This review was originally published on Facebook on August 12th, 2015.
Another stab at a quirky zom-rom-com, a la Warm Bodies- or better yet, that old chestnut My Boyfriend’s Back- Life After Beth is a moderately amusing take on the ever-popular zombie comedy sub-genre, bolstered immeasurably by a top-notch cast that includes Aubrey Plaza.
Plaza plays the titular Beth, who comes back from the dead without much explanation after being bitten by a snake while she’s out hiking. Before long, others have joined her and things have gotten somewhat out of control, with the expected mayhem erupting.
Writer/director Jeff Baena’s take on the zombie flick is decidedly quirky, as one might expect from the mad genius behind the underrated- and completely bonkers- I 💗 Huckabees, which he also wrote.
In his film, zombies come back essentially unchanged- at first- with no memory of their passing, no matter when it might have been, with a bizarre affinity for smooth jazz and hanging out in attics!
The desire for human flesh is slow-coming, and in some cases, doesn’t even seem to present itself at all. Likewise, the rate of decomposition varies.
So Beth, for instance, still looks pretty hot for a while, before eventually starting to look worse for the wear as time goes by, with exposure to sunlight seeming to accelerate the process. They’re also given to rapid mood swings and erratic behavior, among other oddball traits.
Perhaps needless to say, this is all- if you’ll excuse the phrasing- an acquired taste. Though the film does have some laugh out loud moments, by and large, it’s more of a black comedy than anything else, with the emphasis on the quirk, not the comedy.
Plaza does a fantastic job with charting her character’s deterioration, and manages to be both sympathetic and scary and funny by turns. Also good are Dane DeHaan (Chronicle, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) as her boyfriend, Zach; and the perfectly-cast Matthew Grey Gubler (Criminal Minds, How to Be a Serial Killer) as his brother, a gung-ho cop all-too-happy to go out gunning for zombies.
The rest of the cast is pretty impressive, too, including John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights) and Molly Shannon (SNL) as Beth’s parents and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Paul Reiser (Aliens) as Zach’s parents, respectively. And is there any more welcome presence than Anna Kendrick, who pops in to make everything better with her ever-charming self? I think not.
This isn’t anything ground-breaking, by any means, but it is fun and definitely left-of-center, even in comparison to other zombie-themed comedies. It has its own unique mythos and essentially plays like an indie drama with comedic elements that just happens to involve zombies.
I enjoyed it for what it was, overall, even if it was all a bit slight. But that cast is golden and there’s a fun commentary, so it might be worth a buy on DVD/Blu-Ray for those who are particularly big fans of any of the above actors.
There’s also a making-of and some fun deleted scenes, including a solid ten minutes of Gubler improv-ing a scene with a gun in his room that’s pretty amusing. For the rest, this is a rental/streaming/cable watch at best, but I enjoyed it for what it was.
Check it out! 👹
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