After.Life: Critic Reviews

[Ricci] has to operate, unfazed, in close-up nakedness much of the time, while the camera practically licks her pale skin.

Ms. Wojtowicz-Vosloo seems to have spent too much time trying to make an art-house chiller instead of an effective film.

What might have played well as a multipage Poe rumination gradually gets pulled to bits by thudding Ricci-Neeson face-offs in the poster-ready funeral-prep chamber.

While nobody comes out especially well, Ricci is the only one required to spend much of the movie naked. And for what?

The dialogue is clumsy, the tone swings between somber and silly and the whole bizarre venture eventually succumbs to rigor mortis.

I think, in a way, the film short-changes itself by not coming down on one side or the other. As it stands, it's a framework for horror situations but cannot be anything deeper.

Clean, precise and terribly sullen, After.Life is like its female protagonist. It feels stuck between worlds, or genres.

Thematic rigor mortis sets in long before the final reel.

Best of all is Neeson, who is nicely creepy. Whether he's genuinely gifted or knuckle-chewing insane, he's not the kind of guy you'd want to spend time with, either way.

It's too dull for grown-ups and too nightmarish for children. It makes Nip/Tuck look like a Mel Brooks musical.

On a plot level, few of the psychodrama elements make much sense.

I don't think we're expected to take After.Life any more seriously than Ricci's last extended (near) nude role in the immortal Black Snake Moan. That one was more fun.

I admire filmmakers who take chances and defy expectations.

Wojtowicz-Vosloo just piles on the nonsense back and forth in a laughably incomprehensible muddle.

Neither horrific enough to scare, nor psychologically thrilling enough to even register a pulse. And whatever fun there is to be found, and there were hoots aplenty, it's of the "laughing at, not with" variety.

Despite the meandering pace, and lack of fearsome thrills, After.Life is a chilling fairytale that grabs you and takes you on a strangely hypnotic ride.

There is too much reliance on one character's word against another which leads the audience back and forth over the truth.

takes its ambiguities all the way to the grave - and beyond.

makes you think too much about what it's doing, rather than what it's about, thus drawing you away from the deeper philosophical questions of life and death at its core

Born again Ricci haunts a mortuary, while perfecting post-mortem freaky in the nude. This may or may not be your cup of embalming fluid, whether intriguing those with unconventional viewing preferences, or seriously creeping you out.

Confusing chiller explores death; too dark for teens.

It dresses up boilerplate horror in a classy shell, yet never gives it the pulse it needs.

Has some first-timer flaws but avoids 'cheesy horror movie' status by serious tapping into the vein Poe mined for premature burial.

An atmospheric effort curious enough to intrigue both hardcore horror fans and those simply looking for a good thriller.