Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you a comedy, fantasy, horror film from 2014, titled Life After Beth.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
Beth really likes hikes, so she goes on one herself.
In the next scene, we see her boyfriend Zach, buying napkins for her funeral because she
got bit by a venomous snake and died on her hike.
He and his parents arrive at the Slocum household for the wake where they are greeted by Beth's
dad, Maury.
Her mom, Geenie is inconsolable and Zach doesn't know what to do with himself when he's approached
by Mr. Levin.
They return home after the funeral, where his brother Kyle, the security guard for their
gated community, asks him some inappropriate things.
In the following days, Zach's mental health declines as he mourns for Beth, culminating
with him going to the Slocum's, just as their housekeeper Pearline gets out of there.
When he enters the house, he sees Geenie boxing up Beth's things and later he plays chess
with her dad until 3 am.
Maury gets a box with "cigarettes" which they smoke together and have an honest talk about
Beth when Zach tells her dad that before she died they had some problems in their relationship,
but Maury says that he has to let that go and remember her for the good things.
Beth's parents are really nice to him and her mom gives him Beth's scarf before he leaves.
Zach comes back the next day, but he doesn't find the Slocum's at home and when he returns
home, his family thinks that he's acting strange and that he should see a neurologist.
The day after, Zach goes to see Beth's parents again.
He can hear music and talking inside, but no one answers the door for him so he decides
to check out the house.
When he gets to the back of the house he sees Beth inside and he freaks out, calling for
her and banging on every window and eventually the front door.
Kyle suddenly arrives at the house and tells him that he shouldn't be there, disturbing
their peace, so he escorts his brother in his car out of the property.
Zach comes back to the Slocum's that night, sneaking to the house and breaking in, only
to run into Maury who tells him to leave, blocking his way in.
He thinks that Beth isn't dead and that it was all some kind of game being played on
him.
Zach pushes Maury away and finds Geenie trying to put Beth in the closet.
They all begin to argue and no one can explain it to Zach without letting Beth know that
she died so the parents act like nothing has happened while Zach thinks that she faked
her death.
Beth is confused and has trouble remembering what has happened even before she died while
Zach gets angry and leaves.
When he comes home he tells his parents that Beth's death was a big hoax, so the next day
his mom takes him to get a test in a hospital.
After a while, Zach visits Beth's grave only to find a massive dug-out hole in it.
He goes back to Beth's and asks Maury about it so he finally tells Zach that she died
and returned from the dead, but that he doesn't care why because he has his daughter back.
Zach still has a problem believing that it's not a grift and that Beth just dug herself
out of the grave and came back home like a zombie, when Geenie joins them and says that
it's a miracle and she's resurrected like in the Old Testament.
Beth joins them too and kisses Zach like everything is normal, then drags him up to the attic,
even though he's reluctant to go up with her.
When they get there, Zach and Beth have an awkward conversation with him scared as heck,
and Beth is confused as to why everyone is acting strange around her.
Beth doesn't remember anything, not even hiking alone or breaking up with Zach, she believes
that she has a test the next day and is really worried about it.
Zach makes her upset with his questions so he calms her down by telling her that she's
the only person he can think about.
They tell each other that they love each other and decide to leave the house so they can
make love away from her parents.
Beth's parents wait for them downstairs and don't like the idea of the two of them going
outside in broad daylight so they suggest they go out at night and spend the day with
them instead.
However, when night comes the parents still don't like them going outside of the house
and make them stay there to swim in their pool.
Later, Beth waits for Zach at the pool, telling him she's worried about the test so he sits
down next to her and sees the bite wound on her thigh.
He asks her if she wants to eat him, but Beth misunderstands and tells him not with her
parents around.
She instantly forgets what she was talking about then jumps into the pool.
The next day, Zach talks to her on the phone in a lovey-dovey way, then he goes to talk
to Kyle who's cleaning his gun.
He apologizes to his brother and tells him that Beth is alive, but Kyle still doesn't
believe him.
Zach goes to the kitchen, where his parents are having breakfast, happy that he's looking
better, but suspicious about his behavior.
