PicoBlog

Trigger warning: I will be talking a movie plot that contains murder and suicide. Just for your own reference in case you need it, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 800-273-8255 or text TALK to 741741. Love you. <3

A look back on films, both theatrical and made-for-TV, that have slipped from the pop cultural collective consciousness over the last thirty or so years. Most of these will be from the late 70s through the 90s, though not exclusively. Do these movies hold up? Have we forgotten them for good reason? Will the plots get weirder and weirder? Stay tuned!

I picked this one because at first glance, that movie poster was giving me I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes. My friends and I watched as many horror movies as we could as teens in the late 90s and early 00s, so I was a little surprised this got past us. Now that I’ve seen it, The Curve isn’t really a horror movie like IKWYDLS. It’s more of a thriller with embarrassing bad jokes strewn in to make it seem as if it’s smart enough to be a dark comedy.

I guess you need to know going in is that there used to be an urban legend that colleges were required to give students a 4.0 for the semester if a roommate dies by suicide. It’s obviously not true, and it’s all a very 90s thing (check the sources on that Snopes link), so that’s why I say this in past tense. I work with college students now and I can’t for a single second see a kid thinking this would be true. Not that all 90s kidz believed this, for the record, so don’t @ me, Gen-X.

Also, I’ve gotten a few questions regarding where people can watch these movies, so I’ll include the streaming info from now on. My only rule for this whole project is that I won’t pay extra to rent a movie. That said, let’s dig in.

Provided description, typos and all: In an attempt to improve their grades at college, two friends plan to kill their roommate and frame it as suicide. However, things go awry when the friendships of those involved are replaced by lies and deception.

Where to watch it: Free on Tubi

We open on a student checking their grades posted outside a classroom door, names and all. God, remember that? Everyone seeing how everybody else did, ugh. Don’t miss having to do that at all.

Tim (Matthew Lillard), Chris (Michael Vartan), and Rand (Randall Batkinoff) are all 30something yet play 21 year-old college seniors. Lillard was obviously picked because of Scream and Vartan is supposed to be the sensitive hottie, but Randall Batkinoff is a funny casting choice. He played a teen father opposite Molly Ringwald about ten years prior (For Keeps, I’ve seen it, it’s no John Hughes production but better than this movie) and he looks so damn old.

You’d think, given the plot, that there would be some kind of reveal in how these guys found out the whole 4.0-for-the-semester-thing, but other than some off-camera stand-up comedian making jokes about it in the beginning, it’s all implied. Basically, Tim and Chris are trying to plant seeds concerning their roommate, Rand, who is an asshole, in order to boost their grades. Chris chats up the school counselor all casual, “What should I be looking for if I’m worried about my roommate?” and the counselor actually says, “Hmm, well, listening to The Smith, The Cure, Suzanne Vega.” Suzanne Vega, the one hanging out at Tom’s Diner??? Um, okayyy.

All anyone talks about is going to Harvard for grad school despite the fact that they never study or go to class. Instead, the kids like to sit around and play Celebrity. Lots of dated pop culture references, blah blah blah. Chris has a girlfriend, Emma (Keri Russell) and they make a good team. Unfortunately, Emma’s roommate Natalie is dating Rand and like I said, he’s a real piece of work. He makes fun of Chris for being a scholarship student and gives Natalie a hard time for being Canadian. Top it all off, Emma and Natalie go back to their dorm and Natalie finds out bad things comes in threes: She’s Canadian, she’s Catholic, and she’s pregnant.

The gang goes to a party off campus, where there’s an able-bodied person playing a mentally-challenged individual and it’s suuuuper unnecessary and offensive. Like, why. Why why why why why. Not needed at all.

Love this behind-the-scenes photo that was clearly taken on a yellow Kodak disposable camera.

Natalie has a terrible sense of timing and tries to talk to Rand about the pregnancy right after he slammed a bunch of beers. He handles it as well as you think he would (badly) and berates her in front of the whole party. He leaves and Tim is like, ahaha, the wheels are in motion.

Tim and Chris go to their hangout spot near the lighthouse with a super drunk Rand. He rants about how his life is over now that Natalie is pregnant and he can’t go to Harvard (for what, he doesn’t say). Tim gives him tainted tequila and backs Rand closer and closer to the edge. He falls over the cliff and out of sight. Please note, no sign of his body.

There’s a vigil for Rand featuring a somber Aimee Mann song. Not a single extra looks like a college student. Pretty sure they rounded up these folks from the parking lot of a Baltimore H&R Block and handed them a candle.

The gang goes to a bar after and Tim tells a weird story about Rand taking a sex worker to his senior prom, except his language choices are much more offensive and abusive. The weirdest part is halfway through this scene, the lights around the table go down and the background noise fades away as if this was a serious moment… and Matthew Lillard giggles through the rest of this awkward non-story. What is the deep revelation here???!!? Why does any of this matter??!?

