Taglines: Roommate Wanted…For a Limited Time Only.
Dead Man on Campus movie storyline. Josh (Tom Everett Scott) gets into college on a scholarship, and Cooper (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is assigned as his roommate. Cooper does little work and instead spends all the time partying and consistently fails his courses, but his father continues to pay his tuition.
The normally studious Josh is led astray by Cooper’s lifestyle, and spends the first half of his first semester partying instead of studying, and consequently flunks all of his midterms. To his horror, he then finds out that a condition of his scholarship is a passing grade average each semester, and that with his poor midterm score, he needs an A+++ (which is impossible) in all of his courses or he will lose his scholarship.
Meanwhile, Cooper’s father finally realizes Cooper is not trying to pass his course at all, and threatens to pull his funding if he does not get a passing grade this semester, leaving him in a similar position. They find out about an obscure academic rule that states that if a student’s roommate commits suicide, then the roommates get perfect grades for that semester, regardless of any previous academic standing.
Cooper and Josh set out to find roommates who are likely to commit suicide; their first potential roommate, Cliff O’Malley (Lochlyn Munro), is more likely to get himself (and any one with him) killed than commit suicide. They soon realize that he will likely get them killed or arrested and jump out of his moving car when he is being chased by the police.
Next, they try Buckley Schrank (Randy Pearlstein), a computer geek who thinks Bill Gates wants his brain. After they move Buckley in, they try to help push him over the edge. First, Cooper poses as a suicide hotline volunteer, and when Buckley calls, he tells him that he is Bill Gates and wants his brain.
Then, Cooper buys equipment that may assist in a suicide (rope, daggers, prescription drugs) and as Josh and he are trying to plant the items around the dorm room, Buckley discovers the pair hiding from him with a noose and knife in hand. Buckley, who thinks that they are trying to kill him, and that the conspiracy to kill him and steal his brain is real, runs away.
Dead Man on Campus is a 1998 black comedy film starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tom Everett Scott. It centers on the urban legend that a student gets straight As if their roommate commits suicide (see pass by catastrophe). Two friends attempt to find a depressed roommate to push him over the edge and receive As.
To boost ticket sales in the theater, the film’s US release was timed with the start of the new college school year in late August 1998. It is the first film by MTV Films to have an R rating. The film was shot at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. The Curve, also known as Dead Man’s Curve, which came out in the same year, uses a similar plotline.
Dead Man on Campus (1998)
Directed by: Alan Cohn
Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Poppy Montgomery, Lochlyn Munro, Corey Page, Alyson Hannigan, Mari Morrow, Dave Ruby, Mark Carapezza, Linda Cardellini
Screenplay by: Michael Traeger, Mike White
Production Design by: Carol Winstead Wood
Cinematography by: John A. Thomas
Film Editing by: Debra Chiate
Costume Design by: Kathleen Detoro
Set Decoration by: Jan K. Bergstrom
Art Direction by: Gregory A. Weimerskirch
Music by: Mark Mothersbaugh
MPAA Rating: R for drug use, language and crude sexual humor.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: August 21, 1998
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