MovieChat Forums > After.Life (2009) Discussion > Confusing Scene

Confusing Scene

posted 13 years ago by Nprnuno
12 replies | jump to latest

Hi everyone,
There has been massive threads with opinions about this movie.
Personally, I think that she was alive but writers wanted to create some doubt and keep the possibility of her being dead.
I agree with a previous IMDB.COM user that has previously stated that clues that she was dead, were more of signs of poor writing than actually keeping that balance throughout the movie.
With that being said I can see how the movie can be interpreted both ways, and clues do exist that support both theories.
However, one scene that completely doesnt seem to fit in the maze and was confusing was that Deacon actually lets her go.
Apparently, he gives her another chance and then after some sort of unnatural hallucinations, she comes back to funeral home and she is then convinced that she is dead.
Deacon says something like "You are all the same, you all say you want to live but in the end...bla bla".....
Any thoughts on why she couldnt get away when she had the chance? or what happened?

[–] sandifay62 13 years ago

I think it was because she was dead and couldn't leave and feared what would happene if she did. so in her mind it would all end up with her being buried.

[–] zimka 13 years ago

eh... so what would happen if she did? how that would change anything from her perspective of a dead person?

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This is your life. It is ending one minute at a time.

[–] misonyea 12 years ago

I think the makers of this movie intend it to be interpreted both ways. I think they did a horrible job. it all seems like a bunch of plot holes to me.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

I think the makers of this movie intend it to be interpreted both ways. I think they did a horrible job.

Ha ha!

I think you're probably right. That's why it flopped so badly even though it was made on a relatively low budget.

BTW I think she's dead. Simple as that and easier on the brain.

[–] infrasomnia 12 years ago

because she had a vision of life before she even stepped out of the morgue, and to her life seemed like endless torture, suffocation, rotting, or what not, so she did not have the guts nor desire to go back to that and concluded just after he closed the door: "im glad im dead, im glad its over". clearly to her life seemed worse than death itself.

[–] mtedmonds 11 years ago

It's not that she couldn't get away, it's that she didn't want to.

That was the point of the movie IMO. Elliot tries to convince people they are dead to see how much they will fight for life. In the end he finds that people are not willing to fight to stay alive. It's the same concept as the Saw movies done in a different style.

Presumably you would conclude that anyone not willing to accept death and fighting to get out would be let go, but I seriously doubt he would actually let anyone escape regardless.

I did think it was a strange that she didn't take him up on the offer to stab him with the scissors or run away. If you're alive this gives you an out, if you're dead, well, you're dead so there really is no consequence. I think it was just an "in your face" way for the director to get across her point that, in essence, she chooses death. This is how Elliot justifies his actions. To him, he is not responsible for their death, they are by not seizing the opportunity to live.

This is summed up when Elliot says the phrase about not being dead but not living or something to that effect.

[–] blackandbluelights 11 years ago

I think when he opened the door and she saw everything, she could have been hallucinating from the drugs, or her lack of nutrition, and imagined she were dead, and everybody was simply observing her. She felt trapped again, as if she couldn't move, like when she woke up, and it convinced her that she must be dead. I think her mind was so screwed up at this point, from everything, that an open door mean next to nothing anymore.

But when she saw that vision, she either accepted her death or realized that it didn't matter so much to her. Every day was exactly the same, no matter what.

I wish this wasn't a Saw concept. It bothers me a lot that the writer thought that was a better idea than truly addressing what happens when you die. She was alive, the writer said it, but why did he have to be doing it for some dumbass reason. As if his life was so meaningful, which it wasn't.

It's stupidly ironic that he gave meaning to his life by testing people's limits and burying them alive if they didn't pass the test. But the test was unfair, it was tricky, it was dumb, and it was very pointless.

He wants to get all the scum off the Earth, but he should have started with himself.

What I wish the movie was truly about was a crazy man in a funeral home who believed he could talk to the corpses because there was nobody else around to talk to. And maybe when she came along, and she was alive, he didn't realize and thoguht she was dead.

That's what I think would have been a better ending. I pretend that is the ending by ignoring the van scenes where he swerved both her and Long's character off the road.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] blackandbluelights 10 years ago

Oh, thank you :) yeah I'd love a movie based around that!

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Dream_Demon 9 years ago

I also concur that would be a good idea. It would of made the movie much more clearer.

Welcome to my Nightmare- Freddy Krueger

[–] smidget28 (777) 6 years ago

She chose not to. She chose death.