BETTER OFF DEAD. 1985

A jokey movie about teen suicide could be a swell black comedy, or a tasteless insult to family who've lost children to depression. This fluff film is too trivialy kitschy to succeed in either direction. Except for Cussack, most of the teenagers look closer to thirty.

If this had been a viewer's one & only John Cussack film ever seen, there wouldn't be much of a hint of the great talent he is capable of being. He needed to see Bud Cort playing Harold in Harold & Maud a few more times or something.

The film is as dull as a nurf-ball fight, yet fans of dullard comedies often seem to like it. Perhaps to viewers who personally pretended to be suicidal circa 1985, it's somehow right on the money.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl