You should be wary of people who are interested in clock towers, especially those on college campuses. One notorious example is 1966 sniper Charles Whitman, who committed his spree from the University of Texas’s clock tower. 1989’s Big Man on Campus is horrific but for entirely different reasons, as it has a hunchback who has been hiding in the tower on UCLA’s campus. Oh, and it is supposed to be comedy and not a horror film, except it so lousy a comedy that it becomes a horrific viewing experience.
Allan Katz plays that hunchback, a character initially unnamed until he adopts the moniker Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga. This was after psychologist Tom Skerritt convinces the man to reject initial proposals for his name, such as “Judy Finkel” and “William F. Buckley”. I’ll tell you now, him blurting out that first choice was so odd and sudden that it got a strong laugh from me. The other two times I laughed were when different characters fall to the floor, one of them trying to sit in a chair not actually there and the other being Katz’s back protrusion causing him to roll off a psychiatrist’s couch. Those are the only times I even so much as chuckled.
Here is one thing that most bugged me about this picture: when it is discovered Katz is ensconced in that tower, why isn’t the first question anybody asks is how did he end up there? We’re deep into the second act before Skerritt asks this, and the tale Katz tells tries hard to pull at the heartstrings when it hasn’t earned that privilege.
And that is largely because Katz’s character is so goddamn annoying. At first, he seems to have echolalia, as he simply repeats the last word any character says. With the assistance of others, he quickly acquires a large vocabulary, and then progresses just as fast to having a comprehensive knowledge of every subject a college could teach. This all transpires within one semester, so I’d like to try whatever techniques bestowed upon him so much knowledge so quickly.
He definitely wasn’t learning all of this from Skerritt, who is studying Katz while trying to keep him from being committed to an institution. Also roped into the scheme is Cindy Williams, who has been giving him little more than preschool education, until she’s wanting him to put the moves on her by the end of that semester. Given how childlike he was so recently, wouldn’t that feel a bit to her like pedophilia?
Actually, everybody around Katz treats his character in an odd way. Sometimes it’s like they think he is somehow a caveman transported to the present day. Other times, they treat him like a child. A great deal of the time, they treat him like an ape, though an inordinately intelligent one.
The worst offender is Corey Parker, as the failing student whose only means of preventing expulsion is to be the roommate of Katz while the experiment is being conducted. This is a setup for a sitcom and not worthy of a feature film, no matter how light the comedy may be. The movie lives down to the premise as it becomes a buddy comedy, only for the two to be in competition for the same girl, establishing the conflict which drives the third act.
Speaking of the girl, it is odd to see Charlize Theron before she was ripe. Also, before she was Charlize Theron, as the person actually cast here is Melora Hardin, bearing more than a fair resemblance to the other actress. She may fare the best of the any person in the cast who wasn’t a name before this. Still, it is a shallow and thankless role.
About those name actors: in addition to Skerrit and Williams, I was deeply confused by the presence of Jessica Harper and Gerrit Graham. Harper is a psychologist determined to have Katz institutionalized, even if it that necessitates chicanery that tests the limits of even this sitcom plot. To her credit, Harper gives this film her best effort. Graham is the host of a confrontational daytime talk show ala Springer, and it is on the set of that where the ludicrous climax is staged.
I want to circle back to Parker for a moment, because I so thoroughly hated his character. He’s a smartass without being funny and I can’t understand why anybody would want to spend more than a minute around him. As he puts it himself: “I’m not friendly. I’m not likeable. I’m not trustworthy.” Also, it is strange to see a guy to desperate to channel Paul Reiser. No, really—you should see his hair and every one of his mannerisms.
The implosion of distributor Vestron resulted in Big Man on Campus foregoing a theatrical release and being dumped straight to cable, which is honestly where it belonged in the first place. It is a bad, bad comedy starring name actors one cannot believe stooped to this and other faces new to us which will largely never (or, at least, rarely) be seen again.
Dir: Jeremy Kagan
Starring Allan Katz, Corey Parker, Cindy Williams
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray