but some of them lacked any depth and I did not see the need for them to be in the film because they were not developed at all. The characters that lacked depth in particular were the friends of Rachel who are there but you only know there name and nothing else about them.
This movie has its ups and downs but I would say overall it is a movie worth watching if you just have time to kill and want a few cheap laughs all while watching a bond of friendship grow through a horrible plan that goes awry at every turn. This movie is not one for the award shows but it can hang on to your attention for the duration of the film. I would recommend this movie to a viewer who does not take movies and what they represent to heart and just want to watch a crude but funny movie about two failing freshman in college.