Life After Beth (2014)

I love this movie so much

The Age of Commercialism

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A24 is an amazing film company that has released some of the best indie films in years, but they don't always stick the landing. Such is the case for Life After Beth. Zach (Dane DeHaan) is heartbroken after his girlfriend Beth (the lovely Aubrey Plaza) dies as the result of a snake bite. Some time later, she has inexplicably come back to life, and her parents (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) are trying to hide her from the outside world. As Zach tries to do everything he didn't do when Beth was still "alive", he notices that she has become more irritable, hyperactive and even more possessive of him. Could she be a zombie? Life After Beth tries to be a romantic comedy and a zombie horror flick and fails at both. The writing is bland, with a premise that at first seems like a good opportunity to be a deconstruction of the zombie movie flick, but it wears off quickly. The characters are beyond annoying. There is always two, three or more people yelling at each other about something. The film never thinks to slow down or take a break. I didn't laugh once. I don't think the movie even tried to be funny, and it just got more depressing as it went on. The acting is passable, but it is Aubrey Plaza who stands out the most. You can tell she believed in this story, and her manic energy was what kept me watching. In the end, Life After Beth just didn't do it for me, and at this point the zombie genre is barely breathing.

Some kid is depressed. It takes this movie a while to bother telling us what the hell is going on. Turns out his girlfriend died from a snakebite while hiking. The kid gets along with the girl's parents and spends his time at their place. After he doesn't get a call from them for a couple of days he decides to stop by at their place and finds the girl, Beth, inside. He barges in and she just receives him as if nothing had happened. He visits her tomb and sure enough the hole is dug up and empty. Her parents won't let her leave anywhere. Eventually the guy escapes with her at night and takes her to the beach where she turns violent for no reason. She develops some ugly rash on her face. She becomes more and more violent.Eventually there's an outbreak of zombies and some guys start taking them out. Of course our guy keeps going back to Beth again and again and again pretending she's just normal. Eventually he finally realizes he has to take action.Yes, Life After Beth is different and somewhat original. But a movie can be different in good ways and bad ways, and there's really nothing good about this one. I guess it's supposed to be a romantic horror comedy or some such nonsense using/abusing the zombie genre as is apparently obligatory in Hollywood these days. It's not romantic, not funny, not scary. Whatever deep thoughts the writer and director claimed to have had as inspiration (Blake and Derrida) it sure doesn't come across at all in the final product. Life of Beth was a waste of resources and energy by the crew. And to think that countless good scripts get no chance. This movie is also a waste of time for the viewer unless you like watching pointless movies with lots of hysteric screaming.

Version: Grimm Up North festival screeningActors: 7/10Plot/script: 7/10Photography/visual style: 7/10Music/score: 7/10Overall: 7/10It's astonishing how broad the range can be even within a sub-genre of films. Life After Beth is best described as a 'horror comedy', and yet it is completely different to other horror comedies I saw on the very same day.The comedy comes from the situation, not the characters, who are played pretty straight. Beth (Aubrey Plaza) comes back from the dead, forcing her boyfriend Zach (Dane DeHaan) and parents (John C Reilly and Molly Shannon) to confront their grief and the conflicted feelings they have about her and their lives with her. Over the film, her behaviour becomes more abnormal, and other undead appear, causing increasing chaos.The pacing and balance of the film are remarkably well managed. Plaza does a great job with her performance, slowly showing increasing signs of deterioration from ordinary teenage girl to mindless zombie, and each other character's reaction to the bizarre situation is shown to be ridiculous at one point or another. I note that director Jeff Baena's main other contribution to film is co-writing the script for David O. Russell's surreal comedy 'I Heart Huckabees', and I think he should really be seen as a writer who has taken up directing.Lots of ideas are explored through Life After Beth, such as grief and the way our memories change as time passes. There is a little bit of action and tension, but mainly this is a melancholic, thoughtful piece which brings humour out of the behaviour of normal people in an abnormal situation. It's a writer's film, and an actor's film, and I found it rather touching as well as entertaining.

Comedy is a tough cookie and sometimes does not sell as good. And while this movie did not exactly meet my expectations (after all the good things that were written 6 months ago, it seemed to be a real hit), it isn't as bad as it is rated here on IMDb. Maybe people were really disappointed and voted that way, but maybe they just didn't like the way/humor this has.Whatever the case, it is uncomfortable and it is funny at times. It could have done with some tweaks and be better at times (either more funny or more inject more horror to it), but it still works most of the time. It's really an achievement by the actors that this is as good as it got, even though we were all hoping for a bit more. Decent effort