Publication Date: 04-16-2026

Over Your Dead Body (2026) review

Dir. Jorma Taccone

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★½

As fate would have it, Over Your Dead Body is the best movie of the year featuring a blood-splattered Samara Weaving, lapping Ready or Not 2: Here I Come with both its wit and body horror, while also serving as a delightful showcase of her talents. With that in mind, there isn’t a weak link in the cast, as everyone in Jorma Taccone’s latest has the opportunity to shine and flex their muscles, both literal and comedic, in what will likely go down as one of the year’s most entertaining movies.

Before diving into Over Your Dead Body — a new action, comedy, thriller, and splatter horror hybrid where each individual genre is well-represented — I just want to again express how wonderful it is to see every member of The Lonely Island go on to have individual success. The comedy trio that vaulted to stratospheric heights on Saturday Night Live thanks to their musical talent, its members have taken their talents to various places that feel germane to their skillset. Andy Samberg was a regular on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and starred in the delightful film Palm Springs; Akiva Schaffer revived The Naked Gun in crowdpleasing fashion, and that was after bringing Chip ‘n Dale back for a worthy Netflix movie; and now, Jorma Taccone is expanding his horizons to a multi-genre thriller. While the jump for Taccone might seem grand, let me remind you how integral comedic timing was to such works as The Evil Dead. There’s an art to a well-executed joke in the midst of bloodshed, and Taccone brings Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney’s script to life with a punchy, demented sense of humor.

Based on the 2021 Norwegian film The Trip, the story centers around Dan (Jason Segel) and Lisa (Weaving). He directs commercials. She is an off-Broadway actress. Both don’t particularly like each other anymore, and would probably agree that “love” is far too strong of a word. Dan organizes a weekend getaway at his crusty father’s (Paul Guilfoyle) upstate New York cabin, but it’s a getaway where both of them have hidden agendas. They’re both planning to kill each other in cold blood.

Lisa catches onto Dan’s plan and ineptitude early, and manages to tie him to a chair just as his flakey partner, Henry (Jake Curran) shows up. Almost instantly after he arrives, Henry ties up both Dan and Lisa to try and up his own cut of the process, which only leads to the couple passionately vocalizing their contempt for one another. Dan has blown the couple’s money on a life that appears luxurious, but has in fact left them broke. Dan is criticized by Lisa no matter what he says or does, and believes she’s actually a terrible actress. Just as this play-like structure seems like it’s overtaking the movie, a shot is fired into the cabin ceiling, and three goons — two escaped convicts, Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Todd (Keith Jardine), along with Allegra (Juliette Lewis), a corrections-officer-turned-accomplice — come crashing down. What began as something akin to Marriage Story with a murder plot instead evolves into a cat-and-mouse thriller ala Don’t Breathe in which Dan and Lisa are now outnumbered by cold-blooded murderers.

A large part of Over Your Dead Body‘s playfulness comes from the way Kocher and McElhaney structure the story. The film keeps flashing back in time, in both weeks, days, and even minutes, overlapping the backstories of its seven players, and recontextualizing our initial impressions. Seeing this so soon after The Drama has reminded me how editing can manipulate otherwise linear stories and give them entirely different personalities based on how events in the past are interjected and depicted. Editor Jeremy Cohen is deliberate with his flashbacks. The cutaways — including a gut-bustingly funny aside involving Guilfoyle, the scene-stealer in a movie chockful of everyone being on top of their game — are not only well-placed, but afford their own momentum on top of what is already existing in the present storyline.

The other day at work, I had The Herd on in the background, and Colin Cowherd was expounding about how movies like Sinners and Weapons always leave him mentally marinating over how creative people can come up with concepts so riveting. While Over Your Dead Body isn’t quite on that level of thematic heft, and is ultimately a remake, there is a lot of ingenuity in its execution. The Lonely Island-brand of awkward and irreverent humor is on display. This is not the kind of film that cuts away from the outcome of its violence, and instead lets its camera linger on the wealth of gory sight-gags. Finally, the third act recalls that of Broken Lizard’s Club Dread in the way it handles its twisty, aquatic showdown.

There is only one scene that doesn’t work, and I’m sad to say it’s a near-rape scene. I find rape scenes very difficult to justify in most situations, and this one not only comes out of the blue, but momentarily nosedives the darkly funny material into something more sinister. To the credit of its writer, the film’s recovery time is quick, but it’s still a sequence that should’ve ended up on the cutting room floor.

Such a lovely showcase this is for a wealth of tremendous character actors. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen Segel in a movie, and his shaggy appearance and demeanor recalls Jeff Daniels from Dumb & Dumber in a heartwarming way. Weaving employs her native Australian tongue, sprinkling in a shrill effect for Lisa, as if to amplify what Dan already has grown to detest about her. You already know how good Timothy Olyphant is, and this is further proof that he will gift even the silliest villain roles a menacing gravity that makes them anything but stock. Juliette Lewis earns big laughs in a sequence involving charades, and another featuring her attempting to patch up her mangled foot. But it’s Keith Jardine’s bumbling, ne’er-do-well Todd who has some big laughs; finally a longtime background actor gets the spotlight to himself in a few key scenes involving both comedy and physicality.

Spontaneous yet exceedingly paced with attention to detail, uproariously funny without straining to be, and ceaselessly engaging, Over Your Dead Body is a win for all involved. Just as I grew a touch worried that 87North was starting to show cracks in its foundation — if you didn’t see it, yes, Love Hurts was that bad — they storm back with another high-concept, multi-genre extravaganza that plays boldly on the big screen.

NOTE: Over Your Dead Body will see a wide theatrical release on April 24th, 2026.

Starring: Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Timothy Olyphant, Keith Jardine, Juliette Lewis, Paul Guilfoyle, and Jake Curran. Directed by: Jorma Taccone.