Life After Beth

Stars: Dane DeHaan, Aubrey Plaza, John C Reilly, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines, Paul Reiser, Matthew Gray Gubler, Anna Kendrick, Jim O'Heir

Director: Jeff Baena

Since horror is the about the only major cinematic genre to survive for more than a century, few weeks pass without yet another slice of cinema shock (or, rather too often, celluloid schlock) bleeding onto the screen.

Here Jeff Baena (cowriter with David O Russell of the latters trendy and much-admired comedy I Heart Huckabees) doubles as writer and debut director of a blackish shocker that blends comedy, romance and the diabolical Undead into a passable but essentially not particularly memorable zombie show. (On the credit side, however, I preferred it to Simon Peggs similarly intended but over-self-conscious Shaun of the Dead).

Its essentially the old boy meets ghoul story.

When his girlfriend Aubrey Plaza dies, Dane DeHaan is understandably grief-stricken. His parents Cheryl Hines and Paul Reiser fail to register with his grief, leaving the lad to hang out with his Plazas parents John C Reilly and Molly Shannon.

The story gets its shot of adrenaline when DeHaan discovers Plaza has mysteriously come back from the grave and, promising her parents to keep her return a secret, he resumes their romance. But as time passes and she becomes stranger by the moment, he comes to realise that he is romancing a zombie

Eventually he moans, Now I just wish she would stay dead. Which, of course she does, with grisly if predictable results.

The actors enter into the fairly obvious spirit of the film with commendable enthusiasm, comic elements are reasonably well integrated the best of which is the title while horrorflick completists might well be consider waiting for the DVD.

Alan Frank

USA 2014. UK Distributor: Koch Film. Colour.
89 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 2, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 2, Swearing 2.

Review date: 30 Sep 2014