Over Your Dead Body review: Samara Weaving and Jason Segel face off in a comically bad romance

The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone has been carving out his reputation as a filmmaker with bonkers parodies like the mockumentary Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping and the action-packed Saturday Night Live spinoff MacGruber, itself a spoof of MacGyver. With his latest, Over Your Dead Body, he moves into a grimmer brand of humor, remaking The Trip, a Norwegian dark comedy, written and directed by Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters).

Samara Weaving and Jason Segel star as Lisa and Dan, a married couple who have grown absolutely sick of each other. Sure, to their friends or family, it seems like they're planning a weekend getaway to Dan's dad's cabin to romantically reconnect. But really, what Dan has planned is what true crime internet would call an "alpine divorce," meaning he's plotting to murder his wife and make it look like a climbing accident.

But fret not for Lisa. The twist that launches Over Your Dead Body into Act Two is Lisa's homicidal scheme of her own, intended for her husband. However, both their deadly plans will be thwarted when a trio of home invaders crash their perverse party.

Let the gruesome games begin.

Ready for some sick shit? Over Your Dead Body will deliver.

Out of this remake's premiere at SXSW, Over Your Dead Body had audiences screaming with shock and laughter. Dan and Lisa are amateurs at deadly violence, making a comical mess of it. But the home invaders are experts, and Taccone relishes turning his pretty stars into grisly mulch.

See, Pete (a perfectly cast Timothy Olyphant) and Todd (Keith Jardine) are brutish convicts who've escaped prison with the help of Allegra (Juliette Lewis), a corrupt corrections officer desperately besotted with Pete. The three of them were happy to squat in this seemingly empty cabin until this miserable couple showed up with their bickering and reckless weaponry.

It won't be the invading trio who sheds first blood in this cabin. But the first bit of violence will lock in the audience's understanding of just how macabre and gory this comedy is going to get.

To survive this home invasion, husband and wife must (resentfully) team up to survive. But the battle getting there will be bone-snapping, blood-spraying carnage.

Don't watch The Trip before Over Your Dead Body.

This isn't a matter of one being better than the other, but more about the element of surprise. Screenwriting partners Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (also known as the sketch comedy duo BriTANicK) kept pretty close to the plotting of Wirkola's script, down to the damage done to certain characters' limbs. However, they made the clever change of turning a trio of three male escaped convicts into a pair of runaway criminals with one lovestruck guard.

Through Pete and Allegra, Over Your Dead Body offers a funny foil to the hero couple's toxic dynamic. At first, these natural born killers seem proof there's a lid for every pot, being almost sickeningly sweet and into each other. But as their escape plan gets messier, even this couple's chemistry begins to sour, with brutal results.

That deviation brings some truly new elements to this adaptation. But if you want to experience the thrills of the SXSW audience — who jumped, hooted, and screamed with each gruesome blow — best to not watch The Trip first. Having seen it, I could tell where Taccone had followed Wirkola's wicked lead, and where he'd leaned into goofiness to better suit the humor of American audiences.

Admittedly, I was surprised that a prolonged sequence involving the threat of rape made it into the American movie. Thankfully, it's not as long or as menacing as Wirkola's version, which goes harder and darker. So, consider your own mileage before choosing which trip you want to see (first).

Timothy Olyphant steals this movie.

Props to Weaving and Segel, who gamely take a beating as the movie demands. However, Weaving's had to face more devilish onscreen threats in Ready or Not and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which also premiered at SXSW. Her Lisa, who is more a griper than a fighter, feels a faint echo of the kind of kick-ass and darkly funny heroine we've seen her play before. (See also: Guns Akimbo.) So, she gets outshone by her co-stars here.

For his part, Segel is a terrific clown, whether fumbling a murder attempt or getting his ass beat by a merciless menace. Jardine plays a solid oaf in this chaotic ensemble, and it's wild fun to watch Lewis spit insults between cooing over Olyphant. But the Justified star manages to be truly terrifying while sexy and silly.

The dude just has range! From Deadwood to Santa Clarita Diet, you can see Olyphant go from steely machismo to daffy suburban dad. Here, he can sneer to rattle our nerves, but then delve into a beguiling conversation about cinema with unabashed charm or breezily deliver relationship advice about how to keep things "fresh."

Ever riveting, his eyes can flash to mercilessness or mirth with ease. Olyphant's volatility as Pete drives the tension of this hostage situation forward, because Lisa and Dan can never be quite sure where they stand with this mercurial man.

Simply put, if you're looking for a twisted good time, Over Your Dead Body will deliver. It's not radically different from its source material yet charts its own course in some compelling ways. And if your humor leans toward the dark side, you won't want to miss this.

Over Your Dead Body was reviewed out of SXSW. The film opens in theaters April 24.