"After.Life" is a really intense thriller that will keep you in the dark, feeding you just small pieces to keep you guessing and speculating. And that worked so well.

The story told in "After.Life" is really riveting and compelling. It is the type of story that will keep you in suspense and wanting to see what happens next. The plot is Anna Taylor (played by Christina Ricci) is in a car accident and wakes up on a mortuary slab, where she is attended to by Eliot Deacon (played by Liam Neeson). And the story lets you guessing if she really is dead or alive, and whether it is all a ruse set up by Deacon. I am not going to reveal any more of the story, except that it was fantastic.

I like movies that keep you in the dark and have you grasping at clues, trying to figure out what really is happening. And "After.Life" really takes you on a thrill ride where you don't know what is true or false.

The cast was really good and they did good jobs with their roles. Especially Liam Neeson, in the role of the mortician Eliot Deacon. He was right on the money with this performance. I read that they had initially casted Alfred Molina for this part, and I think he would have done an equally good job (as he has been seen in a mortician role before). And also Christina Ricci was doing a good job with her role as Anna Taylor. And it is good to see that Justin Long is finally shedding that teenage role of his and stepping up into the bigger league of acting.

If you like thrillers, then "After.Life" is definitely worth checking out. The story blew me away and took me completely off guard. I hadn't expected it to be anything like this.

School teacher Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) and her boyfriend Paul Coleman (Justin Long) are having relationship problems. Anna gets into a car accident and wakes up on the preparation table of funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson). Deacon tells her that she's dead. She's confused and wonders if she's in a ghostly transitional place.

This movie has a great premise with horror potential. However, it's more interested in a naked Ricci than building a horror movie. It has some creepy atmosphere but it fails to do anything with it. The ending lacks power. The twists lack intensity. The writers need to come up with some more twists and probably some action to take this great premise to the next level.

There's a semi-decent premise lurking somewhere in the depths of AFTER.LIFE but unfortunately it never really rises to the fore. Instead what we're left with is an entirely nondescript film in which very little happens indeed. There's a lot of mood stuff, a lot of atmosphere setting, and plenty of plot points which end up going nowhere, but as a film, AFTER.LIFE is a disappointment.

The acceptable Christina Ricci stars as a young woman involved in a car accident who wakes up on a mortuary table, being attended to by the sinister Liam Neeson. Now, is she really dead and unable to accept the truth about her condition, or is Neeson a psychotic serial killer who enjoys making his victims think they've reached the afterlife? The film never really tells you which is true, providing enough evidence to support either explanation, and by the end you don't really care anyway.

Ricci is quite good in this film although not as good as she's been elsewhere, like BLACK SNAKE MOAN. To be fair, she doesn't have much to do other than wander around nude. Neeson plays it deadpan throughout and doesn't have a great deal to do either; you can tell this film was shot in just a few days. Justin Long, as the frustrated boyfriend, feels weak and out of his depth. AFTER.LIFE is more of an insipid mystery than a real horror film, and as such it's not really worth your time; the lack of explanation makes it an all-too-frustrating watch.