“Lisa and I are going out to the cabin this weekend,” says Dan (Jason Segel). He also adds that Lisa (Samara Weaving) loves to hike, and there’s a lot of danger in the mountains and terrain. He recites these lines and “facts” to anyone within earshot, be it his ill father at the hospital, or his production coworkers on the latest numb-inducing commercial he’s directing. It’s a far cry from directing an actual movie, something he’s only done once. Is he simply happy to treat his theater actress wife to a stress relief getaway?
If only his intentions were so noble. In reality, he’s been very unhappy in this marriage for a while. Dan is using this vacation to murder his spouse, the plan scoped from beginning to end. The only thing he didn’t account for? Lisa using the same weekend to eliminate Dan. Collectively, they didn’t account for two escaped convicts (Timothy Olyphant, Keith Jardine) and a corrupt prison guard (Juliette Lewis) to be holed up in the cabin looking for money to fund their getaway. This trio has no problem torturing and murdering anyone they come across. If Dan and Lisa can’t put aside their desires to off each other and work as a pair, they’ll die as a pair.
It was over 10 years ago when Jorma Taccone co-wrote and co-directed Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. On first viewing, I thought it was one of the best movies of 2016, and it’s aged very well into one of the top-tier comedies of the 2010s. Perhaps due to the woeful underperformance of that movie, it’s been 10 years since Taccone has been given the opportunity to direct something since. I don’t think Over Your Dead Body, a remake of 2021’s Norwegian movie The Trip, is going to be the elixir to securing more directing gigs, a shame because it does start off pretty strong.
The first 40-50 minutes are where the movie is the most delightful and hilarious. It’s the part of the movie that is solely focused on Dan and Lisa, and Taccone uses the anti-chemistry Weaving and Segel have to create the largest laughs. Arguably the best scene of the movie takes place during an outdoors dinner where Dan thinks he’s made Lisa’s favorite meal, only to be ridiculed that it’s not. However, the revelation that it’s not her favorite meal doesn’t seem to phase Dan too much, and it is part of the tit-for-tat, psychological one-upmanship the married couple is playing with each other.
There’s a moment slightly north of the 50-minute mark where Over Your Dead Body turns for the worst. No spoilers, but it’s a very heavy act played for humor that overstays its welcome, and the film never fully recovers from it until the epilogue. It’s also at that moment where Taccone and his writers in Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney throw the subgenres of home invasion, grindhouse-esque action, dark comedy, and horror into a blender. The smoothie concoction they create is heavy on the gore and chaos, yet has diminishing returns the longer the runtime goes on, and the nonlinear flashbacks are cute the first two times, but eventually dull the more they’re utilized.
This type of hodgepodge film is tailor-made for Weaving, and as it moves, sometimes concurrently, through genres, she feels the most at home within Over Your Dead Body (the decision to have her use her native Australian accent adds immensely to the humor in the early going). On the flipside, Segel is less successful through the story’s evolutions, especially when he’s asked to be something of a badass. There’s proof of concept with Weaving, but none of that exists with Segel. Of the three antagonists, Olyphant’s natural propensity for snarkiness plays well in his role. I’m not sure what to make of Lewis, she’s obviously going for it in a Daisy Domergue type of way and seems to be having a rousing time doing so, but her foul-mouthed viciousness becomes obnoxious in short order.
I can see why Taccone wanted to do an American remake of The Trip. The opportunity to branch out and do something beyond straight comedy with this story is the type of thing that, if pulled off successfully, can be the ignition point for securing other diverse and larger budgeted projects, if desired. Doing a remake isn’t automatically a bad thing. But I wish he and the writers went with a “based-on” approach rather than a full-on remake, and be willing to excise certain pieces of the film while adding in their own threads and characters.
C-
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