Over Your Dead Body

by Mike McGranaghan

Dan (Jason Segel) is a former independent film director who now only works on commercials. Lisa (Samara Weaving) is an actress still waiting for her big break. Their relationship is on the skids for a variety of reasons. That’s why Dan has planned a “romantic” getaway to a secluded cabin, where he plans to murder Lisa and dump her body in the lake. This is the setup for Over Your Dead Body, a gruesome - and gruesomely funny - movie where everyone is either dead or subjected to some form of bodily mutilation by the end. The weak-of-stomach need not attend.

A great deal of the fun comes from how the story advances to new levels of chaotic absurdity, so revealing too much about the plot would be a disservice. It gives nothing away to say that Lisa finds out about Dan’s scheme and turns the tables on him, or that federal prison officer Allegra (Juliette Lewis) and two escaped convicts, Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Todd (Keith Jardine), arrive to hide in the cabin. Their presence leads to even more bloody chaos.

Back in the era of silent cinema, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd perfected the art of establishing a basic scenario, then adding layer upon layer of comic complications until reaching a fever pitch. Over Your Dead Body does essentially the same thing. Dan and Lisa want to kill each other throughout, but the arrival of unwelcome guests who have their own agenda means dealing with a bunch of other perils first. Each of those perils is more outrageous than the one proceeding it. Director Jorma Taccone (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) juggles the comedy and violence deftly, creating genuine stakes while also giving those stakes a devilishly humorous edge.

The craziness works because of the quality of the performances. Segel goes big and broad, often doing the sort of mugging that Chevy Chase always excelled at. He conveys the ridiculousness of the situation. Weaving plays Lisa with a sharp, stinging wit that contrasts nicely with her co-star’s approach. Both are hilarious, convincingly making the hatred between their characters real.

Lewis and Olyphant provide wacky flavoring, as Allegra and Pete are demented in their own unique ways; he’s shamelessly hostile, she’s lovestruck. Jardine steals scenes as Todd, a goon as muscular as he is dumb, as does Paul Guilfoyle as Dan’s father, who gets an uproarious scene in the third act. Everybody is a little different tonally in the film, a tricky approach that this fine cast pulls off.

Over Your Dead Body has multiple moments that made me laugh hard. Be advised, though, that this is intentionally a nasty little movie. Taccone doesn’t hold back from showing graphic violence because he knows it’s necessary for the dark humor to take hold. The comedy goes just as hard, leading to something akin to a 21st century War of the Roses. Sure, it’s a tiny bit exhausting by the end, but viewers with a taste for the twisted are going to lose their minds.