CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 12/11/09

See You On The Other Side, Ray:

BY PETER CLINES

Since the dawn of time, there has been one great mystery mankind has pondered—what happens after we die?  It's a question that has spawned religions, philosophical debates, holy wars...and of course, motion pictures.
 
It's no surprise that Hollywood has often tackled this great mystery.  It's an idea countless filmmakers have tried to capture in countless different ways encompassing countless different beliefs.  We've seen views of the afterlife ranging from classic to comedic to...just plain odd.  We've seen heaven and hell, ascension and reincarnation, and well...angels and demons. 
 
As The Lovely Bones rolls into theaters this week, CS Weekly takes a moment to look back at a few different versions of the hereafter.  It goes without saying, but if we're going to talk about what comes next, well...there are going to be some mild spoilers.  Make sure you're prepared.
 
Beetlejuice (1988)
Screenplay by Michael McDowell and Warren Skarren
Story by Michael McDowell & Larry Wilson
 
The Afterlife is...: A Bureaucracy
 
The only thing blissfully married couple Adam and Barbara (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) love more than each other is their enormous, lovingly maintained Victorian home.  So when a car crash leaves them dead and their spirits trapped in the house for 125 years...it's not so bad.  At least, not until their home is bought by the  Deetzs, a loud, dysfunctional family from the city determined to renovate the entire house and make it "livable" with the help of mom's favorite fashonista stylist, Otho (Glenn Shadix).  Unable to get help through official channels and desperate to save their home from the Deetzs, Adam and Barbara strike a deal with a shifty, gleefully over-qualified "bio-exorcist" who goes by the name Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton).  Most people couldn't help but get a small shudder (and a chuckle) at the thought that the afterlife wasn't run any better than the DMV, with long lines, paperwork, and the dreaded "now-serving-number" sign.  Part of the reason it strikes a chord is that it's rooted in a societal dread of being helpless.  Adam and Barbara have been sentenced without a trial and given a case worker (Sylvia Sidney) who doesn't think of them as much more than another case.  In Beetlejuice, being dead may have magic and fun calypso music, but it's still a pale shadow (pun intended) of being alive, and every ghost knows it.  Nowhere is this more obvious than the subtle moment when goth daughter Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) confesses to Betelgeuse that she'd rather be dead with Adam and Barbara than alive with her own parents, jarring the spirit out of his non-stop patter and into a moment of honest bewilderment.
 
Defending Your Life (1991)
Screenplay by Albert Brooks (also directed)
 
The Afterlife is...: A Procedural Law Show
Daniel (Albert Brooks) dies and finds himself in Judgment City.  Here his life will be weighed and reviewed, determining if he needs to return to Earth to try again or if he can finally move onward and upward in his existence.  While he's spending his days with his defense attorney, Bob (Rip Torn), taking a humiliating look at his pathetic and fear-filled life, Daniel can't help but enjoy Judgment City's consequence-free night life.  That's how he meets a lovely drowning victim named Julia (Meryl Streep) and realizes he might actually have something to live for here in the afterlife.
 
We're all familiar with the carpe diem story.  It's the tale where the hero breaks out of his or her shell and learns to live and love to the fullest.  Brooks took the simple twist of doing it after someone's life was over.  Like many cinematic characters before him, Daniel looks back at his life and discovers he's not too proud of it.  What makes it different, though, is that he doesn't want to go back for another attempt or to make a change—Daniel's fighting to stay dead so he can be with Julia.

Ghost Town (2008)
Screenplay by David Koepp & John Kamps (former also directed)
 
The Afterlife is...: Just Out of Reach
 
Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) is the kind of dentist we all dread—one with no empathy at all for his patients (or his neighbors, or the random people he encounters during his day)—and he's okay with that.  What he's not okay with is that, ever since he "sort of" died during a minor surgical procedure, he's been followed by crowds of people who just won't go away.  They're ghosts, and they realize Pincus is their best shot at settling affairs on Earth so they can move on.  Slickest of them all is Frank (Greg Kinnear), a recent addition to the other side who wants the surly dentist to stop his widow (Tea Leoni) from getting involved with someone else.  It's not until Pincus starts helping Frank that he realizes there's been something missing from his own life—something all the dead people around him have.
 
