Better Off Dead

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Better Off Dead is a 1985 comedy film directed by Savage Steve Holland and starring John Cusack.

After being dumped by his utterly-unfaithful girlfriend, luckless teen Lane Meyer makes several futile attempts to kill himself, while wandering in and out of a series of encounters with the residents... inmates of his bizarre hometown. These include his super-genius younger brother Badger, his severely-underachieving best friend Charles, a pair of Korean car-racing enthusiasts who learned English by listening to Howard Cosell, and one very determined paper-boy. Lane's life finally begins to turn around when he meets Monique, a comely French exchange student who has been sentenced to live with Lane's grotesque neighbors.

Probably doesn't quite make it to classic status, especially the ending which veers off into painfully straight teen-movie win-the-athletic-competition territory, but mentioning this film or quoting from it is very likely to bring a smile to the face of Tropers of a certain age. It does have a pretty strong cult following due to the fact that aside from that ending, it has a different sense of humor than most 80's teen comedies and seems far less dated than other films of its type.

Tropes used in Better Off Dead include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Ricky and his pursuit of Monique.
• The Ace: Everyone other than Lane seems to have incredible skill at doing things. Highlighted by Lane's younger brother, who uses his book knowledge to pick up trashy women and build a launchable space shuttle in the attic.
• Actor Allusion: When Beth (Amanda Wyss) shows up at the dance, there is someone behind her wearing Freddy Krueger's sweater. Wyss played Krueger's first victim in A Nightmare On Elm Street.
• Ascended Meme: "I want my two dollars!"
• Animated Credits Opening
• Blond Guys Are Evil: Roy Stalin
• Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Lane's unfortunate but practical blind-date.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In-universe example: Barney Rubble of The Flintstones interrupts a broadcast to ask Lane if he can date Beth.
• Bungled Suicide: Several -- it's one of the film's Running Gags.

Lane: Gee, I'm real sorry your mom blew up, Ricky.

• Burger Fool: Lane has to wear a hideous pig-themed hat, even though he works back in the kitchen.
• Cameo: Twiki from Buck Rogers in The 25th Century appears in the background of the Christmas scene.
• Claymation: A brief sequence set in the burger joint where Lane works.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Lane's mother Jenny.
• Cool Car: Initially averted with Lane's canvas-draped, cobwebbed (and nonfunctional) Camaro. But once Monique gets her hands on it, it goes from aversion to expression.
• Dawson Casting: Charles. Explicitly justified:

Charles: I've been going to this high school for seven and a half years! I'm no dummy!

• The Determinator: "I want my two dollars!!"
• Driven to Suicide
• The Eighties: Identifiable by the catchy pop song soundtrack.
• Enfant Terrible: "I want my two dollars!!"
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Averted, because Mr. Kerber is just that good.
• Evil Genius: Badger possibly qualifies.
• Funny Foreigner: Monique mostly avoids this, except for one or two slight problems with English.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Charles Emerson Winchester is Lane's father. Mattie Ross is his mother. His best bud Charles is Dudley Dawson!
  • Vincent Schiavelli as his math teacher, and didn't that truck driver own a strip joint near Angel Beach?
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Buttercup is singing at the dance.
  • Subversion: Rich Little as the voice of the Korean guy who learned to speak English from Howard Cosell.
• Homemade Sweater From Hell: Jenny wears a reindeer outfit which comes complete with an antler-headpiece, and gives one to her husband which is aardvark-themed.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Lane ditching the paperboy.

Lane: My little brother got his arm stuck in the microwave. So my mom had to take him to the hospital. My grandma dropped acid this morning, and she freaked out. She hijacked a busload of... penguins. So it's sort of a family crisis. Bye!

• Instant Expert: "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn."
• Insult Backfire: Played with when Stalin insults Lane and Charles at one point during the New Years dance; Lane is insulted, but Charles finds it hilarious, even interrupting Stalin's dance with Beth because he's still laughing.
• Interrupted Suicide
• It Is Pronounced Tro PAY: Lane's mother serves Monique "Frahnch Fries", etc.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Of course, Lane comes to his senses in time.
• Jerk Jock: The villain, such as he is.
  • His name? Roy Stalin.
• Language of Love: Subverted, when it turns out that Monique speaks English fairly fluently.
• Lethal Chef: Hoo boy. Jenny. Lane pokes one of her creations with his fork, and it starts moving away.

"It's got raisins in it. You like raisins."

• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Monique.
• Meaningful Name: Roy Stalin.
• Medium Shift Gag: There are a couple of gag sequences in both clay and hand-drawn animation, representing Lane's bizarre daydreams about dancing hamburgers and so forth.
• My Beloved Smother: Ricky's harridan of a mother.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: After the break-up, every guy from the math teacher to the rude mailman to Barney Rubble is asking Lane if it would be alright to date his ex.
• Naked Freak-Out: The roller-skating cheerleader in the cafeteria in her underwear, due to Lane's accidental slip-up. It Gets Worse as ALL of her boyfriends give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• One-Scene Wonder: Vincent Schiavelli as Lane's math teacher.
• Reverse Harem: Chris Cummins is a cheerleader who dates the basketball team. The entire team.
• Running Gag: "I want my two dollars!!"
  • Also, Lane's drag-race-at-the-stoplight moments, plus the crash into the driver behind him.
  • Badger's mail-order purchases
  • The garage door window's getting broken.
• Spiritual Successor: John Cusack recently traveled back in time to a 1980s ski resort in Hot Tub Time Machine. Somebody is even heard shouting "I want my two dollars!" at one point.
  • This is despite the fact that Cusack evidently considers this film to be an Old Shame.
  • Cusack's protagonist in Grosse Pointe Blank also grew up in the 1980s and also had a Hilariously Abusive Childhood. He ended up becoming a professional assassin. We first meet him shooting a bicycle deliveryman.
• Stalker Shrine: Lane has turned his room into one of these, dedicated to his girlfriend.
• Standard Snippet: Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" as Lane's Camaro rolls out for the first time. Gene Autry's "Here Comes Santa Claus" during the Christmas sequence.
• Stock Shout Out: Lane doing Frankenstein-imbuing-the-creature-with-life at the start of the "Everybody Wants Some" sequence.
• The Stoner: Charles. Or he would be, if he could find anything to get stoned on.

How are we going to get real drugs in this town? We can't even get cable!

• • Snorting real snow seems to work for him.

This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is?

• Suicide As Comedy: Detecting a theme yet?

And dying when you're not really sick is really sick, you know. Really!

• Title Drop: The singer at the school dance.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl
• Totally Radical: Lane's father awkwardly attempts to "connect" with him.
• Trash Landing:

"Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that!"

• Unkempt Beauty: Monique looks surprisingly hot with car grease on her face.
• Vanity License Plate: The villain's Trans-Am.
• The Voiceless: Badger.
• The World Mocks Your Loss: Lane is constantly reminded of his ex, Beth, because every other guy in town (and Barney Rubble) wants to date her.
• Wrench Wench: Monique turns out to be one.