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LIFE AFTER BETH

"Finding Closure in All the Wrong Places"

What You Need To Know:

LIFE AFTER BETH follows a teenager named Zach and his girlfriend, Beth. Zach becomes emotionally distraught after Beth suddenly dies from a poisonous snakebite during a hike. Shortly after her funeral, Beth mysteriously returns from the dead and shows up at her parents’ home. Her parents try to hide her from the outside world, including Zach. At first, Zack believes his girlfriend’s parents are playing a sick joke on him by fabricating her death and funeral, but he soon discovers Beth is a violent, human-eating zombie. Zach now faces a very tough decision about his future with Beth.

LIFE AFTER BETH is very unpleasant and distasteful to watch. Despite some good acting and cinematography, the story is very weak and fails to engage viewers with a powerful, inspiring meaning. In fact, the movie has a strong Non-Christian Romantic worldview with a few irreverent jokes about Jesus and His resurrection. There’s also a lot of foul language, strong lewd content and brief nudity. LIFE AFTER BETH probably will turn off most moviegoers, and media-wise will be offended by it to the very end.

Content:

(RoRoRo, AbAb, LLL, VVV, SS, NN, DD, M) Very strong Romantic worldview about a man choosing to be guided by his feelings of “love” for his zombie girlfriend, plus a few irreverent jokes about Jesus and His resurrection; at least 40 obscenities and profanities; several scenes that depict violence, with a character shooting zombies, zombies eating humans (this is mostly implied), zombies destroying property, and the main character running over his zombie girlfriend with his car and shooting her in the head at the end of the movie; strong sexual content includes the main character engaging in fornication with his “resurrected” (term used loosely) zombie girlfriend, a female grabs a male’s genitalia, and other scenes with sexualized kissing and touching; upper female nudity, upper male nudity and men in underwear; no alcohol use; smoking and brief drug use; and, lying.

More Detail:

LIFE AFTER BETH follows a teenager named Zach who is emotionally distraught after his girlfriend, Beth, unforeseeably dies after being bitten by a poisonous snake during a hike.

Shortly after Beth’s funeral, Zach’s recently deceased girlfriend mysteriously returns from the dead and shows up at her parents’ home. Her parents try to hide her from the outside world, including Zach.

At first, Zack adamantly believes that his girlfriend’s parents played a sick joke on him by fabricating her death and funeral, but discovers she dug herself from her grave. He believes Beth has the right to know that she’s deceased and be informed of how she died. However, Beth’s father pleads with him not tell her and to make a promise that he won’t tell her. Zach agrees and decides to rekindle his courtship with Beth.

During his attempts at reigniting his relationship with Beth, he gradually discovers she’s different and not the way he remembered her. To his disappointment, there is one problem: Beth is a violent, human-eating zombie. Zach now faces a very tough decision about his future with Beth.

Romanticism is undisputedly the dominant worldview in LIFE AFTER BETH. The concepts of Romanticism are fully reflected in the protagonist, Zach. Zach is fully aware that the logical thing to do is to end his relationship with his zombie girlfriend, Beth. Instead, he irrationally decides to proceed with his romantic relationship because he’s still madly in love with her. Eventually, he finally accepts that the right thing to do is to let her go, despite how difficult it might be.

Just as LIFE AFTER BETH fails at presenting Christian and biblical worldview, it also completely fails artistically. The one poor quality of LIFE AFTER BETH is the storyline and plot, the most important aspect of a movie. Aside from that, the acting and cinematography are good.

The story in LIFE AFTER BETH is undoubtedly horrible and distasteful. The movie’s story doesn’t contain a powerful, deeper meaning, but rather a surface-level one. This fact will cause the viewing audience to become disinterested in and bored with the movie. Moviegoers do not simply watch a movie for entertainment purposes, but they also desire to have a meaningful connection with a movie and be changed by it. This movie definitely fails at its attempts to do that.

The meaningless story in LIFE AFTER BETH will also cause it to become an unmemorable, forgotten movie. At the most basic level, the story has the potential to be a profound, heartfelt story. This could have been achieved if the filmmakers would have incorporated scenes containing biblical, or at least redemptive, elements, instead of several scenes of repulsive sexual immorality. It seemed like the writer and director just wanted to fill the void of time in order to have a feature length movie. They failed to create meaningful scenes that would drive and help communicate the idea of “sometimes when you love someone, you have let them go.” LIFE AFTER BETH is technically considered a comedy, and there are funny scenes in it, but for the most part, it plays more like a drama, so viewers might expect the story to be more meaningful or profound.

Despite its unpleasant storyline, LIFE AFTER BETH has fairly good acting and cinematography. The acting performance by the actors, especially that of Dane DeHaan, who plays Zach, helps the audience connect and relate with the character on a deeper and profound level. Viewers may feel the emotional pain that Zach was feeling because of DeHaan’s fine performance. The adult audience will have compassion for Zach because they most likely have dealt with pain, love, the hardships of relationships, and the loss of a love one.

The cinematography in LIFE AFTER BETH is also fairly good. There are several really well shot scenes that contribute to the overall mood of the movie. For example, at the beginning of the movie, the scene when Beth is hiking on her own and enjoying herself is shot in slow motion and then immediately cuts to the scene of her funeral. The slow motion is done for the audience to understand her happiness. Of course, death is inevitable, and it may occur at an unexpected time, including during moments of happiness.

Overall, LIFE AFTER BETH is an unpleasant, abhorrent movie with a strong Non-Christian Romantic worldview containing a lot of foul language and strong lewd content.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.


Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.