When he leaves the house to go back to Beth's, Zach has a weird encounter with their old
mailman, who he hasn't seen in a while.
At the Slocum's Beth's behavior is getting increasingly weird and Zach tells Maury that
they should tell Beth that she died, however, her father doesn't think that they should
do it because she'll just get confused and upset.
Maury makes Zach promise not to say anything if he still wants to see Beth, so he agrees.
Beth wants to go for a hike with Zach and even though Maury doesn't think it's a good
idea, he still lets the kids leave.
In the car, Beth starts touching Zach, so they stop at a playground and make love on
the sand in broad daylight.
They lie in the sun, so when they come back to her home her parents notice a huge burn
on her cheek and freak out about it.
Maury scolds them and says that it's the final time they go out while Geenie tries calming
the situation saying they'll just put some makeup on it, making the dad angry because
she's not on his side.
Zach returns to the conversation about telling her and Beth scares them for a sec when she
says that she knows, only she's talking about her test.
They act like that's the reason they've argued and Zach leaves.
Maury confronts Zach again before he goes and tells him that he can't come back anymore.
Nevertheless, Zach comes back that night and sneaks to the house, getting Beth out of the
house secretly.
She falls from the roof, but she's fine, then Zach takes Beth to the beach, where he has
a surprise for her.
Zach plays a song he wrote for Beth with the lyrics saying what actually happened to her,
she doesn't like the music so she begins to yell at him and freaking out.
Beth asks him what he's doing to her and rips apart the entire lifeguard tower.
Zach can't calm her down as Beth gets progressively more confused, feeling really strange and
sick, while the tower begins to flame behind her.
She tells him to help her and he takes her screaming back to the car, but when they get
there her behavior just gets weirder breaking the window in one moment, asking what happened
to it in the next when he gets into the car.
The only thing to calm Beth down seems to be smooth jazz she finds on the radio.
Zach gets her home and she tells him that she really likes the music, then kisses him
and he takes her back to the attic by climbing the wall.
There, Beth puts on smooth jazz on her boombox and begins to undress when Zach notices that
her walls are covered with mud.
Beth begins to undress him too and throws him on the floor, but Zach sees her autopsy
scar and is put off by her violent behavior so he bolts out of there as fast as he can.
As he leaves, she pops out of the roof and asks him where he's going, he lies to her
and runs away.
Later, Zach's in a diner and asks the waiter to change the smooth jazz they have playing
when Erica shows up and greets him.
It takes Zach a moment to remember her because she's the daughter of one of his mom's friends,
but when he does Zach asks Erica to join him.
Erica sits down and they have a nice lunch date and conversation about Beth.
Zach says that he almost wished she stayed dead, scaring Erica a bit.
While they talk, one of the cooks in the diner acts strangely and Zach asks Erica if she's
noticed more people behaving like that lately.
She hasn't, so they continue talking about Beth and Erica tells him that he needs to
move on like she had to when her grandmother died.
Zach gets the check and leaves but when he gets into his car, he doesn't see Beth running
toward him and slams into her.
When Zach gets out of the car, he sees that she's trapped under the wheel so he moves
the car.
Beth gets up like nothing even happened and scares the people that have gathered.
They argue for a bit, when Erica comes out of the diner and calls to him, getting Beth
angry.
Zach introduces them and when Erica hears her name, she asks if there's another Beth,
getting her even angrier.
She acts chummy toward Zach, so Beth grabs her until he has to pull them apart.
Beth asks him to tell her what's going on, so Zach actually takes her to her grave, telling
her that she died a week ago and dug herself up.
She thinks that's impossible and that her parents would have told her.
Beth asks how she can be both dead and alive, so Zach tells her that her parents think she
might be resurrected or possibly a zombie.
He tells her that he can't be with her anymore because he's scared, so she gets extra angry,
pushes him over, and steals his car.
Zach gets to his house later that night and hears gunshots from inside.
He walks in, to Kyle freaking out and pointing a gun at their dead grandfather, who has also
returned.
His parents try to calm him, but he keeps pointing the gun around, confused and scared.
Zach tells them that all of it is real, but that he's not one of them.
