Nur über meine Leiche (1995) Online

"Nur über meine Leiche" or "Over My Dead Body" is a German 100-minute movie from 1995, so this one is already over 20 years old. The director and one of the writers is Rainer Matsutani and this was his first full feature film and this one is also today still among his most known. The cast includes many names that will be well known to German audiences such as Ohrt, Riemann, Folkerts, Otto, Brendler and Bergmann. But these names also make it obvious that there is no great range involved here as these people score more through charisma other than acting talent. As for the story, it was extremely bizarre from start to finish. The talk with the devil early on is still fine, but when zombie-like creatures, talking turkeys and more are introduced to the audience, it is all over the place really. This is the story of a man who has to redeem himself for what he did to women and a murderous ex-wife is not really helping matters. It was not a really bad film by any means and better than most of the other stuff Riemann did around that time, but it's baffling how she wins a German Film Award for this and how the movie in general scored so many awards. Is it different yes? But it's really extremely strange than extremely entertaining. As a whole, these absurdities make it also difficult to appreciate the more serious moments of the film and it was almost a deal breaker that the film has so many extremes and sadly it's a negative deal breaker. You can't really blame the actors for the fact that I give this one a thumbs-down, but honestly I also never felt as if they were really elevating Matsutani's weak material here. Mediocre at best, I think you should not see this one.

Germans are absolutely not funny. I know for I come from Germany. Germans cannot make movies fit for cinema - at least nobody did after Herzog and Fassbinder - because they cannot think "big" enough. Directors who can - Petersen or Emmerich - have emigrated to Hollywood already.

So what could you expect of a German fantasy comedy movie ? See, that's exactly what I expected... and I was surprised how good this film was. Fun, fantasy, a nearly surrealistic story and - not one of the virtues of German productions - good acting by main characters Ohrt and Riemann, the latter I believe to be one of the few Germans to rightfully deserve the title "actress". Just watch her in "Die Apothekerin" where she plays a black widow killing her lovers and husbands and still remains kind of funny and pleasantly.

One of the most entertaining German comedies ... ever !

After reading some of the reviews about German movies, I wasn't especially thrilled to find out that my girlfriend had chosen a German comedy for our video night. All the more pleasantly surprised I was after having watched "Over my dead body".

Unexpected twists, great use of visual effects (especially considering it was a low budget debut), great actors, remarkable storytelling and the mother reincarnated as a turkey, hilarious!

Was this really a German flick?

I can only recommend this movie to anyone who thinks Central European films are all intellect and no fun. This one gets an eight out of ten rating.

The only thing this movie has in common with the standard German comedy is the fact that Katja Riemann is in it. Apart from this, it is really a unique trait - with very macabre and sometimes outright silly humor. Director Rainer Matsutani is better known for the one episode he did for the original Lexx series (the movie series, not the TV series that followed) and his taste for the fantastic and bizarre clearly shows in this black comedy, too. Fred is such a disgusting character that one is almost tempted to genuinely like him, as is his horrible wife Charlotte. If you're looking for an unusual German production, give this one a try (unless you're afraid of turkeys, of course...)

Being honest - one of the worst films ever produced in Germany. The plot is set up around a couple of pretty strange and unrealistic characters, portrayed by exceptionally weak actors. Hard to believe that Götz Otto (Stamper in 007-Tomorrow never dies) has taken a part in it and Katja Riemann's talent was absolutely wasted in this piece of celluloid-junk. With a lot of goodwill one might put it down as a modern sort of fairy tale asking mankind to be good to each other with certain exceptions (The wife, in this particular case) which weakens up the moral. One thing might be said in favour of the movie. It provided a few welcome laughs with David Michael Williamson as Death and the turkey appearing as the mother. But now let us draw the veil of forgetting over this dark hour of German filmmaking and hope for a brighter future.