Better Off Dead
With a style that combines the anything goes comic madness of the ZAZ boys with the absurdist surrealism of Luis Bunuel, then mixed together in its own unique 80s blender, this cult classic is certainly one of the strangest achievements of its era. John Cusack (in a role he later disowned) stars as a confused teen just a bit too obsessed with his girlfriend (Amanda Wyss), and when she breaks up with him, embarks on a series of suicide attempts with haphazard results. Overall though, the Cusack character comes off as just another comic prop in the film, while the real star is writer / director Savage Steve Holland, constantly coming up with a series of off the wall gags, most of them actually work to perfection. Whether it be the disturbed paperboy who relentlessly stalks Cusack throughout the film (right up to the final shot), to the dancing hamburger that starts singing Van Halen, to the obese nerd across the street who assumes he has exclusive rights to the cute French foreign exchange student living with him, this is a film that takes a look at teen angst in a way that makes Holland seem like the anti-John Hughes. If one is looking for a realistic depiction of high school life, they should probably look elsewhere (like the math class where the students are actually enthusiastic about what they’re learning). In addition, the film boasts one of the most eclectic supporting casts of comic characters ever, from Cusack’s zany mom played by Kim Darby (whose cooking is so bad she actually wraps and gives frozen dinners to her family as Christmas presents), to the two Chinese guys who constantly challenge Cusack to drag races while one does a spot-on impression of Howard Cosell, to Curtis “Booger” Armstrong’s Charles De Mar, so desperate for drugs that he resorts to snorting jello and snow off a mountain while skiing. We get all this plus Chuck “Porky” Mitchell, Vincent Schiavelli, Taylor Negron, and the always adorable and welcome Elizabeth Daily in offbeat cameo parts throughout. The big drawback, ironically, is Cusack himself: we never get drawn into the Lane Meyer character enough to actually want to root for him, and as a result, the film seems to lack a heart and emotional resonance that the best comedies have, even as he tries to cultivate a romance with Diane Franklin’s French girl. It’s all for naught though as the hilarious gags pretty much carry the film and carry it well, right down to the little moments that some may not notice on a first viewing. When it first came out in 1985, it certainly marked Savage Steve as a comic force to be reckoned with (before he descended into the mediocrity of original Disney Channel programming). This is one of those comedies that when it hits, it hits pretty big, and hardly ever misses, and it’s a shame that Holland didn’t work steadily enough over the last 25 years since it came out, as he could be hailed as a genius by now, but nonetheless, this movie will live on as a skewed look at the tough times that every teenage boy must endure…
8/10