AfterDeath (2015)

AfterDeath: Directed by Gez Medinger, Robin Schmidt. With Miranda Raison, Sam Keeley, Elarica Johnson, Lorna Nickson Brown. Five young people wake up dead. Washed up by the tide they scramble to an abandoned beach house, soon realising that the perpetual night and blasts of pain suggest this is some version of hell. Between in-fighting and attacks by a demonic shadow creature, they recall the collapse of the nightclub that brought them here – and begin seeing hope of a second chance in the cabin’s two mysterious paintings…

“The basic story isnu0026#39;t too bad. The movie opens with a woman washing up on an isolated beach. All she can find is one cabin with the lights on. inside she discovers that there are four others, all of whom washed up on the same beach. After some exchange of stories we discover that all five were involved in a horrific accident at a nightclub – and apparently all have died, and this cabin is some sort of purgatory. Itu0026#39;s not hell and itu0026#39;s certainly not heaven. Itu0026#39;s some place in between the two. And in the midst of purgatory thereu0026#39;s some sort of demonic presence who appears as a black cloud. The purpose of the whole ordeal apparently is to get the five to come to terms with their sins – although it was never really made clear what that was going to accomplish, and there were a lot of suggestions that actually it wasnu0026#39;t going to accomplish much of anything.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s an intriguing element to the story. Each of the five have some secrets from their past that have to be dealt with. But the real flaw to the whole thing is the apparent pointlessness of it all. Where is this all going to lead? Where is the hope? I mean, the whole point of purgatory at least (if you believe in it, and I donu0026#39;t) is that your sins get dealt with and eventually you get out. But itu0026#39;s never made clear that thereu0026#39;s any real escape from this purgatory and the end of the movie doesnu0026#39;t really clear much of anything up. I guess the viewer is left to decide for him/herself what the end result of all this is.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s a very overt anti-religion message to this (quite exemplified near the end when one of the five says to another u0026quot;if you see God tell him to go f!!k himself.u0026quot; I suppose I can see where that might come from given the circumstances these five find themselves in. There are a lot of inconsistencies or unexplained things in the movie. How do real world items manage to get into this purgatory? And if theyu0026#39;re all dead and they have no blood being pumped (which the movie establishes) then to be blunt itu0026#39;s strange that Seb managed to have an erection during his threesome with two of the girls early in the movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI suppose the acting isnu0026#39;t too bad but the story just doesnu0026#39;t work all that well. You find yourself hoping for some resolution, but it never arrives. (3/10)”