Over Her Dead Body

Eva Longoria Parker needs to hang on to Desperate Housewives for dear life. She needs to dig her nails in, wrap her legs around the mailbox post and make them drag her away kicking and screaming when it is cancelled, because her movie career is going nowhere.

Longoria Parker (a/k/a ELP) stars as Kate – the worst bridezilla in the history of the world, and a person so obsessed and petty you have to wonder why anyone would ever want to marry her. Of course, Henry (Paul Rudd) is the guy who thinks she is his dream woman for life, until a horrible accident ends her life.

A year later, Kate is stuck in between this world and the next, when she learns Henry has been getting to know Ashley (Lake Bell) – a psychic and caterer with questionable skills. When Kate decides it is her job to “protect” Henry from this new woman, she starts to menace Ashley, and the haunted psychic can see and hear every word.

Will Kate drive Ashley away?

Over Her Dead Body is one of those rare movies where everything that can go wrong, goes horribly, disastrously, shockingly wrong. First, ELP looks like one of those creatures from I Am Legend as her hair is dyed this weird, lighter and quite unnatural color. Don’t say that is a cheap shot or unimportant to reviewing the movie. She looks so beastly, it was distracting from the story and dialogue. However, that might have been the plan (and a blessing).

Writer/director Jeff Lowell starts with a dreadful premise, and flails his way through the rest of the movie trying to find some comedy, some drama, some emotion, something, anything to make you stay in the theater. He gives us a very predictable story about two polar opposites who, of course, attract, which doesn’t have any dialogue of interest, no comedy to make you laugh and no romance to make your heart melt. Then, he delivers a series of attacks by Kate on Ashley that feel like they were all rejected from every horror movie ever made. Lowell even gets so desperate he treats the audience to the MOST HORRIFYING fart joke in the history of cinema. Worst of all, the audience is destined to hate every character and actor in Over Her Dead Body.

Rudd, usually lovable and charming, is sleepwalking through this movie. I know his character is supposed to be depressed over losing his future wife (who wouldn’t be depressed over losing ELP?), but Rudd doesn’t even lift his energy when Henry is supposed to be getting involved with a hot redhead.

Then, Bell, the hot redhead, proves to be bland as she fails at every attempt at slapstick comedy, doesn’t share any chemistry with Rudd as they engage in the romantic portions of Over Her Dead Body, and doesn’t share any chemistry with ELP as they engage in the supposedly heated battle over Henry. Even ELP is poisonous to the movie as she overacts throughout and doesn’t elicit one intentional laugh, giggle, guffaw or snicker (the only snickers to be found in this movie are at the concession stand).

I have to think Lowell recognized the hatred the audience was going to have for these three, because he suddenly throws in last minute complications featuring secondary characters who haven’t played any significant role in the movie so far. These conflicts emerge from nowhere, but don’t save a movie crashing and burning more and more by the minute, even if the supporting actors (Lindsay Sloan and Jason Biggs) are better than ELP, Bell and Rudd.

Over Her Dead Body is stiffer than one you would find in the morgue, predictable and forces the big climax too much.

Over Her Dead Body is rated PG-13 for sexual content and language