Thanks for checking out our Over Her Dead Body Review!
The General Idea
Kate (Eva Longoria) is engaged to be wed to Henry (Paul Rudd), she gets killed on their wedding day and becomes trapped on earth as a ghost. A year on Henry’s sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane) convinces him to talk to Ashley, a delicious psychic (Lake Bell). The psychic lies to Henry initially (at the request of Chloe) and says that Kate sends her blessing from the nether-world and wants him to be happy. Ashley and Henry hit it off, love begins to form, and then a jealous ghost begins to sabotage the relationship by means of harassing the psychic with visitations.
The Good
Paul Rudd rules and his charisma is able to make the most out of any situation. In this film he did not have a lot of comedic material in which to shine, and yet he manages to charm you none the less. He did not save this movie, but I shudder to think of what It would have been without him.
Near the end of this film, there is a great couple of scenes where a parrot is used. The parrot scenes were the best part of this film.
The Bad
I know in a ghost story you are supposed to suspend belief, but so much in this film left me shaking my head. Eva Longoria had one emotion the whole way through the film and reacted to her own death the same way you or I may react to the purchasing of tic-tacs. As a jealous ghost, their should have been a ton of opportunity for hilarity, but we didn’t get much at all.
This film is not funny enough to be a comedy and not serious enough to be a drama, so it disappoints on both levels. There is a lot of bickering between Kate and Ashley, but it never really makes you laugh and certainly is not nasty enough to be believable. After the initial death – we don’t see Longoria for the next 20 minutes. I started to wonder why she was even in the film at all. For a movie about a troublesome ghost we hardly see her character. We see more of Ashley’s assistant Dan (Jason Biggs) than we do of her.
The movie kept reminding me of Ghost, and although the movie does not rip anything off per se, you can see where a few ideas may have been inspired from the Swayze film. The problem is, Ghost fucking ruled, and the comparison reminded me of how well an idea like this can be done.
Overall
I would certainly not recommend this movie, I wasn’t a fan of it and do not think many will find it memorable. The film never infuriated me and never bored me to tears but it was a lukewarm experience that dwelled in the realm of mediocrity. The parrot ended the film well, and I consider him/her/it to be the star of the show.
I give this film a 4/10, it would have been a 2 if not for the team up of Paul Rudd and the Parrot.