Now Tim and Chris are in the Chancellor’s office with the school counselor. She’s chewing on a Twizzler and trying not to smoke. The Chancellor wears a sweater vest and puffs on a pipe, so you know he’s pompous. They tell the guys about the 4.0 thing and at first, Tim demurs, “Oh no, I can’t take it!” and tries to pass the buck on to Chris. They get questioned by the police and their story starts falling apart fast.

Natalie packs a suitcase but instead of taking a plane back to Canada, she jumps off the same cliff as Rand. The cops try to investigate but they’re useless and smoke constantly, indoors and out. There was so much smoking I could practically smell this movie. Tim even likes to go to cigar shops, gross.

Meanwhile, Emma tries to talk to Chris about getting a grip on things and maybe, you know, applying to other grad programs. “There are no other schools but Harvard,” he says. “It’s either an MBA from Harvard or you’re flipping burgers for a living.” Ah, yes, the only two paths in life. There’s also a weird love-triangle between Chris, Emma, and Tim but by this point, they’re all awful and deserve each other.

The end of the movie cuts back and forth from a confrontation between Tim, Emma, Chris, and— surprise!— a not-dead Rand on the beach cliff and Rand alive well in the counselor’s office, explaining his side of the story later.

Tim, Rand, and Emma back Chris to the edge of the cliff. Tim is like, haha Chris, we’re all turning on you, and Emma is all, I’ve been with Tim the whole tiiiimmee, and Rand won’t stop being a creep.

In the office, the counselor is chain-smoking and Rand walks over to the window to look out on the quad. It’s a bright sunny day, the only nice day in the whole movie, and the extras actually look like college kids. Pretty sure they turned the cameras on some kids at Johns Hopkins without their knowledge. He’s being evasive and she suddenly forgets anything that occurred before this moment.

Cut back to the beach, and the tables have turned yet again. Chris knew about Rand the whole time and now Tim is the one on the outs. Everyone constantly lies to each other in this movie so who the hell knows what is real. Chris and Rand push Tim off the cliff and then turn to Emma. “Are you in or you out?”

The school counselor says since Rand was never legally declared dead (??), he’s free to get that sweet 4.0 free pass. Rand tells the counselor that he and Chris turned down the offer (what??!) but Emma took them up on it because of Natalie and the counselor was like, oh yeah, her. There’s a strange flashback to the cop saying the autopsy showed Natalie wasn’t pregnant and Emma holding a positive pregnancy test… so somehow Emma convinces Natalie that she’s the pregnant one??? Poor Natalie. Absolutely none of this makes sense nor is it explained. Rand says they all want to be together again at Harvard, as if graduate school at Harvard is a two-year long adult day camp. And hey, it might be, I’m closer to flipping burgers than getting an MBA from ~Haaaarvard~.

At the very end, the school counselor looks at Rand and goes, “So what do you think you’ll study at Harvard?” Camera zooms in on Randall Batikinoff as he says, “I was thinking… drama.” DUN-DUN-DUN, cut to black, finally.

• The best line happens in the first five minutes at the record store: “You guys know we’re having a sale on Joy Division?”

• Keri Russell has nice hair. She was in her peak Felicity curly hair days.

• As always, I love when a movie has more than one title. This was also known Dead Man’s Curve, to the point where there are numerous promotional materials under that name (see above). Apparently, the name change was to differentiate this movie from the similarly-themed Dead Man on Campus, starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

• This has not yet been covered by How Did This Get Made?, so look forward to that someday.

• In case you missed it, this script is NOT GOOD.

• Take your pick when it comes to offenses.

• There’s a security guard character who pops up every once in a while that was obviously added after Scream was released.

• I didn’t think it was possible for a piece of pop culture to hark on and on about Harvard more than the first three seasons of Gilmore Girls, but this movie did it!

• It tries so hard to be funny and it’s not nearly clever or even silly enough and I think that might be what makes me the maddest of all.

This movie was terrible and I do not recommend it.

Now, I have to admit my own personal bias. I have a passive interest writing a screenplay (of course I do, who doesn’t) and for a movie this bad to not only get made, but get screened at the Sundance Film Festival, is a little infuriating, even if it was 22 years ago. I could do better than this! So I guess I have to write something better than this, even if no one ever sees it, just to know I can.

Anyway, this movie was terrible and I do not recommend it! It was fun to rip it to shreds and I hope that part comes across.

Thank you for reading about an old ass movie that the pop culture zeitgeist has forgotten! Any typos, weird spacing, or grammar mistakes are the result of my fallible fingers. Links to my social and website can be found below. You can buy me a cup of coffee to give me the energy to keep doing this baloney. Any questions or comments, feel free to send them along— andrea.laurion@gmail.com

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

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