The grandpa wants to go to the attic and Zach tells them to let him go because they love
attics as Beth does.
His parents and brother are losing it when the doorbell rings and two other returnees
walk inside, possibly the previous owners of the house.
Zach tells them that they need to get out of there and Kyle shoots one of the returnees,
with no impact on his "wellbeing".
Police sirens can be heard outside as his family watches a returned newscaster on the
TV and his dad comments that they finally stopped the emergency broadcast.
Maury calls Zach and tells him that he's waiting for him outside and before he leaves the power
goes out.
He tells Zach to get in the car because he needs him to tell Beth that she isn’t dead
and that it's his fault for everything that's happening for breaking his promise.
Zach thinks that Pearline can fix everything because she's from Haiti, where they make
zombies, and makes Maury give him her address, but not before he talks to Beth.
Maury gets them to the house, where Zach sees his crashed car and as soon as they walk in,
Beth shows up and walks through the window, hunting someone down outside and eating them
like a proper zombie.
Geenie runs in when Beth comes back as well and they ask her what she did.
Beth's senses have deteriorated significantly since last Zach had seen her, but Maury still
wants him to tell her that they'll be together forever.
Zach asks Maury for Pearline's address, but Geenie gets it for him, so Zach runs back
out and gets in his car.
Beth follows him out and gets in the car with him when he drives off.
They argue about the guy she ate and she asks him what he expected since she is a zombie
and zombies eat guys, then turns on the radio to play smooth jazz.
When they arrive at Pearline's, he leaves her in the car and goes to talk to the Haitian
woman.
Unfortunately, she's not there anymore as her cousin tells Zach.
Her cousin can't believe that Zach thinks she had anything to do with the zombies, just
because she's Haitian, and tells him that she quit her job with the Slocum's because
Maury made an advance on her.
Before he returns to the car he runs into another zombie and Maury arrives to get Beth.
He knocks Zach out with his shotgun and takes Beth back home.
The following morning, Zach wakes up with a zombie standing over him, gets in the car,
and returns to his home.
There he discovers a pile of burned bodies and thinks that it's his parents and brother.
Zack quickly packs a bag and leaves the house, then goes to a store when he hears shooting
outside.
He gets all the canned food he can find, then drives back to Beth's house to get her.
Zach finds Maury's car splattered in blood and the house a complete mess.
He follows Geenie's voice to the kitchen where she feeds a restrained Beth part of her hand
and tells Zach that Beth ate Maury.
Zach dresses her wound and tells her that everything is going to be okay.
Left alone with Beth they argue a bit but Zach makes her understand that he does want
to be with her and says that they should just go on a hike together.
Beth asks him if he's afraid of her and he says that she's all he has but tells her not
to eat him.
She gets up and they are about to leave when Kyle shows up in front of the house ready
to shoot her.
Zach stops him and asks about the burned bodies, but tells him that his parents are alive and
at the Levins'.
Kyle apologizes for not believing him about Beth and says that he's a part of the resistance
against the zombies now when Beth freed herself, prompting him to want to shoot her again.
Zach convinces Kyle to let him take her for a hike, so his brother gives him the gun and
tells him to shoot her in the head and end her suffering, then meet him at the Levins'
by 16 hundred.
Later, Zach and Beth are on a hike and they stop to enjoy the landscape.
He knows what he should do and he tries to say goodbye to her, thanking her for coming
back and giving him a second chance.
Zach takes the gun out and tells her that he'll always love her and when she says it
back and turns back around he shoots her in the head.
Her body topples into the ravine.
Later, Zach gets to the Levins', finding the place all boarded up.
Mr. Levin opens the door for him and his parents run over to see him.
They show him that Erica is alive, traumatized, but okay.
Zach tells Kyle that he killed zombie Beth then he tells everyone that they need to get
to safety.
Suddenly, the power comes back on and the news reports say that everything has come
back to normal.
After a while, Zach says goodbye to Beth and Maury at their graves, then gets into the
car with his parents and Erica.
He asks her out on a date and Erica accepts Zach's advances.
They drive out of the graveyard smiling.