ith his filmmaking debut, writer-director Jeff Lowell (whose screenplay credits include "John Tucker Must Die") makes his feature film debut with Over Her Dead Body, a story that emulates romantic ghost stories comedies such as "Ghost," "Blithe Spirit," "Topper," "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" and Warren Beatty’s remake, “Heaven Can Wait."

Over Her Dead Body gets off to a rather sluggish start, as we trail the bitchy monster of a bride-to-be Kate (Eva Longoria Parker), right up to the moment she is crushed to death – in pure slapstick fashion - due to an ice sculpture falling on her head on her wedding day. Understandably, her prospective groom (Paul Rudd), a veterinarian named Henry, is traumatized by the news. But, for the rest of us, there is no reason to care; the exasperating diva gets on everybody's nerves demanding that each and every task be done just right - including battles over the positioning of the candelabra, the placement of meat entrées to vegetarian dishes and the age-old question of whether an ice-sculpture angel needs to have wings. For a better understanding, the working title for the film was "Ghost Bitch").

Anyway, fast forward a year and A year later, Henry is still mourning the escape from a life of browbeating, so his sister urges him to contact a psychic to put his mind at rest. This plan works perhaps too effectively as Henry falls for ditzy psychic Ashley (Lake Bell). Meanwhile, the restless spirit of superdiva Kate has returned to Earth to keep an eye on her fiancé-in-mourning, Henry. And this uptight, high-maintenance ghost is highly irritated that her erstwhile fiance (Paul Rudd) has fallen for psychic Ashley, who also runs a catering business with her clumsy gay friend Dan (Jason Biggs).

As it turns out, Ashley is the only person who can communicate with Kate, a la "Ghost", and she uses that to terrify the young woman out of a tentative, mutually sparked relationship with Henry. And so the saga switches to jealous competition between two femmes vying for the same man.

Playing a competitive schemer not unlike her Desperate Housewives character, the overly-tanned Eva Longoria Parker doesn't generate much heat, while Lindsay Sloane, Jason Biggs and Stephen Root fail to generate any laughs in supporting roles. As you'd expect, this charmless, mediocre romantic comedy with supernatural overtones is short on charm and laughs.