“Dead Body” isn’t a horror movie, though when it’s over you might be horrified at how much time and money you wasted on the picture.

It is, rather, a romantic comedy, or at any rate purports to be. In it, a pushy bride-to-be played by “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria Parker is crushed to death on her wedding day by a falling ice sculpture.

Did I mention this is a comedy?

Dead but not departed, she returns as a jealous ghost to haunt, pester and undermine a young woman who wants to help the grief-stricken groom-he’ll-never-be get over his trauma and go forward with his life.

The guy is played by Paul Rudd, who, from “Clueless” through “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” has shown a gift for easy-going, self-effacing comic charm. That gift is not unwrapped in “Dead Body.”

Rudd looks faintly pained and wholly enervated as the object at the center of the tug of war between the living and the dead. It’s tempting to say he walks through the picture like a zombie, except these days movie zombies show a whole lot more animation and energy (see “I Am Legend”) than Rudd musters in this role.

The woman who seeks to rouse Rudd from his romantic funk is played by Lake Bell, probably best-known for her Sally Heep attorney character on “Boston Legal.” Cast here as a psychic/caterer – how’s that for multitasking? – hired to help Rudd contact his deceased sweetheart, Bell’s performance consists of flapping her hands a lot and smiling an empty pretty smile. Comic chemistry between her and Rudd is nonexistent. In scenes where they kiss and canoodle, both look like they’d rather be anywhere but there doing anything but that with anyone but who they’re doing that with.

Hanging around the periphery is Jason Biggs as Bell’s supposedly gay best friend/business partner. Writer-director Jeff Lowell uses the character’s sexual orientation as the source of half-hearted jokes about clothing choices and the platonic nature of the Bell/Biggs friendship, jokes that contribute nothing to the picture. Like everyone else in the cast, Biggs is notable only for his performance’s vacancy.

Longoria Parker may get top billing but she gets relatively little screen time. She conveys her character’s jealousy with flounces and pouts. Her makeup is so thick and shiny it makes her look like she’s been embalmed in vinyl. She’s not in the movie that much and even when she is, it’s as though she’s barely there at all.

Soren Andersen:

253-597-8742, Ext. 6235

Over Her Dead Body

* *

Director: Jeff Lowell

Cast: Eva Longoria Parker, Paul Rudd, Lake Bell, Lindsay Sloane and Jason Biggs

Running Time: 1:35

Rating: PG-13; language, sexual situations

Where: In wide release, showtimes Pages 25-26.