LOS ANGELES, April 20 (UPI) -- Over Your Dead Body, in theaters Friday, is not always successful at the tonal balance it is trying to strike. It has enough surprises for a good night out at the movies and debates about what did not work after.
Dan (Jason Segal) and Lisa (Samara Weaving) spend a weekend at a cabin in upstate New York where each plans to murder the other. Both plans go awry and the married couple has to survive the weekend when a trio of escaped convicts and their corrections officer invade their home.
Though it takes the first third and several flashbacks to set up all the pieces, the tension begins early on as Dan clumsily sets his plan in motion. He awkwardly tries to set up an alibi with coworkers, and his anxiety makes it a struggle to get through basic housemaking scenes.
Lisa is so abrasive, one can see how it might be toxic to a marriage, but in a dark comedy and in Weaving's Australian accent, it is endearing. Dan's passive-aggression is just as toxic.
Both of their plans are messier than they anticipated. The time jumps to how they each set up their plans becomes a running joke.
