Being in any kind of relationship can be hard work – and it’s even more difficult when your recently deceased partner returns from the dead as a reanimated corpse, completely oblivious to the fact that she had supposedly crossed into the ultimate inevitability, returning as a result of some otherworldly occurrence that begins to sweep over a small suburban community. This is the scenario that Jeff Baena (in his directorial debut) uses as the foundation for Life After Beth, in which he tells the story of a young man who is in a state of mourning his girlfriend, who had died only a few days prior as a result of a rare snakebite, only to find her arriving back on his doorstep, ready to resume their relationship, which (according to her) had never ended, unaware of the fact that she had died, which one would assume would signal the end of a relationship at its most fundamental level. A hilariously and darkly comical satire of the traditional romantic comedy trope, which is seamlessly combined with more conventional aspects of the horror genre, Life After Beth is a surprisingly charming film with many very profound ideas (even though it was constructed from a place of pure absurdity), which are creatively embedded into the fabric of the film, which is elevated by the loose-cannon nature of the story, and the fact that everyone involved was willing to leap into the unknown, taking on this demented and often quite inane story, and turning it into a fascinating and very funny dark comedy, one that understands its limitations, but never feels like it is restricted to only stick to what it knows, going in search of some elusive concept and in the process providing a deeply compelling and frequently very dark glimpse into a relationship that is, by definition, truly rotten to the core.

The relationship horror isn’t uncommon, but it also doesn’t show up as often as we’d assume, since romance is not something that normally lends itself to terror as easily as other subjects. However, this doesn’t preclude it from still being quite an interesting concept, and one that Baena effectively assimilates into this film. Life After Beth is the perfect convergence of romance, comedy and horror, coming at a time when many young directors were experimenting with form and content in a way that often saw genres crossing over, ideas interweaving and styles overlapping in ambitious and very peculiar ways. It does veer more towards the comedic (at least for the first half), but there are some moments of genuine fear-inducing dread, which is symbolic of the film’s very systematic approach to the storytelling process, whereby the director takes a common genre, and infuses it with elements of many others, creating a distinctly strange but also very entertaining experience that sees the collision of several different ideas, each one of them developed to the point of being perched on the edge of all reason, which is where the story is at its most profoundly effective. It’s clear that Baena has his roots primarily in comedy since Life After Beth has everything filtered through a humourous lens, and it never implies that it is ever trying to take itself seriously – if anything, the fact that it needed to try and offer some explanation as to why these events are happening, only for that quest to come to a screeching halt when it clears that its inexplicable, helps us understand what the intentions of the narrative were, as well as showing that Baena is a writer and director who understands that logic is not always necessary, and that sometimes all the meaning a film needs is a general storyline, and the rest can be as deranged as it possibly can be, without losing the viewer, most of whom are probably already accustomed to this style of alternative humour, of which this is very much a major example of just how far it can descend into madness without going off the rails.

Life After Beth is the kind of film that only works with a very specific kind of actor. Playing a part in a film like this requires a few fundamental aspects when it comes to performance – an actor needs to be gifted enough at comedy to play into the inherent humour of the story, but also possess the ability to filter it through a more dramatic lens, with a lot of the comedy coming from the fact that everyone plays it completely straight. Perhaps it’s not on the same level as the deadpan brilliance of the likes of Leslie Nielsen (whose absurd, genre-bending comedies were very much an inspiration for films such as this), but the fact that we as the audience begin to wonder if some of these actors know they’re making a comedy proves how good these performances are since no one seems to be in on the joke, which only makes it funnier. The titular Beth is played by the brilliant Aubrey Plaza, who was a star the moment she started acting, her droll, deadpan eccentricity being the perfect match for the tone of this film, as well as an apt partner to Dane DeHaan, who has the unenviable task of playing seemingly the only normal character in the film (except Anna Kendrick, who has a very small but pivotal role that is more theoretical to the resolution than it is essential to the story as a whole), his ability to play into the inherent meekness of the character, while still being quite an unconventional hero, making him the most appropriate actor to anchor this film. Comedic masters John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines and Paul Reiser are all in sizeable supporting roles, giving quintessentially strong performances that don’t ask them to extend on their usual personas too much, but rather adapt them creatively into this film, which is very much built on the strength of the actors, who need to be having as much fun as the audience in bringing these strange but oddly endearing characters to life – pun intended.

Perhaps the quality that makes Life After Beth so enjoyable is the fact that it is not afraid to be silly, which is something many directors try and avoid, especially when aiming to make a name for themselves earlier in their careers. Baena may not be well-established in comparison to some of his peers, but even from the start, he was someone who showcased a remarkable aptitude for purely deranged humour, which is the foundation of this film. Throughout this story, we find the director and his cast walking along the cutting edge, being fearless enough to take a few risks – after all, there are few more disappointing experiences than a comedy that isn’t funny or a horror that isn’t scary – so the decision to blend them resulted in double the work being done, with twice as satisfying a conclusion if they were effectively utilized. There are some inherent shortcomings, which we can more appropriately attribute as being teething problems coming from the director’s relative inexperience, or status as more of a novice, but these are nothing more than brief flaws that come about when a very funny idea is forced to be stretched into a feature-length film, meaning that there will be some padding that can be slightly tedious at some points, but nothing too heinous to impede on our experience of the film. Importantly, the film succeeds in the places where it matters the most – the control of both comedy and horror is remarkable, and the level of skill is truly impeccable. The gradual descent into unhinged terror is impressive since we aren’t even aware of how dark this film is slowly becoming until we are right in the midst of what is a zombie apocalypse – and unlike other entries into this genre, there aren’t any clear solutions outside of surrendering to the frenzy and simply just descending into the madness along with these characters. It sounds chaotic, but when it is done well, there’s a lot of virtue in such a blatant appropriation of pure anarchy, one of the film’s greatest strengths.

Life After Beth is certainly an acquired taste since this is not a comedy that lends itself to the most concise or logical sense of reasoning. Instead, it is 90 minutes of dark humour tinged with pure horror, oscillating between a very endearing story of a young man getting a second chance with his girlfriend who died far too soon, and an off-the-wall satire focused on the bizarre idea of an entire community being terrorized by the reanimated corpses of former residents, who start placid enough, but gradually grow more feral, until they resemble the zombies we are more accustomed to seeing in film. It’s not a film that makes a whole lot of sense, but it also never lays claim to being the most solidly constructed narrative, acknowledging its demented nature from the very first moment. Baena is a great talent, and while he may have made slightly more conventional films in later years, Life After Beth represents the purest, undistilled assemblage of his ideas, which are tenderly and effectively placed into this chaotic horror comedy that understands what needs to be done to keep the audience entertained. It’s wildly funny and often quite tender, especially since there is a lot of heart and soul that underpins the film (which would have struggled to maintain our attention if it wasn’t given a certain degree of soft-hearted sentimentality – it is a romantic comedy after all, just one with a very different approach), and it actively manages to be quite profound, even if it may not have been intentional. Lovable and perverse in only the best way possible, Life After Beth is an absolute delight, even if it may object to such a conventional description, which is especially true of a film that doesn’t adhere to any sense of logic, whether in terms of the story or reality as a whole.