The Curve (1998 film)

Dead Man's Curve (US title)
Dead Man's Curve (US title)
	DVD cover
Directed by	Dan Rosen
Written by	Dan Rosen
Produced by	Michael Amato; Jeremy Lew; Ted Schipper; Alain Siritzky
Starring	Matthew Lillard ; Michael Vartan; Randall Batinkoff ; Keri Russell
Cinematography	Joey Forsyte
Edited by	Glenn Garland
Music by	Shark
Distributed by	Trimark Pictures
Release date	January 23, 1998;
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Curve is a 1998 American thriller film starring Matthew Lillard, Keri Russell and Michael Vartan,^[1] which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival under its original title, Dead Man's Curve.^[2] It draws on the urban legend that a student will receive only A+ letter grades should their roommate commit suicide (pass by catastrophe).

Plot

After hearing of a school policy granting anyone whose roommate commits suicide an automatic 4.0 GPA, Harvard Business School aspirants Chris and Tim plot to kill their roommate Rand and make it look like a suicide. They're successful, but when the fallout breeds unforeseen consequences and two local detectives close in, guilt and mistrust fester, jeopardizing Chris's relationship with his girlfriend Emma and the roommates' futures.

Cast

Matthew Lillard as Tim
Michael Vartan as Chris
Keri Russell as Emma
Randall Batinkoff as Rand
Dana Delany as Dr. Ashley
Tamara Craig Thomas as Natalie
Bo Dietl as Detective Amato
Anthony Griffith as Detective Shipper
Kevin Ruf as Ernie
Kris McGaha as Renee

Production

Filming took place in Baltimore, Maryland at Elk Neck State Park, Johns Hopkins University, and Towson University in August 1997.^[3]

Release

The film premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival as an Official Selection.^[4] The film was renamed The Curve after its Sundance premiere to avoid confusion with the film Dead Man on Campus, a comedy with a similar pass by catastrophe premise about two college roommates who try to get another roommate to commit suicide which was released the same year. In the UK and Australia, however, the film was released as Dead Man's Curve.

Reception

The Curve was met with a mostly negative reception. It holds a score of 0% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 8 reviews.^[5] In a review for Variety, Dennis Harvey commented that "Curve bends too low for upscale auds, it’s also problematic for mainstream ones as a near-horror thriller sans onscreen violence (or genuinely surprising plot twists). It will take aggressive marketing to reap quick payoff on a film likely to get just lukewarm critical and word-of-mouth response."^[2]

In a more favorable review, William Thomas of Empire rated the film 4/5 stars and stated that it has "boasting originality, an easy-going hipness and a disregard for convention, this represents all that's good about the American indie scene."^[6]

Soundtrack

Prior to the start of filming, writer/director Dan Rosen and score composer Shark made a mixtape of songs they were considering for use in the film, which Rosen gave to the principal actors in The Curve to establish the film's tone. When editor Glenn Garland put together the first edit of the film, he used music from this mix tape as "temp music," and many of the songs ended up in the final film.^{[citation needed]}

A song-based soundtrack album featuring songs from The Curve was released in Japan through Toho Records.^{[citation needed]}

Chromatic Records released a soundtrack album that featured 14 tracks composed by Shark, an aria from the 1892 opera La Wally and the songs "Die" by Starbelly, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus and "Wake Up Sad (remix)" by Wild Colonials.^[7]

References

^ Bhob Stewart (2007). "The Curve". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 21, 2007.
^ ^a ^b Harvey, Dennis (January 25, 1998). "Dead Man's Curve". Variety. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
^ Bowler, Mike (July 6, 1997). "Directing on the curve". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on June 22, 2021. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
^ "Dead Man's Curve". Sundance.org.
^ "Dead Man's Curve". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
^ Thomas, William (January 1, 2000). "Dead Man's Curve Review". Empire. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
^ "Dead Man's Curve [Score]". AllMusic. Retrieved August 27, 2023.