In the mid 1980’s—a decade populated by teen-sex-comedies—writer/director Savage Steve Holland made a name for himself by combining animation and video. In his most popular comedies, Holland utilized a quirky style that made his romantic comedies some of the most memorable of the decade.
Not the popular kid in school, Lane is just an ordinary guy with a few problems. His car is a piece of junk; and his girlfriend (Amanda Wyss) just dumped him for the head of the ski team. This means he has to figure out a way to beat the jock who stole his girl on the slopes of the dreaded K12 course. This is just about as bad as it gets for your average 1980’s teenager in film.
Like any love-sick teenager, Lane has two goals: recapturing his girlfriend’s heart, and thinking up a variety of ways to kill himself. Lane’s well-meaning but clueless parents are no help. Luckily, Lane has an ever-encouraging best friend (Curtis Armstrong). However, he eventually finds himself more interested in life by the appearance of a French exchange student named Monique (Diane Franklin), living with the creepy fat family across the street.
While the story is relatively simple, it’s the oddball characters and their crazy antics that make the film special. The characters are developed in a manner that makes them able to make the most of the humor the script has to offer. The dialogue is clever and the humor is subtle, stemming from slightly skewed everyday events and character interactions that the cast plays with a deadpan sort of style that has them unaware of just how humorously awkward, and visually hilarious, their lives are.
While Better Off Dead isn’t a perfect comedy, it provides a humorous look at teen angst in the 1980’s, with a few absurd twists. Definitely worth a look.
Brought to Blu-ray in 1080p with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, Better Off Dead is a somewhat flawed transfer. Detail is quite crisp in several areas—the dancing hamburgers and hand-drawn animation, stripes in clothing—unfortunately, coarse grain at other points goes beyond creating a filmic texture. Dust and debris do appear on a coupl,e of occasions. It should be noted that color is well balanced, as are the blacks. While this isn’t a perfect transfer, it’s far better than any DVD release I’m aware of.
Two English audio tracks are available: both DTS HD Master Audio options, one a 5.1 surround option and the other a standard 2.0. Surround activity stretches to the rear channels in the five-channel track — from echoing voices in the mountains to the sound of Lane’s exhaust pipe dragging Other sound elements indicate the design’s age, muffled and less-dexterous balance. The dialogue sounds clear, while the ’80s music emanates from the lower-frequency channel more often than expected.
French and Spanish language tracks are also available, alongside English SDH, French, and Spanish optional subtitles.
All that’s included is the Better Off Dead theatrical trailer (1080p, 4:3, 1:33).
