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Better Off Dead [1985]


RRP: £15.99
Our Price: £2.85 (subject to change)

Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

In Better off Dead, Lane Myer (John Cusack) is stuck in a personal hell. A compulsive adolescent everyman growing up in Suburbia, USA; not only does he fail to make the prestigious high-school ski team (again), but his beloved sweetheart, Beth, also leaves him for Roy, the team's popular arrogant captain. If this isn't bad enough, he's stuck with a mother who frighteningly experiments--rather than cooks--with food, a brother who builds rockets out of models, and a best friend so desperate for drugs that he settles for snorting powdered snow. Faced with these prospects, Lane opts to end it all... until he comes up with a ridiculous plan to gain acceptance and win Beth back.

Director Savage Steve Holland warps this simple, clichéd premise, letting his wacky imagination twist it into a fairly original, slightly dark, and completely hilarious 80s teen comedy. Not as serious a "suicide-attempt" movie as, say, Harold and Maude but just as funny, the film is more a collection of screwball sketches than a narrative. Holland enlivens the high jinks with surrealistic fantasy touches, including Jell-O that crawls, a hamburger that sings Van Halen, drawings that mock its creator, and a psychotic paperboy seeking blood over a missing two dollars. Cusack puts the whole thing on his shoulders and carries the insanity with another one of his touching, obsessively romantic performances, which along with Say Anything, The Sure Thing and One Crazy Summer, made him the quintessential (and appealing) personification of lovestruck adolescence and suffering. --Dave McCoy

Editorial
Synopsis

Lane Myer's (John Cusack) dreams are shattered when his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss) decides she prefers the company of a sleazy ski jock over his own. This disheartening news leads Lane to attempt to take his own life in various ways--all of which never seem to work out. But if he can beat Beth's new boyfriend in a ski run down the treacherous K-12, he may be able to win her back. Along the way, Lane also encounters a beautiful French exchange student, a nasal spray-snorting neighbour, a rabid newspaper boy, and dancing hamburgers. "Savage" Steve Holland (ONE CRAZY SUMMER) directs this 1985 cult favourite.

Terrible!!
Review date: 2007-10-13 Rating: 2 out of 10

I rented this from Amazon because I have recently enjoyed watching some 80s films that were actually very good such as : 'Breakfast Club', 'St Elmos Fire', and 'About Last Night'. I saw the reviews on here for this movie and seeing how glowing they were I gave it a go although I had never heard of it before. Well, me and my partner sat down to watch this earlier and we could only stand 15 minutes of it. It really is very lame indeed. I am no film critic so I cant be specific about why this film sucks, but look here I know a good film when I watch it and I reckon I have reasonable tastes. Trust me - this film is a stone cold turkey. Avoid.

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Reviews


Teen-age angst at its funniest
Review date: 2004-12-17 Rating: 10 out of 10

Lane Meyer (Cusack) has the entire standard (only if they are yours not so standard) problems and people to put up with. He has a car (if he puts it together.) He has a mother that makes boiled bacon and many other delicacies. The standard mix of schoolmates and a love problem. Naturally everything is going down hill until the neighbors bring in a female French exchange student. Will she be able to get him out of his slump or cause more anguish so that he would be "Better Off Dead"?
It is all the little things that you can relate to and the fantasy scenes that make the movie. They are to numerous to mention here but many people after watching this movie have a tendency to look at each other and say, "I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!"


Cracking...
Review date: 2004-01-23 Rating: 10 out of 10

Long out of print and unavailable, this film seems to have recently popped up on Region 1 DVD, and it's worth getting a multi-region player for! Other reviewers have told you about the plot and some of the gags, but BUY THIS now and watch out for the little brother, the postman (one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed on screen is that quick shot of postie approaching the front door), the classroom scenes with the overeager students and, of course, the evil paperboy who 'wants his two dollars'. It is gag driven, highly visual, truly funny and an underrated classic cult film, deftly played and directed. It's Ferris Bueller with a touch of surrealism and more belly laughs than cerebral. Love it as I have since I first saw it on video in the '80s.

nostalgia
Review date: 2004-01-17 Rating: 8 out of 10

a classic early performance from one of hollywoods leading actors, cusack plays a heartbroken disfunctional teenager after he is dumped by his girlfriend for the more popular captain of the ski team.after many failed comedic suicide attempts he starts to take notice of his new neighbour a french foreign exchange student and soon realises there is more to life than his ex and soon starts to fall for his neighbour, during the movie you find out why so disfunctional due to his strange homelife, his mother possibly the worlds worst cook is intent on actually making somethig edible, his brother who at 10 years old seems to have a firmer grasp on reality and the ways of the world and his father a traditional kind of guy concerned with the well being of his garage windows. in all a greatly enjoyable movie with plenty of fun and feel good factors from meeting the chinese duo always trying to street race cusack to the grand finale the race down the steepest most life threatening slope in town, over all well worh spending 90 minutes of your life on.

Cult Classic - not best Seller
Review date: 2003-12-03 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is a classic. A must watch. If you enjoy doing stupid things like playing pranks on people or playing hide and seek on a drunken night out - this is the film for you. John Cusack stars as the loved up teenager who get dumped for the local pro skier. To win her back he decides to conquer the toughest ski run on the piste....with hilarious consequences. There are loads of funny moments throughout this film including the two Asian guys who have learnt to speak English from watching sports channels to his mother who's food quite literally crawls off the table. Believe me, this film will have your friends saying "I don't want to watch this"...but once they have ...you will gone down as the finder of a truly great film...a must buy....a cult classic.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Scooter Stevens
Demian Slade
David Ogden Stiers
Kim Darby
John Cusack

Creators:
John Cusack (Primary Contributor)
David Ogden Stiers (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Paramount Home Entertainment (UK)
Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment (UK)
EAN: 5014437838438
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2004-02-02
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 93 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1985-10-11
Language: English (Original Language)

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