SXSW has long staked its reputation on being a genre positive festival – from comedy, to action, to horror, and every permutation thereof, it is the crowd if you want an audience who is ready and locked in for whatever mayhem might splash across the screen. This is one of the reasons I knew I had to catch Over Your Dead Body – the others are the unbelievably stacked cast of Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Juliette Lewis, and Timothy Olyphant, all directed by the wild card of the Lonely Island, Jorma Taccone. An adaptation of the Norwegian film The Trip, the film has a fairly standard premise of a couple in a miserable relationship who each separately plot to murder each other while on holiday to their cabin. Naturally, things so quickly awry as the couple realizes killing each other is a lot harder than they might’ve imagined, especially when some fugitives get mixed in.
Here’s the thing about this movie – a lot of people will find it deeply off-putting. This is not a kind movie. It is a movie filled with reprehensible characters and even the one character who might be considered heroic is a prick. It is dark in ways that are both shocking and, at times, disgusting – violent and unflinchingly so. But, if you have a stomach for dark comedy and brutal action then this may be an absolute joy for you. I know it was for me, and in no small part to an audience that just fully bought into its twisted turns. But really, what makes these horrible characters tolerable are the brilliant cast who find heart in even the heartless. Every performance stands out in its own way, and every actor knows exactly how to strike the balance between being cartoonishly violent while being hopelessly wounded.
Taccone does a great job finding a pace for the film that lulls you in slow but doesn’t let up once it takes off. I imagine many will find the unrelenting nature of the violence a bit mind numbing after a while but, if you find the right audience, strap in.
Anyway, Quaid Army.