The idea that ghosts stay behind until they're ready to let go or to finish some business is nothing new.  What was new is the subtle twist created by Koepp and Kamps (Zathura: A Space Adventure), that it isn't the deceased who have unfinished business but the still-living people who used to share their lives.  The unspoken message, of course, is that Frank's too selfish to realize this.  Love is what keeps the ghosts here, but it's closure that finally lets them move on.
 
The Frighteners (1996)
Screenplay by Fran Walsh & Peter Jackson (also directed)
 
The Afterlife is...: A Quick Buck
 
Ever since the car crash that killed his wife—and almost him—Frank (Michael J. Fox) has been able to see and hear ghosts.  Most of them are decent people, just waiting for their chance to take the corridor of light to the great hereafter.  In fact, two of them help Frank keep a fairly lucrative "exorcism" business going.  There's something new in town, however: a looming, cloaked wraith marking its victims and out to take as many lives as it can.  As the body count rises and the creature threatens his latest client (Trini Alvarado), Frank realizes the only way he can stop this demonic spirit is to cross over, counting on his limited understanding of the afterlife to give him an advantage fighting it.  It's not the first time he's crossed to the other side, but this time Frank's number might finally be up.
 
A few years before The Sixth Sense put a little boy in Frank's shoes, the screenwriting team of Fran Walsh & Peter Jackson (who I'm sure did some other movies, but for the life of me I can't think of one) penned this tale of ghosts who aren't ready to move on and the man who can see them.  There's a wonderful irony in someone who knows ghosts are real, but makes a living by faking hauntings.  Also ironic is that while Frank writes off his abilities as the result of his traumatic accident, the truth is a bit more subtle.  Since his wife died, he's been dead himself: numb, unable to finish their half-built dream house, and distanced from everyone except the two ghosts who take pity on him.  In a movie that's all about both sides of death, Frank's learning how to live again.
 
Ghost (1990)
Screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin
 
The Afterlife is...: Waiting
 
Commitment-phobe Sam (Patrick Swayze) and his longtime girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) are enjoying a night out when Sam is killed by a mugger (Rick Aviles).  Passing up his chance to move on, Sam decides to watch over Molly while slowly learning the limits of his ghostly existence. Soon, however, he is horrified to discover the mugger is still stalking her.  Not only that, he's working with Sam's supposed best friend, Carl (Tony Goldwyn).  Now Sam has to save his girlfriend's life with the help of a reluctant psychic (Whoopi Goldberg), who's just as surprised as Sam to discover she really can talk to the dead.
 
It's no real surprise this film got the Oscar for best screenplay.  The script by Bruce Joel Rubin (The Time Traveler's Wife) maintains a wonderful balance between bleak, eerie, and hopeful.  You can't get much more romantic than Sam giving up heaven to stay with Molly. Yet for every romantic moment shaping clay pots, there's a scene where the shadows crawl off the walls to grab unwary—or undeserving—spirits.  Ghost's ultimate message is that love really does conquer all, and that's what we all want to believe when we head into the light.
 
While it wasn't as well-received as some might hope, I also have to give a special  nod to What Dreams May Come, scripted by Ronald Bass
(Entrapment) from a Richard Matheson novel.  Say what you like about it, but it's hard to fault a vision of heaven where the person waiting to greet you is the family dog.

Peter Clines grew up in the Stephen King fallout zone of Maine and made his first writing sale at age 17 to a local newspaper.  He currently lives somewhere in southern California, and can often be found ranting on his cleverly named blog, Writer on Writing.  His first novel, Ex-Heroes, will be released in fall 2009.

Beetlejuice courtesy Warner Home Video

Ghost Town courtesy DreamWorks Video

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