Enid Is Sleeping (released on television and home video as Over Her Dead Body)[1] is a 1990 dark comedy film directed by Maurice Phillips, starring Judge Reinhold, Elizabeth Perkins and Jeffrey Jones.
| Enid Is Sleeping | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Maurice Phillips |
| Written by | A.J. Tipping James Whaley Maurice Phillips |
| Produced by | John A. Davis Howard Malin |
| Starring | Elizabeth Perkins Judge Reinhold Jeffrey Jones Maureen Mueller Michael J. Pollard Rhea Perlman |
| Cinematography | Affonso Beato |
| Edited by | Malcolm Campbell |
| Music by | Craig Safan |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Vestron Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Plot edit
The film begins with a flashback to a household in Las Moscas, New Mexico, in the year 1959. The mother, Mrs. Pearly, is completely overwhelmed managing her household chores, her children Enid and June, and their visiting friend Harry. Angry and vicious, Enid puts her baby sister June into the oven while her mother is off for a moment to receive Harry's mother.
In 1984 (25 years later), Enid, now joined with Harry in an unloving marriage, returns home to unexpectedly find him having an affair with June. Reacting violently, she prepares to shoot them with Harry's police service gun; June smashes a vase on her head, apparently killing her. Panicking, they decide to make Enid's death look like a car accident while she and June went visiting their mother; but complications arise when Harry's partner Floyd unwittingly gets in their way and a guiltridden June begins holding a monologue with Enid to rid herself of her pangs of conscience, delaying her in getting rid of the body.
While transporting Enid's body to a dangerous road curve in the desert for the staging, June discovers that an actual accident has occurred there. Moreover, a drunken trucker attempts to hit on both her and Enid, forcing her to shake him off and thus putting Harry and Floyd on her case. After unsuccessfully trying to push the car off a cliff, she attempts to simply dump Enid in the middle of the desert, but gets herself stuck near an Indian burial ground. Leaving the body, she calls Harry from a gas station for help; en route, Harry abandons Floyd at a rest stop, but right afterwards Floyd gets involved in an attempted armed robbery and shoots one of the robbers, sending his partner fleeing.
After retrieving the body with Harry's help, June takes a stop at a road motel, but gets an unbidden visitation from the drunk trucker, causing the motel's manager to throw them out. Forced to a stop by a fallen tree, she pushes the car into the nearby Sanchez River, but a young couple sees her and calls in the police. Harry dumps Floyd once again and aids June into pulling the car out of the river. While driving home, June falls asleep at the wheel and wrecks a billboard, causing a state trooper to pull her over; but when he opens the trunk, he is knocked out by Enid, who is, though groggy, in fact very much alive.
June deposites Enid at her home, but while driving away, she is kidnapped by the fugitive robber. Suffering a nervous breakdown, she begins to drive wildly, causing the robber to drop a lit cigarette into a puddle of leaking gasoline, which blows up the car, killing the robber. With the body burned beyond recognition, and with Enid's cigarette case found in the wreck, everyone in town, including Harry, assumes that Enid was the victim. Elated, Harry returns home, only to find a slightly scorched June and the still-living - and extremely furious - Enid waiting for him.
Cast edit
- Elizabeth Perkins as June Pearly
- Judge Reinhold as Harry Hopper
- Jeffrey Jones as Floyd
- Maureen Mueller as Enid Pearly
- Rhea Perlman as Mavis
- Brion James as George the Trucker
- Charles Tyner as Man at Indian Burial Site
- Henry Jones as Old Man
- Michael J. Pollard as Motel Manager
- Nicolas Love as Robber #1
- Alex Chapman as Robber #2
Reception edit
The film received lukewarm reviews and was a box office failure.[2][3]
References edit
- ^ "Enid Is Sleeping". AllMovie. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
- ^ "Enid Is Sleeping". Time Out London. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
- ^ Bjorklund, Dennis (1993). Cheers TV Show: A Comprehensive Reference. Praetorian Publishing. p. 109. ISBN 1-97919-721-0.
