“Over Your Dead Body” (2026) Review
Director: Jorma Taccone Screenwriter: Nick Kocher, Brian McElhaney Cast: Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Paul Guilfoyle, Keith Jardine, Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis Distributor: IFC Running Time: 107 min. MPAA: R
When a married couple tries to kill each other, the obvious question arises: Was divorce not on the table? The subject doesn’t really come up in the absurd violence of Over Your Dead Body. Likewise, the question of how characters can endure multiple stabbings, gunshots, and lost limbs is never given an answer. Such explanations are unnecessary for a film that wants to romp through absurd performances and even more absurd displays of violence. It mostly holds together as a series of ridiculous deaths held together with twisty duct tape.
Dan Burton (Jason Segel) isn’t exactly an expert at wife-killing, given how he plans to off his spouse, Lisa (Samara Weaving). He hopes to do the deed on a cabin trip, making sure plenty of people know the vacation will be dangerous and that one of them might not come back. Unfortunately, Lisa also has plans to kill her husband with a similar approach. Even though Lisa is a good enough actor to fool her husband, she isn’t smart enough to pull off a murder. Still, it’s fun to watch them try, as they battle over who can pull off a more convincing story for the police.
Director Jorma Taccone gets in a few funny scenes during the first act, but this bit could get old. For better or worse, he tosses in some extra ingredients with a dopey accomplice (Jake Curran), a war-hungry elder (Paul Guilfoyle), and a trio of escaping convicts, composed of a vicious Timothy Olyphant, hot-headed Juliette Lewis, and muscle-headed Keith Jardine. These encounters are marked by friction, but more for how bodies can be brutalized than for what conversations can be had. That might be a blessing in disguise, considering most of the conversations center around Harry Potter references and games involving rape.
The spirit of this film is admirable enough to overlook how the film places its themes of debt, dreams, media exaggeration, and marriage problems on vacation. The gruesome action is thoughtful enough to place an extra dollop of ouch on every moment of knives to the back and shotgun blasts to the face. There’s a scene where Timothy Olyphant could easily run downstairs to continue his assault, but he’s already so knee-deep in this carnage that he just bursts through the window and off the roof. Why? Why not? A movie that boasts bodies being sliced up by lawnmowers is willing to do anything for a wince.
As wonderfully absurd as these many kills may be, I couldn’t help but feel the film is more complete in how well Segel and Weaving start off the picture. Their back-and-forth over how a steak is prepared and how Weaving’s Australian accent is a cross between “British and the devil” was genuinely hilarious. Yet the film almost treats this as fluff before the blood starts gushing, especially since the following dialogue is reduced to an expected, routine rekindling of romance. Apologies come easier when there are some crazed killers tracking you through your cabin. The way the scenario plays out feels less like an unexpected series of encounters on vacation and more like a Mr.-and-Mrs.-Smith therapy package working as intended.
There are a few laughs to be had in Over Your Dead Body, even if they’re a bit undercooked for how reliant the film becomes on its juicy violence. To Taccone’s credit, he knows how to deliver an unpredictable ride, given how many tracks he switches with each unexpected death and development (including a last-minute cameo by Kumail Nanjiani too good to spoil here). On that level of watching Segel and Weaving gnash their way through a violent cabin romp, it’s a worthy trip worth taking for all its vivacious vulgarity.
