The Trailer:
Director: Jeff Baena
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHann, John C. Reily, Molly Shannon, & Matthew Gray Gubler
Synopsis: Zach's (Dane DeHann) deceased girlfriend, Beth (Aubrey Plaza) comes back to life but slowly deteriorates into a flesh eating zombie.
Oh man, I had high hopes for Life After Beth. Before watching it I had heard so many good things about it, how funny it was, how original it was, how whatever whatever, etc. But after watching it I have to wonder if I even watched the same movie other people saw? Life After Beth is so slow and quite frankly boring. Or perhaps I just don't understand the humor? I can't say for sure, but the lack of humor isn't the only problem: there is murky unsuccessful "genre-bending", the use of well-known actors to bring in viewers, and finally shit that doesn't make sense nor is it explained .
Let's start with the murky, unsuccessful genre-bending. I am all for indie-horror-drama-rom-coms, that sounds awesome... if done right. Life After Beth starts off like a drama with Zach grieving over his dead girlfriend with small bits of humor thrown in. Then we get into the zombie element, which isn't really that scary anymore due to over-saturation in pop culture, but that's where the horror comes in which in turn leads to the comedy element as Zach attempts to navigate this new situation with zombified Beth. But instead of actually molding these elements together to shape an amazing film, it's almost as if each genre has a mind of it's own and is trying to force its way to the forefront in an attempt to be the focal genre. Consequently this leads to a movie that seems to have no distinguishable genre and no direction. In addition to that, everything that occurs throughout the movie is off. Like the parts that are supposed to be funny are off-putting and/or depressing and then parts that are actually humorous are too far in between and still not even that funny or kind of childish. The dramatic moments are silly due to outlandish premise of the movie. And then the zombie bit is not explained nor as cool as it could have been.
Apparently Aubrey Plaza is quite known for her character on the show Parks and Recreation, I didn't watch that show so I didn't know who she was going into this. But among people whom I know, she was a big draw for them to see this movie. The there's John C. Reily who is known for his quirky, silly roles. Similar is Molly Shannon who is known for her ridiculous roles. Then there is one of my indie favorites, Matthew Gray Gubler; he is always a joy to watch and brings a certain hipster flare to his humor. Dane DeHann is also known for his roles in Chronicle and Lawless. All these actors are well-known and distinguished enough to have avid fans and viewers and I think the movie-makers utilized that in order to get people to watch Life After Beth, but didn't focus enough on the story to get people to actually stay interested enough to watch the whole thing. It's almost as if they thought "Oh, we just have to get people to pay to see it, but they don't have to like it and we don't care 'cause we already got payed".
Then, of course, there is the shit that doesn't make sense. For some reason, smooth jazz placates the zombies, but why? Why not any other kind of music? This is one of those things that seems to be thrown in the mix to be funny, but it's not. Then there's the strange fact that zombies gravitate towards attic spaces. Again, why? There is no logical reason for this to be true. And I know, this is just a movie and not real life, but it's still weird. And to top it all off, nobody makes a big deal about the zombies for a good chunk of the movie. Like zombies are walking around, delivering mail, cooking at diners and nobody even seems to notice or care. I just don't understand.
Finally, I know that this is just a silly indie film that appeals to a nice group of people, but I'm just not one of them. I didn't think Life After Beth was funny or innovative or fun. It's a boring snooze that seemed to last forever with no end in sight. When it finally ended I was relieved! Would I watch it again? Hell no!
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