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Life After Beth - Movie Review

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4 stars

The dead amusingly live again! Life After Beth is not only a play on words (just think about that title for a second) but also a comedic look at the ups and downs of young love when it is past time for two people to part ways and move on. Zombie mania has taken over our pop culture and even entered into our government with an emergency plan should zombies ever step forth from the screen and become real. While every new entry in the genre runs the risk of oversaturating its audience, the cream always rises to the top. Life After Beth and its focused take on the zombie apocalypse is darkly funny, uncomfortable, and exactly the type of unzom-romcom to rise to the top.

Directed by I Heart Huckabees writer Jeff Baena, the movie leaves the worldwide destruction of the zombie apocalypse in the background and focuses solely on Zach (Dane DeHaan) as he deals with the sudden death of his girlfriend, Beth (Aubrey Plaza), after hiking the Hollywood Hills and getting bit by a snake. There are brief background hints through radio broadcasts and news reports that all is not right in the world but Zach’s grief is too heavy on his heart to really care. He simply wears black, sits next to the pool, and cries. That is until he realizes that Beth has returned from the dead and her parents – played by Molly Shannon and John C. Reilly – are hiding her in their house.

Things get interesting when Beth’s family lets him in on their secret. They allow him to continue to date Beth but all she wants to do is hang out in the attic and make-out with him. She seems to be suffering from some sort of amnesia and has a wound that simply won’t heal. Her father won’t let her out of the house because he doesn’t want to freak her or other people out. Zach tells his mother and father – hilariously played by Cheryl Hines and Paul Reiser – that Beth’s death was all a joke and they, believing that he is still mourning, set him up with a childhood crush (Anna Kendrick). Around this time, Zach starts to notice that Beth’s breath is getting horrid, all she wants to listen to is smooth jazz, and other people – also zombies - are acting weird.

Baena peppers enough of the zombie apocalypse around the tale of Zach and Beth and their unending relationship to make the background events entertaining and, when Zach is finally made aware of what is happening around him, weaves what we normally expect in a zombie survival flick into the narrative in a hilariously haughty manner, complete with desert eagle handguns and white suburbia. To be sure, this is an independent feature through-and-through and your uncomfortable meter will be checked with scenes darkly focused on sex with the dead and shooting annoying family members in the skull.

Both DeHaan and Plaza are deadpan masters and that talent is played to the nth degree to make the situation even more uncomfortable and unquestionably funny as their lines zip by. The parental units are equally funny although they are seeing the zombie uprising from two different point of views. Beth’s family tries to keep their family together by keeping the world out of their lives and Zach’s family must enter into the world in order to keep the dead out of theirs. This is never so apparent than in the scene where the original owners of Zach’s home returns from the dead to lay claim on their property.

Life After Beth is a smartass comedy about how disastrous second chances can be. 

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Life After Beth - Movie Review

MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, some horror violence, sexual content, nudity and brief drug use
Runtime:
91 mins
Director
: Jeff Baena
Writer:
Jeff Baena
Cast:
Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, John C. Reilly
Genre
: Comedy | Horror | Romance
Tagline:
Life After Beth
Distributor:
A24
Official Site: https://www.facebook.com/LifeAfterBeth
Release Date:
August 15, 2014
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
October 21, 2014
Synopsis: A young man's recently deceased girlfriend mysteriously returns from the dead, but he slowly realizes she is not the way he remembered her.

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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

Life After Beth - Movie Review

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - October 21, 2014
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles
: English; English SDH; Spanish
Audio:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Discs: 25GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD); UV digital copy; Digital copy (as download)
Region Encoding: A

Lionsgate has delivered a pretty solid Blu-ray release here.  The MPEG-4 AVC transfer in 1080p is presented in a clean aspect ratio of 1.85:1  The film boasts a rather dark, but rich transfer.  The image is sharp and very lifelike.  Detail is high, but some scenes are a bit too dark, hiding a little bit of the detail.  Clothing and surface textures prove to be plenty detailed as well as hair strands.  Depth is above average.  There are some great moments, in particular when Dane DeHaan is sitting poolside that really open up and showcase the dimensions on display.  Blacks are really deep.  This film features a lot of dark scenes and blacks are really rich.  It’s nicely done and shades work quite well.  Colors are strong and bold.  It’s a vibrant looking picture without colors being extremely poppy.  The dialogue - as well as the little bits of action there - are enhanced by the 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio format.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • There is a good commentary track from Life After Beth’s Writer/Director Jeff Baena, Plaza, DeHaan and co-star Matthew Gray Gubler.  It’s fun and informative.  Fans of the film will want to check it out.

Special Features:

The Blu-ray edition features a meaty selection of deleted scenes featuring great freakout moments from John C. Reilly, plus a thoughtful “Post Mortem” extra. The latter reveals Baena’s thoughtful intentions along with the obligatory back slapping from the film’s stars.  A digital copy is also included.

  • Deleted Scenes (20 min)
  • Post Mortem Featurette (20 min)

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