Samara Weaving is already having quite a year. While Ready or Not 2 currently plays in theaters and Carolina Caroline with Kyle Galner releases this summer, she sees another project landing this weekend. Jorma Taccone’s Over Your Dead Body features Samara Weaving in her most primal state. Nothing will ever surpass that throaty wolf howl in 2019’s Ready or Not, yet she unleashes a fierceness so feral here that it might be her most adventurous performance to date. Over Your Dead Body fuses the unfettered passion and grit of Mr. & Mrs. Smith with the playfulness of Villains for a delightfully dark and twisted tale of revenge.
Lisa (Weaving) and Dan (Jason Segel) just don’t see eye to eye these days. They’re stuck in a rut, but Dan believes a weekend getaway to a cabin by the lake will help rekindle their long-dead romance. But they both have murder on their minds. With plans to kill the other, Lisa and Dan prove that, perhaps, the vigor in their relationship isn’t gone after all. They just have to postpone their unfortunate demises until they realize it. They’re itching to pull the trigger, even if that means property damage and a few scrapes and bruises. What neither anticipates is the emotional catharsis that comes with trying to off the other. All the tossing and turning in bed, every passive-aggressive sigh, and the nasty sideways glances—exorcised from their bodies like expelling an unwanted demon.
Two escaped convicts—Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Todd (Keith Jardine)—and a crooked cop, Allegra (Juliette Lewis), crash the party. What started as a lovers’ quarrel turns into a real fight for survival. Can Lisa and Dan set aside their petty jealousies and learn to love again? Well, they give it their all through a chaotic turn of events that just might reset their lives.
Over Your Dead Body, based on a Norwegian film called I Onde Dager, with a script written by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, cashes in on its premise in every way. Buckets of blood and flying body parts abound, all wrapped nicely in coarse humor and a thirst for heart-pounding action. Segel gives a performance that’s like Nicolas Cage meets Chevy Chase (complementary) while Weaving delivers a no-fucks turn that is among her best outings.
Jorma Taccone uses the humor to give the film a loosey-goosey direction that’s just as messy as the characters. Lewis is reliably unhinged, and Jardine goes full-on goofy like a golden retriever with a squeaky pork chop. Over Your Dead Body certainly will draw polarizing opinions, but truth be told, it’s purposely disheveled in a way that’s a perfect reprieve for these trying times.
Over Your Dead Body opens in theaters this Friday (April 24).
Leave a Reply