Dead Man on Campus (Film Review)

1998 Paramount Pictures/MTV Productions
Directed by: Alan Cohn; Written by: Michael Traeger and Mike White (Story by: Anthony Abrams and Adam Larson Broder)
Starring: Tom Everett Scott and Mark-Paul Gosselaar
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 96 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

Josh, a high-achiever, has made it to college on scholarship. Cooper, Josh's new roommate, is the son of a wealthy businessman, and his greatest achievement is not losing his bong. Josh tries to remain studious, as Cooper fills their dorm room with booze, drugs, women, and plenty of parties. Eventually, the allure of not working and making out with co-eds lures Josh away from his school books, and before he knows it, like Cooper, he is on the verge of flunking out. Scared he'll lose his scholarship, Josh gets desperate, but not quite as desperate as Cooper, who doesn't want to disappoint his father. Cooper thinks that if the duo can get another roommate to move in, and that new roommate kills himself, Josh and Cooper will receive passing grades from the university. Josh resists the plan at first, but eventually comes around to Cooper's idea of finding the most suicidal, self-destructive roommate...and thus the hunt for the future Dead Man on Campus begins.
Dead Man on Campus makes a bad taste agreement with its audience, then moves far past that. It takes balls to cast Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Zach Morris himself, as one of your two leads, have him act like a complete and total miscreant, AND THEN have him come up with the idea that he should hunt for a new roommate who's at the edge of suicide and try to push him over it. It takes perhaps even bigger balls to cast Tom Everett Scott, the all-American late 90's all-star, and have him become a morally corrupted co-conspirator with Mark-Paul Gosselaar. It's only the innate likability of Scott that keeps the movie from falling into a purely evil vibe, along with just how convincing Gosselaar is at what essentially amounts to a sociopathic puppy dog. Cooper's outward good-nature makes it easy for everyone around him to not just go along with his schemes, but to some degree accept his completely amoral lifestyle and character.
Yes, there's a lot of yuck here, but there's also a lot of delicious, late 90's flavor. There are also plenty of laughs, some very fun side-character performances (i.e. Lochlyn Munro as the psychotic, hyperactive, Cliff, and Jason Segal as the irrationally angry, pent-up Catholic school boy, Kyle), and a great soundtrack and generally lovely late-millennium haze in this film about two good-looking guys attempting to get one of their less fortunate classmates to commit suicide. Indeed, Dead Man on Campus is like a well-seasoned stew, where the meat and potatoes are about as ripe as possible before rotting.