DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS

• Starring Tom Everett Scott and Mark-Paul Gosselaar
• Directed by Alan Cohn
• Rated R, with profanity, implied sex; running time 90 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 2

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Aug. 21, 1998) -- Dead Man on Campus is a dead movie at the multiplex.

Though the MTV-produced comedy starts with the momentum of an Animal House for the '90s, the film quickly degenerates into its silly, one-joke premise that's not edgy enough to offend or imaginative enough to be funny.

Dead Man on Campus is based on a long-standing "urban legend," apparently prominent on many college campuses. Known as "the dead man's clause," it holds that if a student's roommate dies, the survivor gets a 4.0 average (supposedly to avoid further anguish).

As stupid as that sounds, my collegiate daughter has heard such rumors, though no one has ever confirmed such a thing.

Tom Everett Scott plays Josh, a studious pre-med student who needs a B-plus average to hold his full scholarship. However, he succumbs to the relentless party temptations of his determinedly decadent roommate, Cooper (Mark-Paul Gosselaar).

After disastrous mid-terms, both realize they're doomed to flunk out. That's when Cooper discovers "the dead man's clause."

In an utterly sophomoric sequence, they infiltrate the college's psych department like Mission: Impossible operatives and steal student records. Their goal: Find the most suicidal students on campus and pick one to move in with them. Then, with a little goading, maybe he'll go over the edge and kill himself.

It takes nearly half the film for that premise to kick in; once it does, the film degenerates into a parade of cliched wackos, as Josh and Cooper test their theory on various would-be roommates.

And when all else fails, Josh comes up with another idea, and it's even more stupid.

Scott is the appealing, up-and-comer who starred as the drummer in That Thing You Do, directed by his senior-level look-alike, Tom Hanks. And Scott's winning ways are enough to lure moviegoers into Dead Man on Campus.

But under the first-feature direction of Alan Cohn, Dead Man on Campus is doomed. And, by the way, my aforementioned collegiate daughter? Though she's presumably among the film's target audience, she and a friend left the movie after 45 minutes and went down the hall to revisit Halloween H20.