Death Becomes Her (1992)

Death Becomes Her is a wickedly clever cocktail of Hollywood vanity, dark romance, and supernatural mayhem, served with Robert Zemeckis’s showman flair and a grin that’s just a little sharp. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn go for broke as glamorous rivals whose feud turns deliciously unhinged, while Bruce Willis surprises with beautifully timed, stressed-out comedy at the center of the chaos. The film’s still-impressive effects aren’t just spectacle—they’re the punchlines, turning body horror into gleeful satire about youth, beauty, and the price of obsession. If you’re squeamish about slapstick violence or the idea of corpses that refuse to behave, it may not be your potion of choice, but if you like your comedy bold, macabre, and relentlessly inventive, this one is a blast.

Death Becomes Her is aiming for a glossy, mean-spirited satire about vanity and aging, wrapped in a high-concept fantasy-horror comedy, and you can feel Robert Zemeckis having fun pushing the visuals. The problem is the story often plays like a delivery system for effects and set pieces, with pacing that lurches and characters who are more cartoonishly nasty than genuinely layered. If you want sharp, coherent satire or emotional payoff, this may leave you cold, because it’s more about watching glamorous people behave terribly than digging into anything deeper. Still, if you’re in the mood for campy, macabre slapstick and enjoy Streep and Hawn going full-throttle, the movie’s audacity and technical craft can make it a guilty pleasure.