Over Your Dead Body info:
Director: Jorma Taccone
Writer: Tommy Wirkola, Nick Ball, and John Niven
Starring: Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, and Timothy Olyphant
Intro
Hello and welcome to another week here at 1guysmindlessmoviereviews.com. It’s the end of April, which means May is right around the corner, and that means summer weather and summer movies are coming real soon. In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying intermittent warm days mixed with our normal Spring rain and canceled softball games. I think you know where this is going, though, right? The best thing to do with a spring rain… go to a movie.
That’s exactly what we did over the weekend when the weather was wet and cool on Sunday. We normally plan it out a little more, but this time it was off the cuff, and we were out the door to make it just in time to see “Over Your Dead Body”. This one is going to be fun to discuss, so let’s get the spoiler warning out of the way before I do. If you haven’t seen this yet and don’t want to know about anything that happens in the movie, then go back to my homepage. There, you can check out some other reviews, lists, and other fun things I have going on there.
Over Your Dead Body recap
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Jorma Taccone directed this. I always enjoyed him with The Lonely Island. “Over Your Dead Body” starts out with a married couple, Dan (Segel) and Lisa (Weaving), who are planning a weekend getaway trip to a remote cabin. The story begins with Dan. He is clearly very unhappy at his job (where he is directing video ads for streaming platforms). He is setting the scene for everyone, telling them that she wants to go on a long and dangerous hike. While he is doing this, he is also packing random supplies like rope and duct tape. If you didn’t read what the movie was about, you learn pretty quickly what is going on.
After Dan’s failed attempt to knock his wife out, he is tied up by her. Now we get her backstory on the weekend trip to the cabin. Dan was going to go hunting even though she warned him against it. Then her attempt goes awry when Henry (Jake Curran) shows up to save Dan. They ultimately go back and forth with Henry switching sides until they both accidentally shoot and kill him
The story takes its first big turn when the gun goes off and shoots someone hiding in the attic. During our next backstory, we see Pete (Olyphant), Allegra (Juliette Lewis), and Todd (Keith Jardine) as two escape convicts and the security guard (Allegra) who helped them out. They make their way through the woods and stumble upon the very cabin where Dan and Lisa had decided to kill their spouse.
Now, the three convicts have the married couple tied up while trying to coerce them into revealing whether or not they have any money hidden somewhere. Lisa comes up with a plan to give them $50,000 that she has in the bank the next day. But before any of that can happen, Dan gets free and attacks Todd. He and Lisa now have to fight their way through all three of them as the attacks get more and more brutal. Along the way, they manage to kill Todd, Allegra, and Pete while taking quite a few lumps themselves. In the end, they survived and ended up staying together.
My thoughts on Over Your Dead Body
I rarely go see a movie without knowing much about it. In fact, this wasn’t even on my Coming Soon movies of the month. I had heard about it, but very little. I always enjoy a nice surprise, and boy, did I get one here. This film was right up my alley with the humor, the characters, and the twists. It had it’s fare share of gore, but except for one part with a partially missing foot, it wasn’t too bad to sit through.
I loved how the story just started right without much setup and then was brilliantly filled in later with some very well-timed flashbacks. Not only did they help fill out the story, but there were several small things along the way that even helped complete it (like why the key was moved). Even when Dan’s dad got his own quick little backstory before his demise, it was still very well made.
“Over Your Dead Body” itself was unique enough so that it didn’t seem like a duplicate of anything. Yes, I’m aware that it’s a remake of the Norwegian film “The Trip”. But I was referring to wide-release English-language movies since that is what I know. The closest thing I can think of is “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” with Pitt and Jolie from 2005. But this one had more humor and was way bloodier.
I can’t think of the last time I saw Segel be the main star in a movie… in fact, I can’t think of the last time I’ve seen him in any movie. Since he normally does comedy, this was a nice segue with the dark comedy. Maybe this will lead him down a different path of film roles. I’ve also enjoyed watching Weaving ever since I first saw her in the third Bill and Ted outing, “Bill and Ted Face the Music”. They are the two primary stars, and there aren’t very many other characters outside of the three convicts. So, they basically carry the whole thing on their backs.
Overall, this was a fun movie with lots of awkward scenes. Thankfully, they are not as bad or uncomfortable as “The Drama”, so it was manageable. The humor was good and well-timed, and the characters seemed mostly relatable. I did hate how they were human, but somehow kept coming back from grueling injuries. In real life, most people would have already been dead or at least not running on a foot that had been stabbed. But I highly recommend this surprising movie, and I give it an 8 out of 10.
Watch or wait?
Well, I’m a little partial since I enjoyed this so much, but I say go out and watch it now. Also, since this is a smaller release film, it would be nice to give it the extra ticket money that small movies like this don’t normally get. I have a feeling it will be available to stream here soon, either way.
Ok, that’s it for my time this week. That means it’s your turn. Have you seen “Over Your Dead Body” yet? If so, did you enjoy it as much as I did? If you didn’t like it, what was the primary reason you didn’t? Let me know in the comments below, and I will be back next week with another mindless movie review of some sort.
