Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo has taken the motto "Die Young, Stay Pretty" to its illogical extreme in a textbook video nasty where Christina Ricci's exposed nipples are a secondary character.
During a dinner date with her would-be fiancé Paul (Justin Long), Anna (Ricci) storms out of the restaurant into the rainy night where her car tragically collides with a tractor trailer. It's good news for funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) who collects Polaroid photos of corpses tacked neatly on his bedroom wall, because it's that kind of movie.
Dressed in a very short candy-apple-red teddy, Anna lies awake on Deacon's prep table sporting a gash in her forehead that does little to dissuade her from the fact of her death. Deacon informs her that, in spite of her conscious state, she is indeed dead.
Deacon has a gift that allows him to communicate with the deceased during the three-day interim period before their burial. The filmmaker gloats on Anna's nubility with a necrophile glee made comprehensible primarily by Ricci's cool commitment to her dead-but-perky roll.
"After.Life" may not be much of a pleasure, but it leaves you with plenty to feel guilty about.
Rated R. 97 mins.
