Caught the new romantic zombie comedy (drama horror) movie Life After Beth starring Aubrey Plaza (from Parks and Rec, Dane Dahaan (creepy guy from Chronicle and the latest Spiderman flick where he played Harry Osbourne), John C. Reilly, and Anna Kendrick (in a small part). It’s about what happens after a guy’s girlfriend dies and how they get along after.
This is a dark comedy with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments… but the humor is a slow burn with the first 15 minutes or so being actually quite sad. Then it starts to get kind of sweetly sadly romantic because our hero has to deal with a girlfriend who has a case of having been dead but she doesn’t realize it. Then she starts to go slowly… wrong… but even then it kind of plays weird with expectations and what the characters know and see (the film clearly had a low budget and it really plays well with letting you hear things that it can’t show). It really reminded me a lot of a moodier, edgier, and darker Shawn of the Dead.
It’s surprisingly one of the better zombie movies out there. It “gets” what makes zombie movies scary… which is to say, the madness of the world collapsing around you. While it’s also a legitimately dark comedy with some very absurdist moments… while also kind of a sad drama. It’s tonally all over the map but it feels cohesive.
I’m not sure you’d like it though… I’m not sure who would like it exactly. The reviews are pretty split. I caught it on VoD and I think it has a very limited theatrical release.