Life After Beth 2014

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Nowhere near as funny as you'd expect with its stellar cast. Read more

Matthew Kassel, New York Observer: Even if Life After Beth is a unique entry in the zombie canon, it still registers as overkill. One gets the sense that Mr. Baena should have let this one die. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The movie runs out of steam, though not blood, long before it's over. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Plaza, whose wide-eyed stare suggests a zombie as painted by Margaret Keane, plausibly navigates Beth's journey into full-throttle Linda Blair demonic dementia. Read more

Geoff Berkshire, Variety: Charming, thoughtful and laugh-out-loud funny. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: The film just kind of sits there, gradually escalating a zombie apocalypse and hoping that having the zombies retain a smidgen of humanity as they turn homicidal will somehow automatically yield hilarity and poignancy. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: This is a talented comedic cast, but in the second half of the film they don't get to do a lot that's funny. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Once it's safely slotted in the overworked zom-com genre, there's no reason to keep watching. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Baena co-wrote "I Heart Huckabees" and while he has a sense of humor, the jokes here tend to be meager and tend to dribble on. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Plaza is terrific. She commits so fully to her rabid, Romero-esque alter ego, she chews the movie up. Read more

Kate Erbland, Film.com: Aubrey Plaza is committed to the gag, but the rest of this messy and muddled zom-rom-com needed more guts. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Sometimes tender, sometimes frantic, and always funny, the film's surprising coherence is exemplified in a climactic scene that pairs credible heartbreak with pure slapstick. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: What might have been a snappy short is interminable at feature length, the mayhem-in-suburbia conceit generating few laughs as it stomps along. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Life After Beth starts feeling more conventional the wilder and darker it gets. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A nicely strange, and often strangely fun movie - and, unlike most of the summer's comedies, a film with some brains. Even if it only wants to eat them. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: It may be time to put the zombie trend to rest. At least that's what writer-director Jeff Baena's initially promising, and ultimately disappointing, directorial debut suggests. Read more

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: Seasoned actors are left to yell pointlessly at one another, while Beth and the zombie angle slowly decompose. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: First-time writer-director Baena casts the film slyly and directs individual sequences with a lot of sneaky wit. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: Halfway through, the story loses momentum, becoming a listless, predictable Saturday Night Live skit. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: The movie is DOA from scene one and is never resuscitated. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: "Life After Beth" gets into the well-tread zombie-comedy territory in a clever and inspired way. Then it doesn't get out of it nearly so skillfully. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A quirky spirit pervasive throughout and great supporting cast, including Anna Kendrick, make it a semi-satisfying "zomb-edy." Read more

Courtney Shea, Globe and Mail: Among many missteps is a total tonal identity crisis. Plaza has described Beth as a "zom-com-rom-dram." (N.B. This remark is more clever than anything in the movie it describes.) Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: While Baena tries to offer a reworking of zombie mythology - easy-listening music makes them horny and they have a fascination with attics and smearing dirt on walls - the movie doesn't live up to the promise of its dark start. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It's a lot of heavy lifting for what amounts to "he's just not that into you," mainly because you're as ripe as a cadaver. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Starts with promise and has some darkly funny scenes but grows listless, repetitive and plodding, the cinematic equivalent of a zombie. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: There's something listless about Life After Beth - it starts out as a reflection on the potentially morbid nature of grief and then doesn't seem to know where to go. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "Life After Beth" may have revived the ultimate girlfriend from hell, but it's still wan, listless and derivative in bringing her to undead life. Read more