A
grieving couple (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) are coping with the sudden
death of their daughter, Beth (Aubrey Plaza) alongside her sad sack boyfriend
Zach (Dane DeHaan). When she
miraculously comes back to life, her family tries to keep it a secret. When Zach finds out, he’s overjoyed to spend
time with her once again. Naturally, the
relationship gets very complicated once he realizes Beth is now a zombie.
Just
when you thought you’ve had your fill of zombie comedies, along comes one that
manages to surprise you and even tug at your heartstrings a little bit. Written and directed by Jeff (The Little
Hours) Baena, Life After Beth is a fresh, funny, and offbeat horror comedy that
takes many tonal shifts throughout its running time. (It starts out like Moonlight Mile and
finishes like Shaun of the Dead.) Many
similar films would not survive such a whiplash in tone, but this one succeeds
because of the versatility of the committed cast.
Plaza
is perfectly cast as the zombie girlfriend.
She makes it difficult to tell if she’s a flesh eater, or just being
adorably quirky. Reilly and Shannon are
terrific together and play both the dramatic and comedic scenes to a tee. I also loved seeing Paul Reiser getting some
great lines as DeHaan’s dad, and Garry Marshall has a hilarious cameo too.
What
makes Life After Beth work is that Baena isn’t treading the same old (burial)
ground countless of zombie comedies have tread before. He’s using them as a metaphor for not being
able to tell a deceased loved one all the things you wanted to say to them
while they were alive. There’s also a little
bit of a Deathdream/Monkey’s Paw thing going on too (even though Beth doesn’t
come back as part of a wish; it just kind of happens), which gives it a tinge
of sadness. I also liked the way he
snuck in the details of the impending zombie apocalypse on the outskirts of the
action. (It occurs in little bits of
background business, which is perfect because it doesn’t come at the expense of
the character development.)
In
short, Baena breathes new life into a rotting genre.
AKA: Beth, a Zombie.
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