Synopsis: When miserable couple Dan and Lisa retreat to a remote cabin for a romantic reset, each arrives with a secret plan to murder the other. Their carefully plotted traps and counterplots quickly unravel when a dangerous crew crashes the weekend with plans of their own. As the toxic getaway spirals into chaotic carnage, Dan and Lisa must survive the intruders, each other, and figure out if they want to save their marriage or survive it.
What We Thought:
I thought the first half of Over Your Dead Body was a brilliant dark comedy. I loved the back & forth between its stars Samara Weaving and Jason Segel. Then the second half becomes a home invasion type film and despite the fantastic action, I thought the film lost steam.
Weaving plays an actress married to Segel, a director. He had a hit film, but now shoots commercials. Their marriage is clearly rocky and the pair go away to their cabin for a getaway that on paper seems like the romantic getaway their marriage needs. They both have ulterior motives of course and as that section plays out, I’m sitting there howling at their predicament. Both leads bring a comedic element to a dark situation that makes you laugh and pick a side to root for.
Then the second half introduces a prison escape subplot and we meet characters portrayed by Keith Jardine, Timothy Olyphant, and Juliette Lewis. Jardine and Olyphant are prisoners who recently escaped thanks to Lewis and her prison guard character. As the film progresses, it becomes about the married couple vs. the escapees and loses its dark comedy element. Will the married couple realize they need to bond to survive their captives? You can probably answer that question without even seeing the movie.
If the film was 100% about Weaving vs. Segel it would have been a much better flick. Instead it ends up like Knock at the Cabin or any other home invasion flick. The dynamic between Weaving and Segel was great, but you lose all that momentum as the film drags on and it does drag never knowing when to actually end.
I love 87North and you can very much feel their stunt work and violence in Over Your Dead Body. 87North producing it is the main reason I even saw the film. Samara Weaving can take a punch and has become the Queen of getting the crap beaten out of her thanks to movies like this, Mayhem and Ready or Not/Ready or Not 2 Here I Come. Unfortunately this feels like two different movies morphed into one. If it stuck to being just a married couple dark comedy it would have been better. If it was a home invasion movie with a married couple fighting off prison escapees with topnotch 87North violence it’s a better movie. The first half had me laughing, the second half had me cheering heads exploding, but the combo didn’t work as a whole for me.
The Nerds Templar 