On August 23, 1985, the Warner Bros. teen comedy “Better Off Dead” starring John Cusack was released. The film, written and directed by Savage Steve Holland, grossed $10 million in U.S. theaters. The original Hollywood Reporter review can be found below:
As title Better dead doesn’t give much of a clue as to what the film is about. However, it does reflect a likely audience reaction to this crude, cartoonish comedy. Not surprisingly, Warner Bros. did a lot of research – secretly Dead in places like Denver – to figure out what to do with this one other than stamp the opening “DOA.”
John Cusack plays a nearsighted high school student who is in love with a perky blonde (Amanda Wyss), who leaves him for the obnoxious captain of the school’s ski team (Aaron Dozier). While the plot structure may seem like another faded August release, the love triangle in this film written and directed by Savage Steve Holland has an unusual twist – the character Cusack is not a victorious underdog, but actually just “a non-entity” in life, as Wyss aptly describes it. Indicative of Cusack’s dynamic is his penchant for standing in front of the bathroom mirror and sticking cotton swabs in his mouth. That’s how funny the film is.
Although relentlessly childish, Better dead reflects a strong and broken wit from Savage Steve Holland. Undeniably he has a sense of humor. But he obviously lacks comedic talent: DeadThe crazy look at high school romance and the life of a middle-class family is so exaggerated, so full of cynicism and as raw as Katzenjammer that Better dead comes across as a crass comic strip. All the characters are grotesque. Besides the phlegmatic Cusack, the Nazi-like skier Dozier and the fickle Wyss, there is also: a demented paperboy who would kill for overdue bills (Demian Slade), an Asian race car driver who talks like Howard Cosell, a goofy boss of the local Pig Burger Drive-In (Chuck Mitchell), a Jell-O snorting sidekick who carries around a jar filled with what looks like a pig fetus (Curtis Armstrong), and others too vague to waste space describing.
Structurally, the film ploughs along in the low-budget high school romance form, with countless repetitions of visual gags and familiar jokes. Borrowings from other films, including Hitchcock – Cusack’s mother cooks the most gruesome meals this side of rage — and silent comedies are thrown into this story and then put on high speed mix.
The film’s technical achievements are highlighted by its eccentric view of central America, a credit to Holland and his production designer Herman Zimmerman. Music is also often wittily interspersed; a performance of “Mannish Boy” in which Muddy Waters howls as a counterpoint to Cusack’s puny character gives the film a peculiar texture.
In the end, as in the entire film, the strange never exceeds the banality. — Duane Byrge, originally published October 7, 1985.
