dead man on campus ( m ) . ( mtv/paramount/uip ) director : alan cohn stars : tom everett scott , mark-paul gosselaar , poppy montgomery , lochlyn munro , randy pearlstein , corey page , alyson hannigan , mari morrow , jason segel , dave ruby running time : 94 minutes . thankfully , this unheralded but surprisingly enjoyable comedy from the mtv channel eschews most of the clichés of the adolescent school genre . there's no psycho killer slashing his way through a hunky cast . there's no getting of wisdom through the pursuit of academic excellence . there's no discovering the pain of first love . there's none of the jocks versus the nerds stuff . there's not even the down trodden loser who eventually becomes a hero by bringing glory to his school through unlikely sporting prowess . hell , there's not a whiff of football , basketball or even debating here . keen to pursue a medical career , honour student josh ( tom everett scott , from that thing you do and the appalling an american werewolf in paris , etc ) comes to daleman college on a scholarship . his room mates are anything but the studious types . kyle ( jason segel ) is a repressed former catholic boys' school graduate who suddenly discovers the joys of sex and moves out . cooper ( mark-paul gosselaar , from tv sitcom saved by the bell , etc ) is a smooth scam artist who plans to do anything but study during his college years . cooper quickly leads josh into a routine of heavy partying , and his grades quickly drop . faced with losing his scholarship , josh needs to turn his grades around . meanwhile , cooper's father , a wealthy business man who runs a toilet cleaning company , promises cooper that if he doesn't graduate he will learn the family business from the bottom up ( so to speak ) . the pair find a hint of salvation through an arcane and almost forgotten college by-law that guarantees passing grades to students on compassionate grounds if their roommate suddenly dies . the hunt is on for the pair to find the most neurotic , potentially suicidal kid in school and move him into their room before pushing him over the edge . intensive research uncovers three likely prospects . cliff ( lochlyn munro ) , a true party animal who lives dangerously , but seems invulnerable ; buckley ( randy pearlstein , from the cowboy way , etc ) , a paranoid schizophrenic who believes everyone is out to get him , especially computer billionaire bill gates ; while matt ( aussie actor corey page , from heartbreak high , etc ) , a depressed heavy metal rocker , is not quite what he seems . dead man on campus takes its unusual premise from a famous urban legend and milks it for laughs . given the subject matter , there's plenty of potential for a wicked black comedy , but first time feature director alan cohn keeps proceedings light and upbeat . there are plenty of funny moments throughout , and the film unfolds with lots of slapstick humour and energy . the pace picks up in the second half during the frantic search for the perfect suicidal room mate . performances are more than adequate for this type of film , although gosselaar brings plenty of easy going charm to his role as the scheming cooper . scott also brings a manic energy to his role as the increasingly frustrated and desperate josh . produced under the auspices of mtv ( other features include joe's apartment and beavis and butthead do america ) , dead man on campus boasts a solid soundtrack of cutting edge , contemporary rockers . dead man on campus is not a cinematic masterpiece , nor does it have pretensions towards having anything deep and meaningful to say . however , it offers plenty to satisfy and will certainly amuse its targeted audience . 
