Dead Man's Curve revolves around an urban legend that if your college roommate commits suicide, you get pass grades for the term to help ease your pain. Enter Chris {Michael Vartan} and Tim {Matthew Lillard} who decide to test this theory by offing their buddy Rand {Randall Batinkoff}. It's a deliciously evil premise that thankfully, in spite of the film's low reputation, makes for an enjoyable genre spliced viewing.Directed and written by Dan Rosen, Dead Man's Curve has a clever plot at its core, our pair of rotters, tho Chris is a sheepish accomplice to the dominant Tim, set it up nicely by way of chatty concerns with the school psychologist and the shifty purchase of depressing music. Aided by some women troubles in the mix, the pair execute their plan, but all is not quite that simple as the plot unravels it twists and turns and delivers an ending that is as genius as it is unexpected. And that's in a good way as well.The young cast, handsome and ebullient, do fine work here, particularly Lillard, who expands on his loony turn in Scream from two years earlier with much maniacal relish. The older actors, however, don't fair so well, courtesy of either being underwritten or merely for being plot fillers. But hey, if all lady psychologist's look like Dana Delaney then I'm going to sign myself up for a bit of therapy.Naturally with a premise like this it's far from perfect and the implausibility factors are high, but Rosen has a wry observation on American dorm life. Be it the pressures of success or the need to be part of a group, Rosen and his on form cast have created a darkly comic piece of devilment. The soundtrack is excellent, and for sure it's laden with misery from the likes of The Smiths and Bauhaus, while the Elk Neck Lighthouse location work evokes memories of tidy creepers from days of yore.A fine story told and executed well, give it a go and you may just be as pleasantly surprised as I was. 7/10

Three college roommates would die to attend grad school at Harvard - but, their grades are wack. "It's either an MBA from Harvard or you're flipping burgers." So, after some partying, two of them decide to kill the third, and make it look like a suicide. The reason being the "standard practice" of giving traumatized roommates of suicide victims an automatic 4.0 grade point average for the semester. The three dudes are: psycho Matthew Lillard (as Tim), impotent Michael Vartan (as Chris), and contemptible Randall Batinkoff (as Rand).Their pretty blonde girlfriends, fickle Keri Russell (as Emma) and possibly pregnant Tamara Craig Thomas (as Natalie), are also roommates. Debuting director Dan Rosen's "Dead Man's Curve" characters definitely need a college shrink; and, this is the job filled by nicotine-addicted Dana Delany (as Dr. Ashley). The story, especially during the last act, needs some doctoring, too. Re-titled "The Curve", it has noting to do with the Jan & Dean's death drag classic played over the closing credits.**** Dead Man's Curve (1/24/98) Dan Rosen ~ Matthew Lillard, Michael Vartan, Randall Batinkoff

OK, this movie starts out like a really bad college movie...but the ending is great. even my parents loved it. but the thing i really love about this movie is....it was filmed at my school! Johns Hopkins University!! of course, you will never see this in the credits, because i bet that Hopkins didn't want to have anything to do with it...it shows the faculty (especially the counselor) as being incomparably incompetent (which is totally the case at JHU) so I figure they didn't want anybody to see this and think that this might be what JHU is like. but anyways... the movie has a really nice twist at the end, and the acting is pretty good. i would recommend it, especially to anybody who is thinking about attending Johns Hopkins. I still don't know where that lighthouse is tho.

This is another 'get-on-in-the-teen-slasher-movie' kind of movie. The twist are reasonably clever up to a point. The lead guy, Matthew Lillard is never going to be as funny as (the good) Jim Carrey, as A-class as Tom Cruise so is only left to be as annoying as Tom Green but that would be difficult even for this guy. Overall, much of the same. Nothing special, Nothing offensively bad but just a bit boring really because the script had no spark whatsoever. 6/10