Over Her Dead Body

Having the Holy Spirit to guide us, Christian movie viewers can often make wise decisions of which movies to enjoy and which to avoid. Careful steps are often required since Hollywood regularly likes to preach deceptive messages that are contrary to God’s Word. From beginning to end, “Over Her Dead Body” is saturated in moral filth and those deceptive messages.

Kate and Henry are engaged to be married. On the morning of her wedding, Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) runs around making sure every single detail is immaculate. When her ice sculpture arrives, she immediately becomes angry when she discovers that the sculptor made her an iced angel without wings. After demanding he take it back, she realizes that he’s about to reverse his truck into her gardenias. She runs behind his truck, trying to stop him before he crushes her flowers. Instead, the ice sculpture crushes her when it falls off the truck. When Kate awakes, she finds herself in a white room with a female angel. When the angel tells Kate that she is dead, Kate refuses to listen to the angel. Giving up, the angel leaves Kate before offering her anymore explanation.

A year after her death, Henry (a charming Paul Rudd) is still mourning. His annoying sister, Chloe, is tired of his refusal to date. She believes the only way for Henry to move on is for him to contact Kate from the dead. Hoping that if Kate herself tells him to move on, Henry would finally choose to heal. Hearing of a psychic, Chloe takes a skeptical Henry to see Ashley (Lake Bell). After failing to reach Kate, Henry becomes even more doubtful of Ashley’s psychic abilities. In a desperate attempt to have Henry heal, Chloe devises a plan of deceiving her brother. She gives Ashley the dead fiancée’s diary. By reading Kate’s diary, Ashley learns the personal details of Henry and Kate’s relationship. This finally convinces Henry that Ashley can indeed see Kate. After a few readings, Ashley and Henry soon begin to fall for one another. Although Ashley lied in the beginning about seeing Kate, this soon changes. After never hearing the angel’s full explanation, Kate believes her unfinished business is protecting Henry from Ashley. So the feeble adventure begins about a ghost trying to stop two people from falling in love in this predictable movie.

The cast is decent, the script sub par. Eva Longoria Parker does a successful job in playing the dead, annoying fiancée. Paul Rudd fits the role perfectly as the grieving, young fiancée. He is the only believable and likable character in the movie. Jason Rigg plays Dan who’s Ashley’s gay-pretending best friend. He adds no value to the movie but only provides a poor attempt for a love triangle between Ashley and Henry. Even the talents in this movie could not save it from flat lining. The script was bland and lacking. The chemistry between Bell and Rudd was strained and forcible; the technical dialogue did not help in sparking any chemistry. The movie’s effort for humor resulted in annoyance. Most scenes meant for laughter were greeted with silence from the crowd. I laughed twice during the film. Even then, those scenes were stretched-out, desperately trying to get one more laugh.

Along with inconvenient scenes, this movie has plenty of profanity and sex. I counted over 20 uses of the Lord’s name in vain, including three or four GDs. In addition, there were also about 15 other uses of profanity sprinkled throughout the film. Bell’s cleavage is shown on several occasions. She runs through a gym topless (her arms cover her breasts). Her dress attire often shows her cleavage as well. She tells Dan men only want to have sex with her; Dan replies it’s because she’s psychic. Chloe asks her brother if she were to get a big, breasted woman would he change his mind about dating; not surprisingly, he said he would. After a mere few dates, Paul and Ashley spend the weekend together. They try to have sex in a lengthy scene. With Kate interrupting them, Ashley has Henry “talk dirty” to her over and over again in order to drown out Kate’s comments.

This movie tries to preach its beliefs into its viewers, and we, Christians, can only pray that this movie does not deceive the minds of young children and the people who do not yet know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dangerous Lies about Heaven and Death

Before their first reading, Ashley asks Henry if he believes in heaven. He tells her that the “jury’s still out on that one.” She then tells him that without heaven the world would be a meaningless place. She says that heaven is a waiting place where “our dead loves ones go.” She continues on to say that “if we’re lucky, we can sometimes reach our dead loved ones and talk to them.”

The film also teaches that the dead will not go to heaven until they have completed their unfinished business and have collected an “orb of light” from their loved ones. While being dead, Kate runs into her sculptor. He, too, has died, but from drinking and driving. He tells Kate of how he never got over his alcoholism. Before he can go to heaven, he has some unfinished business. By the end of the movie, he simply tells Kate that she should do the right thing and let Ashley and Henry be together. This meaningless conversation was his ticket in getting into heaven.

God’s Truth

While this seems like a nice fairytale, it’s in complete opposition to God’s Word and Truth. Not everyone goes to heaven and no one can “buy” their way into heaven.

Without the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, this world would indeed be a meaningless place and heaven not an option. However, in 1John 2:2, it says:

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only our but also the sins for the whole world.” (NIV)

With this selfless sacrifice, Jesus paved the ONLY way to get to the Father.

Jesus said in John 14:6:

“I am the way the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The dead do not collect an “orb of light” and cannot earn their way into heaven by doing one good deed. We’re destined to die once and then judgment:

“Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”

Hebrews 9:27

God’s grace is a gift and cannot be earned with a “ticket”.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God Ephesians 2:8 (NIV)

Bottom Line:

For the sake of space, I could not possibly list all of the moral offenses. Not only does this movie deceive, but it also attacks faith in God. When Kate summoned a priest to exorcise Kate, she laughed and asked Kate why she believed “in that hocus pocus.” Lying in the movie is also seen as okay and justifiable. After all, it was only “only one little white lie.” Please do not see this movie. I do not recommend it to anyone of any age. This movie offers absolutely nothing redeeming; it’s an attack on God’s Word. It can potentially mislead its viewers into thinking that heaven is merely a free ticket away. It’s Satan’s lie, and absolutely not God’s glorious and wonderful Truth.

Violence: Mild / Profanity: Heavy / Sex/Nudity: Heavy

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.