“They throw you in the pit, you’re gonna die.”

Drake’s rating: Friends don’t let friends kill their roommate

Drake’s review: I was lucky enough to be on the fourth episode of the Mutant Matinee podcast, where we were talking about teen horror flicks from the late ‘90s to early 2000’s era. And it was fun to talk about these movies, especially with Justin and Heather, who are real pros at the whole podcasting thing. Honestly, they’re rolling right along, smooth as silk, and then I bring up Matthew Lillard, go all tongue-tied for a moment, and totally butcher his last name.

Basically, they’re doing great as the Regis & Kathy Lee of cult movies, and then I come bursting in like Porky Pig with, “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”

So, yeah. Embarrassing. Feel free to give it a listen and mock away. I’ve got it coming.

But by way of apology to Mr. Lillard, that cult movie veteran whose career stretches all the way back to Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College, I thought I’d review on of his lesser-known features. And The Curve (also known Dead Man’s Curve) is definitely one of Lillard’s more obscure movies, especially in an era when he was racking up the box office hits.

Here, Lillard plays Tim, a college goofball who gets it into his head that the best way to get the grades he needs is to kill his roommate and makes it look like a suicide, thus getting straight-A’s for the semester. Convincing his other roommate, Chris, to go along with the plan — since Chris is desperate to get the grades he needs for Harvard Business School — Tim manipulates their erstwhile friend Rand into making a bad decision that gives the duo the supposed suicide they need to pass the semester with flying colors.

Things aren’t as simple as they seem, though, and soon a pair of detectives are on the case. As they dig, Tim keeps putting Chris on the spot, making comments and insinuations that his surviving roommate was more involved in Rand’s disappearance than he’s letting on to the police. Which seems kind of counter-intuitive, all things considered, but that’s The Curve. It’s a movie that builds up twists and turns, but the roadway it’s built on is already rough and uneven, so it’s a bit difficult to navigate.

Still, Lillard is good here. Generally fun and often goofy, he changes it up as Tim to keep the goof factor, but eschews the fun in favor of skeeve, cruelty, and a constant hint of danger. Tim’s not the likable sort, but he’s still charismatic enough to keep Chris in his orbit, close enough to conceivably take the fall, or the bullet, if their plan bottoms out.

For his part, Chris (Micahel Vartan, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar) plays the straight man in Tim’s increasingly dangerous antics. He’s the audience viewpoint character, caught up in Tim’s chaos and unsure of just how to get out of it as Tim himself is planting the seeds of doubt in every ear that will give him a listen. Even so, it’s hard to identify with Chris since he really doesn’t seem to regret Rand’s death as much as he fears getting caught.

On the other hand, that’s not entirely unreasonable as Rand is… just a grade-A jerk. If Tim is unpleasant yet still charismatic, Rand is just a straight-up collection of caustic character traits thrown into a blender and poured out into human form. Which honestly makes it hard to feel anything but relief once Tim and Chris decide to carry out their plan.

The Curve is not a very good movie, although it does have an ending that almost saves it. The characters range from passive to unlikable, and the plot twists aren’t as carefully thought out as they need to be to keep the story from becoming too cluttered. Lillard gives a good performance and in a better film could be a compelling villain, but here he’s by far the most interesting character and takes the focus away from Chris, who never really succeeds in commanding the viewer’s interest.

But, hey, at least I got through this entire review without tripping up on Matthew Lillard’s name, even once. Lillard, Lillard, Lillard. See? I can say it. Too late to avoid international embarrassment, but still.

Intermission!

• Getting a 4.0 if your roommate commits suicide is an urban legend with no basis in reality, so if you’re in college while reading this stop looking at your roommate as nothing but potential straight-A’s.
• I’m not sure what was in the water in 1998, but Dead Man on Campus, a comedy with a similar premise, premiered later that year. It’s also why the movie’s name was changed to The Curve to avoid confusion.
• Dana Delany has a fun turn here as a college counselor who’s trying to quit smoking. She eats candy as a replacement, wears nicotine patches, and by the end has just given up and is smoking away again.
• Keri Russell, just months away from starring in the “Felicity” TV show, co-stars as Chris’s girlfriend Emma. She’s not given much to do, so I spent most of the film imagining that she was secretly pulling everyone’s strings as a younger version of her Russian spy character from “The Americans.”