Line #18 Film/LifeAfterBeth


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5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lifeafterbeth.png]]
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7	''Life After Beth'' is a 2014 "[[RomanticComedy Rom]]-[[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies Zom]]-Com" movie written and directed by Creator/JeffBaena, starring Creator/AubreyPlaza, Creator/DaneDeHaan, Creator/MollyShannon, and Creator/JohnCReilly.
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9	While hiking in the mountains, Beth Slocum (Plaza) gets bitten by a venomous snake and dies, leaving her ex-boyfriend Zach Orfman ([=DeHaan=]) devastated. Zach starts spending time with Beth's parents Maury (Reilly) and Geenie (Shannon), up until the moment where they suddenly start shunning him. Curious, he comes to their home uninvited, only to find them in company of... a very much alive Beth, who seems to have forgotten the last few weeks of her previous life, which include not only her death, but also her breakup with Zach.
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11	Delighted, Zach sees this as a second chance for his relationship with Beth, but he soon realizes that his girlfriend CameBackWrong, and she keeps getting worse...
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14	!!This film contains examples of:
15	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Beth becomes this to Zach in the second half of the movie.
16	* AttractiveZombie: Beth is this at first; however, she gradually turns into the usual Romero-escue carnivorous zombie.
17	%%* BlackComedy
18	* CameBackWrong: Beth starts out as a DamagedSoul and [[SlowTransformation slowly transitions]] into a MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil as the movie progresses.
19	* CovertPervert: [[spoiler:Maury Slocum]] is revealed to be one shorty before he bites the dust.
20	* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Before shooting a feral, growling Beth, Zach tells her he loves her. She manages to answer that she loves him too in her human voice.]]
21	* EpunymousTitle: ''Life After Beth'' puns on "life after death", as it stars a zombie named Beth.
22	* ExcusePlot: The zombie apocalypse that brings Beth back doesn't have much bearing on the rest of the movie, and [[spoiler: ends up resolving itself by the end after appearing to only affect a local community]].
23	* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Beth, who was already not herself up until that point, does not take the revelation that she's a zombie lightly: [[spoiler:she assaults Zach, steals and crashes his car, and later on starts mumbling a MadnessMantra and kills a guy]].
24	* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine:
25	** Creator/JimOHeir and Creator/NickOfferman, Aubrey Plaza's castmates from ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', appear in this movie: the former has a cameo, the latter provides a voiceover for an in-universe documentary.
26	** And Plaza's [[HeterosexualLifePartners Heterosexual Life-Partner]] Creator/AnnaKendrick appears as Erica Wexler, Zach's childhood friend.
27	* TheJaywalkingDead: Zach accidentally runs over Beth with his car. She doesn't seem to be worse-for-wear after the accident.
28	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Beth comes back with most of her more recent memories missing. She isn't aware of her own death and has also forgotten that she and Zach broke up right before it happened.
29	* MadnessMantra: After Beth is told she's a zombie, she spends several scenes continuously mumbling "I'm dead, I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm alive..."
30	* OneDialogueTwoConversations: Zach, who has spent the last few days with an increasingly zombified Beth, finds himself marveling at Erica's normal skin, and asks if she's noticed the recent phenomenon of the dead returning to life. Erica clearly thinks he's flirting with her and gets increasingly enamored as the conversation continues.
31	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: In this movie, [[RevenantZombie zombies start out with their human personalities]], but as their brains decay, they become first absent-minded and forgetful, then increasingly erratic and aggressive, and only after a certain point do they finally become the familiar growling zombies we know and love. They also have a bizarre fondness for attics, and for some reason, packing the walls in the attics with dirt, and smooth jazz calms them down. And the biggest difference, which could play a part in how quickly this particular ZombieApocalypse is dealt with: they are not contagious. It's just everyone who recently died comes back as zombies in the area.
32	* {{Patricide}}: [[spoiler: Beth ends up eating her own father.]]
33	* RedHerring: The Slocums' Haitian housekeeper quit her job just before the dead started to rise, so Zach suspects she was involved, and becomes more suspicious when Maury refuses to give him her address. [[spoiler: It turns out that she left due to Maury's sexual harassment and the timing was coincidental - while no other explanation is found, HollywoodVoodoo doesn't seem to have been a factor]]
34	* SoundtrackDissonance: Due to the zombies' appreciation of smooth jazz, it [[SourceMusic starts playing pretty much everywhere]] at some point. Some of the more gruesome scenes in the movie are set to it.
35	* WeirdnessCensor: Even as more and more people begin behaving strangely around him, Zack is the only one who seems to notice any of it.

Context Film / LifeAfterBeth