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Over Her Dead Body

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: PG-13
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

Over Her Dead Body is a film possessed by television sit com style and the narrative spirit of a much better film and play, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Television writer/producer and first time director, Jeff Lowell could almost be accused of plagiarism by the Coward estate if this story wasn’t so inept and unfunny.

Television personalities Eva Longoria Parker, of Desperate Housewives, and Boston Legal’s Lake Bell star as two women fighting over the love of mild mannered veterinarian Henry (Paul Rudd). On the eve of her wedding a bossy Kate (Longoria Parker) dies in a freak accident and her spirit waits to become an angel in a state of limbo. Meanwhile time passes and would-be husband, Henry, mourning her loss, gets set up by his sister with an attractive young psychic named Ashley (Bell). Acting on ideas from the late Kate’s diary, Ashley agrees to convince Henry it’s time to move on and fall in love again. But the possessive spirit of Kate won’t allow this and she begins her torment of Ashley. Unlike most ghost haunting comedies, poor Ashley is the only one who sees and hears Kate.

There is virtually no originality in this awkwardly silly film as Kate tries numerous ways to scare and embarrass Ashley; from hearing voices, running out of a health club shower naked, to falling over in tight little mini-dresses, Bell suffers the slings and arrows of badly timed comic gags. Furthermore, Lowell sprinkles the script with a variety of other lame humor: gay jokes reminiscent of Will and Grace, fart jokes and animals that talk.

Longoria Parker is appropriately bitchy as Kate, but has no romantic chemistry with Rudd who seems mostly bland. As Valentine’s Day approaches, for those seeking a much better romantic comedy about a spirit helping out their surviving lover, check out the 1991 little gem Truly, Madly, Deeply, which starred Alan Rickman.