Movies
After.Life (limited)
“Naked, naked, naked. Does that simple fact alone make After.Life worth watching? Perhaps, but it all comes down to your own personal stance on all things Ricci. I, for one, am a proud convert. Which is the only reason this movie earns three skulls.”
Is there any phrase in the English language more giddily enticing than “a nude Ricci”? The promise of Riccian nudity is a compelling force (as in, I was just compelled to blow a load in my pants), but personal preference must also be a factor. Do you like your topless Christina Ricci served up Black Snake Moan-style, all nubile and smoking hot, totally ready to jump on some redneck boy? Or do you prefer the pasty, corpse-lookin’ Ricci of After.Life, always despondent and frequently splayed out nude on a bare white slab or perhaps underneath (gag!) boyfriend Justin Long? Maybe one day Ricci’s resume will include a nude scene for every male demographic in existence, but for now the hillbillies and necrophiliacs will just have to do.
In After.Life, Ricci does her usual wide-eyed, ethereal bit as a schoolteacher stuck in a listless marriage to lawyer Justin Long. After a car accident that must have been too expensive to make it on screen, Ricci wakes up on a slab in a funeral home, with funeral director Liam Neeson preparing her body for burial. A panicked Ricci insists that she’s not dead, but Neeson informs her otherwise. He claims to have the ability to speak to souls stuck between this life and the next one; it’s his job to make sure that Ricci is able to cope with her own death prior to her burial.
A plodding reflection on mortality disguised as a psychological thriller (at least until it throws off its sheep’s clothing in a final, somewhat redeeming twist), After.Life strains for artificial suspense with manipulative sound cues and obnoxious soundtrack swells, but it all smacks of so much horror-posing bullshit. Neeson is never threatening, and Ricci says she can’t feel any pain, even as he prepares her body for burial. There’s no tension without a genuine threat.
As Ricci argues endlessly with Neeson about her own demise, a couple of negligible subplots hog a bunch of screen time. Justin Long grieves strenuously enough to cement his status as Hollywood’s bottom bitch, while weird kid Jack is a staring, understandably bullied 11-year-old student who thinks he can communicate with the dead like Liam Neeson. But hey, there’s only one Liam Neeson. In any case, it feels like padding.
Which (somehow) brings me back to naked Ricci. There’s no arguing that fans get an eyeful with After.Life. Ricci appears naked while chatting up Liam Neeson, naked while posing seductively on an embalming table, naked while talking to Neeson a little more, naked while tearing her own heart out in a dream sequence, and then naked again while talking to Neeson. Naked, naked, naked. Does that simple fact alone make After.Life worth watching? Perhaps, but it all comes down to your own personal stance on all things Ricci. I, for one, am a proud convert. Which is the only reason this movie earns three skulls.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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