Dead Man on Campus (1998)

Dead Man on Campus is a 1998 dark comedy film starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tom Everett Scott. It centers on the urban legend that a student gets straight As if his or her roommate commits suicide (see pass by catastrophe). Two friends attempt to find a depressed roommate in order 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.

Synopsis

Josh (Tom Everett Scott) gets in to 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 course, but his father continues to fund him through college. 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 mid-terms. 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 mid-term score he needs an A+++ (which is impossible) in all of his courses or he will lose his scholarship.

Actors