In "Life After Beth," Beth (Aubrey Plaza) dies in a tragic accident, a situation made worse when she returns to life, amnesiac and deeply in love with her estranged boyfriend, Zach (Dane DeHaan). Zach is an obsessive, strange, privileged young man from a family straight out of a Mitt Romney ad. When Beth died, Zach was distraught, so when she shows up alive he can't believe his luck. So what if her family won't let her leave the house? So what if she's slowly decaying?
So what if she tells him, lovingly, that she wants to eat his face?
Aside from the amnesia, Beth is at first both physically and mentally fine. Zach rushes to resume the relationship he wishes he had with Beth before her death. He promises to go dancing with her, to go on hikes. To be the boyfriend he never was during her life. "I'll love you forever," he tells her.
Slowly, Beth begins to change from a simple, infatuated young woman into a brain-eating monster. The only way she remains even relatively stable is when Zach keeps promising her more hikes, more romance and that he'll continue to love her forever. He doesn't mean it, but he has to say it. The best I can say about "Life After Beth" is that it features a unique use of the zombie metaphor, telling the tale of a strange relationship between two messed-up teens that lasted longer than it should.
That's the best I can say. The rest, unfortunately, is that "Life After Beth" does a mediocre job conveying that story. As Beth becomes more and more zombie-like, so, too, does the rest of the world. We start hearing mysterious radio warnings, seeing strange television screens in the background, and hearing warning sirens in the distance. Zach doesn't notice it, too enamored with his own messed-up situation with Beth, but the audience sure does. It distracts from the central story of the movie, making the conflict larger than it should have been, prolonging an otherwise dry, strange, sad story.
Dry? Strange? Both of those describe the types of roles that made Plaza's career, but she's done a disservice by the script. There's too much mystery surrounding Beth but not nearly enough time giving her a character. We never meet her prior to the zombie apocalypse, so we don't have any way to judge her relationship with Zach once things begin anew. Their resurrected relationship is given just enough shape to be intriguing but never enough substance to really engage you. The end of the film leaves the audience with a resounding "That's it?"
Dehaan isn't dry, but he's a little too strange for the role of Zach. I love his work, but he was seriously miscast in "Life After Beth." He's ostensibly the "every boy," just a guy who loved his girlfriend and is a little too happy to have her back. DeHaan's style, though, is far too intense for such a subdued role. He brings an intensity to every scene, which in turn makes most of his character's decisions more sinister than the movie intended. That said, the movie is so lacking in other scares and tension that his unintentional intensity creates the most frightening moments of the movie. Take from that what you will.
"Life After Beth" is a third-string zombie movie stuffed in a second-string relationship movie, with an A-list of talent that also includes Molly Shannon, Anna Kendrick and John C. Reilly, all of whom have little to do. Apparently it's been billed as a comedy, but that's a mistake. "Life After Beth" is too morose and self-serious to qualify as a "dark comedy." If you're a zombie fanatic who has seen it all, you might as well grab a copy and ponder how close it came to being a very interesting entry into the genre; if you're a casual horror fan looking for something scary this Halloween, put it at the bottom of your list.