A painfully misbegotten hybrid, DEAD FUNNY veers from awkward comedy to monotonous mystery with the terrible momentum of a slow-motion road accident. Vivian (Elizabeth Pena) returns home one evening to find her boyfriend (Andrew McCarthy) skewered in the breakfast nook. At first she
thinks it's a gag -- their relationship was based on practical joking -- but when she realizes he's definitively deceased, she calls in a ditsy girlfriend (Paige Turco) and the two of them set out to solve the mystery. Implausible, unengaging, and dull, right up to the O. Henry denouement, DEAD
FUNNY is independent filmmaking at its worst.
Released:
1995
Rated:
R
Length:
91 mins