chunky_lover_68 Review of After.Life

After.Life (2009)

You're a corpse. Your opinion doesn't count anymore.

[6/10 · 25 July 2010]

I was all ready to write this Christina Ricci horror flick off as some form of low budget sixth sense film, but towards the end what it couldn't achieve in suspense or shock it achieved in mystery and left a film that is open for debate on the case of Miss Anna Taylor, killed in a car accident, or was she? Anna wakes up on the slab and is greeted by the local Mortician Elliot who claims he can see the dead, although Anna seems to be talking. Several clues conflict both sides of their argument throughout the film, from foggy windows and feeling pain, to walking corpses and creepy kids; whether or not Anna is among the living or in the after life is the great debate left breathing among some very clichéd scares. Their were epic drops of water from the tap, followed by epic eye opening sequences, followed by obvious jump scares. It didn't innovate as a horror film; and doesn't really use it to it's best potential for the story. The make-up was pretty cool though, both for the decaying corpses but although the visual look, stark white with blood red and onyx black, the look was striking and kept the film vivid though it's merely decent portions. The final act of this film is it's best part where we are given a sneaky resolution to the clues against a possibly delusional mortician, or a possibly delusional fiancé, the end of this film is well handled and left me wondering about it into the credits. Had the film relied a lot less on obvious horror elements and went for something more realistic to make the film chilling, I would've been way more eager to recommend this film, unfortunately you have to slog though familiar scare tactics to get to a rather brilliant ending. That said if you scare easy you just might like this film. Proceed with caution.