“Until death do us part” might come sooner than expected, if everything goes according to plan.
In Over Your Dead Body from director Jorma Taccone (MacGruber, The Lonely Island), Dan (Jason Segel) is a washed-up screenwriter married to an unsuccessful theatre actress, Lisa (Ready or Not final girl Samara Weaving). Dan has an elaborate scheme to kill Lisa on a weekend getaway to a cabin upstate, but things go awry when, as it turns out, Lisa is also secretly plotting to dispose of Dan. Bloody mayhem ensues when the couple discovers a trio of prison escapees hiding in the attic.
Adapted from Norwegian action-comedy The Trip, Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney’s script hilariously twists and turns as the spouses’ antics get increasingly more violent. There’s so much visceral gore played as slapstick that it gives the movie an almost cartoonish effect. Unfortunately, the onslaught of carnage distracts from the lack of any real motivation for the characters, and the thrill of coming dangerously close to death wears off within the first hour.
Thin writing aside, the supporting performances from Timothy Olyphant and Keith Jardine as convicted killers on the run with a rogue corrections officer played by Juliette Lewis are superbly menacing. They inject a much needed lunacy to the tapering storyline as they conveniently force the central spouses to rekindle their marriage for them to make it out alive. Segel and Weaving, for their parts, are convincing enough as a sour couple, but their absolute lack of chemistry makes the contrived romance feel wholly unwarranted.
In its best stretches a rip-roaring thriller comedy with satisfying savagery, Over Your Dead Body is ultimately undone by the flat script. Near the final act, Weaving’s Lucy asks her husband, “How did we get here?” Audiences may be left wondering the same thing.
Over Your Dead Body is scheduled to open in movie theatres April 24.
