Misery was never so funny as it is in 1985’s dark comedy Better Off Dead. Savage Steve Howland wrote and directed the film which would end up becoming one of the early star-making stepping stones for John Cusack on the way to his great career. Freddy Kruger’s first ever victim, actress Amanda Wyss (A Nightmare on Elm Street), played Cusack’s fickle ex-girlfriend Beth, while Jonathan Ogden Stiers provided the hysterical deadpan resignation of his father.
When Lane Meyer’s (Cusack) girlfriend dumps him for the local ski stud, Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier), it is misery at first sight. Convinced that killing himself is the only reasonable answer, Lane’s half-hearted attempts at suicide end with futile and comical results. Most of the story evolves at a languid pace of joke after joke - Lane’s genius brother who builds rocket ships and likes trashy women; the drag racing Asian students, one of whom learned English from Howard Cosell; a scorned paperboy obsessed with being paid his two dollars.

Grounding Lane are his odd friend Charles (Curtis Armstrong) and the French foreign exchange student Monique (Diane Franklin) who lives with the repulsive Ricky and his overbearing mother next door. Not only does Monique secretly speak English, but she cheers for the Dodgers, fixes Camaros, and instills a little love-begotten confidence in Lane. When Stalin challenges Lane at a race down the treacherous ski run known as the K-12, Lane must decide if he’s meant for glory or if he’s better off dead.

While the box office numbers were paltry at best, the film has garnered a cult following to rival that of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or any other eighties film about teenagers. With plenty of oddball laughs, a legitimately intense final one-ski race, and the budding of Cusack’s subtle wit, the film has become a staple in the comedy lover’s collection.