Over Your Dead Body Review

Jason Segel and Samara Weaving's Gory Horror Comedy is a Crowd-Pleasing Mess

By: Marc Kozak

Over Your Dead Body

Jason Segel and Samara Weaving's Gory Horror Comedy is a Crowd-Pleasing Mess

By: Marc Kozak

One of the most refreshing things about The Lonely Island’s brand of comedy is that they are almost always the butt of their own jokes. The trio mastered the art of enthusiastic self-deprecation over the course of 100 digital shorts for Saturday Night Live and brought a similar sense of silliness to their two feature-length films, Hot Rod (2007) and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016). When Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer was announced as the director of The Naked Gun reboot in 2025, it made a lot of sense – who better to make a movie about a buffoonish police officer engaging in absurd gags and stupid slapstick comedy? It could’ve easily become a Lonely Island skit had it not already existed.

It might seem a little less obvious to enlist one of the group to helm a blood-spattering action thriller, but it turns out that it’s not a bad idea to have someone on hand who can provide plenty of genuine laughs to offset the bone-crunching violence. With Over Your Dead Body, Jorma Taccone (who co-directed Popstar) showcases a natural ability to keep things light even as viscera flies in all directions, resulting in one of those perfect horror-comedies to see in a crowded theater full of screaming and squirming audience members.

It’s interesting to watch the sophomoric sensibilities of Taccone’s humor clash with the sadistic mean- spiritedness of the script (written by the internet sketch comedy duo and former SNL writers BriTANicK). The core concept is a dark twist on a standard rom-com plot – Lisa (Samara Weaving) and Dan (Jason Segel) are a married couple that have fallen out of love and have fallen into a routine of sniping at each other over anything and everything. The couple plans a getaway to a family home out in the woods in order to “reconnect,” but it’s clear from Dan’s devilish glares and the sinister background music that he has a much more…permanent solution to their marital dilemma. These early scenes are full of a clear and coherent energy (especially compared to the movie’s latter half) that is a lot of fun to watch, thanks in large part to Segel and Weaving’s exasperated banter and anti-chemistry. These are two people who have clearly had more than enough of each other, and each insult is gleefully delivered with the certainty that it will land on the other person with maximum damage.

" Over Your Dead Body is one of those perfect horror-comedies to see in a crowded theater full of screaming and squirming audience members.  "

Once Dan finally makes his move, he is easily countered by Lisa, who was planning on doing the same exact thing. The pair each have their moment with the upper hand, allowing them to air all of their grievances and give the audience an even clearer picture of a passion that has long since died. Segel is clearly the more pathetic figure (which fits Segel’s skillset to a T), a once promising movie director who has fallen into a series of meaningless commercial work, whereas Lisa is a struggling theater actress who has already moved on to other men. Both blame the other for all of their own creative ills, even if both of them are just miserable people in general at this point.

Absolutely no compromise is reached, and the pair really go at it, only seconds away from one landing a fatal blow. It’s at this point that the movie completely changes gears, literally dropping a trio of new characters into the mix. As we learn from an amusingly recurring flashback gag, two violent convicts (Timothy Olyphant and Keith Jardine) have escaped prison with the help of a love-struck guard (Juliette Lewis), and the trio are hiding out in a remote cabin until, you guessed it, Dan and Lisa show up. The clumsy convicts interrupt the marital spat and hold Dan and Lisa hostage, threatening them with all kinds of bodily harm unless they empty their bank accounts to assist in an escape to Mexico.

From here, the movie devolves into a home invasion/torture comedy (?) that doesn’t really work that well. There is an uncomfortably long sequence in which Dan is on the verge of being violently sodomized, and the movie doesn’t make it clear whether we are supposed to find all of this funny or scary. All of the violence up to this point had been played mostly for laughs – even a married couple threatening to kill each other still felt pretty light – but the tone shifts way too hard in the other direction with this scene. It’s a total miscalculation and something that really should’ve been removed or completely reconsidered.

The final act settles into a more standard affair of gleefully gory violence (as strange as that feels to say after the last paragraph) as Dan and Lisa are forced to work together to escape from certain death. Not a single character escapes from some kind of catastrophic bodily damage, as bones break at severe angles, limbs are detached, and blood and/or vomit covers just about every square inch of the cabin setting. The action and makeup work are top notch, likely due to the involvement of producer 87North, who has helped bring to life other action-heavy spectacles like Nobody and The Fall Guy. If you’re into gnarly horror violence, you’re going to have a good time here.

It is wildly amusing to see the Oscar-nominated Juliette Lewis in a role like this, but the real standout is Timothy Olyphant, who struts around the screen with the swagger of the smartest man in the room (even if that isn’t saying much in this case). He generally steals the show as the movie’s true villain, easily manipulating his moronic crew with a smile on his face, full of confidence that Dan and Lisa will eventually bend to his will.

After the dust has cleared and all of the blood has been spilled, we’re left to reevaluate Dan and Lisa’s relationship, even if, frankly, no one likely cares by the time the credits roll. The throughline of their marriage story isn’t very interesting at all – Taccone and crew are far more interested in all of the mayhem that happens along the way, and any commentary about marriages or relationships is high level at best. Bringing Taccone and Segel to this project – which itself is an English-language remake of the 2021 film The Trip – was a good move in that it provides a much goofier tone than many movies of a similar nature. That tone works against it when the story brushes up against any kind of serious emotion, but it’s clear Taccone wanted to use the framework to deliver a good time. A few missteps aside, it's a job well done in that regard.