{"id":479235,"date":"2026-03-16T21:37:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T21:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479235\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T21:37:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T21:37:24","slug":"jorma-taccones-comedy-is-a-misfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479235\/","title":{"rendered":"Jorma Taccone’s Comedy Is a Misfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is absolutely possible to make extreme violence funny. The accidental headshot in \u201cPulp Fiction<\/a>\u201d is one quintessential example, as is the wood chipper in \u201cFargo<\/a>.\u201d The tone of both films is finely calibrated, so both moments carry a sense of absurd irony. They\u2019re unexpected, in short, which is not the case with the unrelenting sadism of \u201cOver Your Dead Body<\/a>.\u201d By the end of this numbingly mean-spirited movie, even a plastic baggie full of fingers fails to shock, which in turn makes the moment less funny. That just leaves us with a fingerless man and the wife who hates him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Lisa (Samara Weaving) and Dan (Jason Segel) have long since fallen out of love by the time the film<\/a> begins \u2014 they\u2019re mutually planning to murder each other, which is as extreme as a breakup can get. But it\u2019s also difficult to see what could have possibly brought them together in the first place. The lack of chemistry between the couple is exaggerated by Segel\u2019s blas\u00e9 performance, made all the more expressionless by Weaving\u2019s naturally expressive face. That being said, this is not a stretch for the \u201cReady or Not\u201d star: Mention the name \u201cSamara Weaving\u201d to a casual moviegoer, and they\u2019ll probably imagine her with blood splattered on her face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a> \"Joe<\/a> <\/p>\n

Weaving does little to challenge that image here, utilizing all her usual tricks as a bitter thespian who lacks the talent to land the theater role that will legitimize her as a serious actress. Dan has been following a different trajectory: Since making his first and only feature film eight years earlier, he\u2019s fallen back into directing junk like the (very realistic) wireless commercial that opens the film. She\u2019s resentful, he\u2019s passive-aggressive, and both of them cannot wait to be rid of each other. This is true for the audience as well, and the only part of \u201cOver Your Dead Body\u201d that really works is the sequence where the leads no longer have to pretend to like each other, sparking a verbal sparring match that effectively utilizes both stars\u2019 comedic talents.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As with graphic violence, repellent characters don\u2019t have to be a dealbreaker in a film like this one. \u201cOver Your Dead Body\u201d goes wrong by pitting this hateful couple against a trio of even more dangerous and violent people, who literally crash through the ceiling into the couple\u2019s bedroom just as Dan and Lisa\u2019s story starts to run out of momentum. This happens early on, changing the dynamic as Dan and Lisa are forced to fight together against a suave fugitive (Timothy Olyphant), the delusional prison guard who thinks she loves him (Juliette Lewis), and their neo-Nazi enforcer (Keith Jardine), all of whom have been squatting in Dan and Lisa\u2019s cabin after escaping from a nearby prison a few days before. (The film was actually shot in Finland, which adequately stands in for upstate New York.) There\u2019s no one to root for here, an impression that\u2019s underlined by the consistent lack of inferiority within the characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one specific moment where \u201cOver Your Dead Body\u201d sours, turning a cheeky bloodbath into an off-putting and poorly calibrated slog. Generously, this scene could be called a \u201cDeliverance\u201d riff; in practice, it\u2019s just a rape joke, and not a particularly funny one. Director Jorma Taccone got his start as a member of The Lonely Island, and his previous feature-film directing efforts have stayed within the goofy, good-natured style of comedy that made him famous. Adapted from a Norwegian-language film from director Tommy Wirkola, this movie needs a director who can smoothly shift from silly to sadistic within a single scene, and Jaccone\u2019s broad comedic sensibilities aren\u2019t up to the task.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result is a movie where the jokes are just mean, and the meanness isn\u2019t funny, leading to a cynical denouement that\u2019s been done many times before. \u201cOver Your Dead Body\u201d has nothing to say about relationships, or filmmaking, or violence, although it\u2019s a violent movie about filmmakers who are in a relationship. The stunts, particularly the hand-to-hand combat, are impressive, and although they vary in quality, there are a few effective prosthetic makeups as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That being said, its professional technical aspects just add to the impression that this is a glib and insincere effort, trying to graft a fun moviegoing experience onto a depressing story about hateful people reveling in each other\u2019s pain. Again, this could be entertaining in the right hands. Here, it just feels smug.<\/p>\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n

\u201cOver Your Dead Body\u201d premiered at SXSW<\/a> 2026. Independent Film Company opens the film April 24.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is absolutely possible to make extreme violence funny. The accidental headshot in \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d is one quintessential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2332,2839,134171,129,73201,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-479235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-movies","tag-over-your-dead-body","tag-reviews","tag-sxsw","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}