Review by Quin
Perhaps the one thing that every zombie movie is missing is a little smooth jazz. Maybe that’s the thing that makes the undead chill out and forget all about eating brains for a second. I mean, wouldn’t it be crazy if it took Chuck Mangione to save the world from a zombie apocalypse? For the most part, smooth jazz gets a bad rap. I mean, “Angela (Theme from Taxi)” is smooth jazz. “Suicide is Painless,” the M*A*S*H theme, is smooth jazz. Basically, all great smooth jazz songs are also T.V. theme songs. If we all agree to never, ever play Kenny G over loud speakers, I think I could live in a world where smooth jazz keeps zombies calm and docile. I know some living people who could use some calming down from smooth jazz too. The world as it comes to be in Life After Beth is one where smooth jazz is a weapon – a very powerful one.
In case you couldn’t tell from all that smooth jazz talk, Life After Beth is a movie that takes everything you know about zombie movies, looks at every possible place that it can go with the material, and then doesn’t go to any of them. But how can it do that, you ask? All movies go places and surely that means it goes to one of the possible places it can go. Sure, ruin my point with logic. After all, I’m having this argument with myself. Lucky for you, I didn’t sign up for the full course and I’ll just be having the one. But seriously, these little things I write shouldn’t be called movie reviews – they’re movie arguments where I present a collective series of statements to establish a definite proposition. It must be an intellectual process, and not just contradiction. So, now that we have that established and I’ve informed you of how completely crazy this movie is – let me tell you more about it.
Beth is a young woman. When we first see her, she is on the first of many hikes she takes during the film. This one is special because it’s the one where she dies. We don’t see it happen, the scene cuts away just after we see her attention occupied by something happening on her smart phone. But we soon learn that she stepped too close to a poisonous snake and that was the end of Beth…until she comes back. The new Beth doesn’t remember dying, she still thinks she’s in high school and is perpetually worried about tomorrow’s exam, and she loves attics and hikes and her boyfriend Zach and smooth jazz. Her parents make the decision not to tell Beth that she is dead, or was dead; but her boyfriend thinks that she should know. A large chunk of the movie is made up of humorous scenarios around this premise – that is until more of the undead start to return, building to a full scale zombie invasion like you have never seen before in a movie. Although I must admit that there must have been maybe an unconscious influence on Life After Beth from the 1993 Bob Balaban film My Boyfriend’s Back. The former is not even in the same universe when it comes to quality, but I must admit I do have a fondness for that film.
The originality of the humor that goes to strange and surreal places is the main reason this movie works so well. The script is filled with amazing lines that should be quoted by fans when Life After Beth achieves the cult status it ultimately deserves. Just to give you an idea of the kind of writing we’re dealing with I’ll give you two examples that I particularly enjoyed: “I’ve had enough of this Dracula shit!” and “Fuck you! I’m Beth and I’m alive! AHHHHHHH!!!” Yeah, Beth gets really angry, which is unbelievably hilarious, thanks to the great Aubrey Plaza. She often plays characters that will eat you alive, and I get the feeling that she’s kinda like that in real life, but here she gets to do it literally. It’s also worth mentioning that Beth’s parents are played by Molly Shannon (who reminds me a little of Catherine O’Hara in this) and John C. Reilly. Beth’s boyfriend’s parents are played by Paul Reiser (who I feel like I haven’t seen in ages) and the wonderfully funny Cheryl Hines.
Life After Beth does tend to try and reinvent the zombie mythology a touch. The need for brains and human flesh is downplayed and doesn’t seem like a driving force behind a zombie’s existence. Also, Aubrey Plaza’s character seems more possessed by a demon at times than infected by the traditional zombie making virus or whatever it usually is. That aspect is different in pretty much everything, so it doesn’t really matter much. If you have a sense of humor you will laugh. If you like horror, you will most likely enjoy the dark, dread that is achieved with both the writing and the visuals. Oh and about that smooth jazz and Chuck Mangione reference I name dropped earlier – I just did that so people googling it would end up here.
Life After Beth is available now for digital download from A24 and Region 1 DVD from Lionsgate.