Life After Beth

Up-and-comer Aubrey Plaza’s deadpan stare makes her perfect to play girlfriend-turned-zombie Beth. After dying in a solo mountain hike at the start of the film, it’s only a matter of time after the funeral before Beth reappears, slightly dazed and in need of a bath. Written and directed by first-timer Jeff Baena, ‘Life After Beth’ never quite works as the romantic comedy it thinks it is. But there’s a subtle intelligence to Plaza’s performance as her mind starts spiralling towards one-track blood lust.

It’s the cast that saves ‘Life After Beth’ from unflattering comparisons to ‘Shaun of the Dead’. Dane DeHaan is terrific as Beth’s boyfriend, who discovers her parents hiding their dead daughter at home. There’s social satire here (don’t tell the neighbours our daughter is risen from the dead!), and a simmering sense of apocalypse. Still, it’s a lot of heavy lifting for a plot that basically amounts to ‘he’s just not that into you because you’re as ripe as a cadaver’.