Angel Studios. In theaters, now. Reviewed by Elizabeth C. Polanzke
“After Death”, Movie (2023)
“After Death” is produced by Angel Studios, the same production company that offers “The Chosen”, a Christian dramatic series on NBC and Peacock. This movie, which was released in theaters on October 27, focuses on Near Death Experiences (NDE). It begins by defining them as “Events that take place as a person is on the brink of death (or is already clinically dead) and recounted after recovery”.
The viewer is lead through a deliberative series of NDE stories told in first-person interviews, medical documentation, and historical accounts and photographs punctuated by animations intended to inspire the audience to think of heaven and the supernatural. If one has read the best-selling books by any of the featured authors including, Raymond Moody, Mary Neal, Dan Piper, or George Ritchie, then one is not disappointed by the opportunity to hear their first-person reflections. In addition to these first-person accounts, NDEs are interpreted by others including a pastor, a journalist, and Dr. Michael Sabom, whose research drives the movie’s narrative.
Seeking to explain the why and how a Near Death Experience occurs, death is defined in several ways. First, a pastor, John Burke, states that “death is separation”, that is, when the soul leaves the body. This definition paves the way for interpreting the accounts of persons hovering over their bodies while medical personnel work upon them, and encountering other souls while separated from their bodies. The movie also recognizes the bifurcated definitions of death as in, cardiac or brain death. Addressing the biological events after a diagnosis of death is Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon from the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine, whose technical explanations were to serve as providing scientific support and gravitas to what some consider imaginative phenomena.
Ultimately, this is a Christian movie intended to inspire reflection upon heaven, hell, and life after death. I viewed this movie and reflected upon it with ten members of my congregation. For the most part, the film served to reinforce what they already believed. When invited to consider other views such as biblical concepts of death as sleep, and the dead as sleeping until the resurrection rather than body and soul separated by death, the group was equally comfortable with that idea. The movie didn’t appear to move the needle one way or the other for that group of believers, and they expressed doubt that it would do anything for non-believers.
Outside of Pastor Burke’s explanation that the soul leaves the body upon death, a debatable idea born from Greek philosophy, and Dr. Zemmar’s biological illuminations, the movie doesn’t address the myriad of post-death experiences such as Sensory Experiences of a loved one after Death (SED), or Death Bed Visions (DBV). While Dr. Zemmar alludes to the latest in thanatological and grief studies, there is a lot of science and “after death” experiences that remain unaddressed by this movie. The focus here is to get the viewer to consider what kind of experience they will have after death. Will you go into the light? Or will you join the 23% who have dark and frightening near-death experiences?
To that end, the most troubling part of the movie is that for a film intended to inspire reflection and relationship with God, it places the after-death experience solely in the hands of the viewer. It proclaims a God who is all love and light, then states that the individual has the power to be in God’s presence. Can a viewer truly believe that a God who is all light and love would allow any human to be prey to the darkness? Does a God who is all love really reject based upon our choices and behavior? The movie makes God sound almost peripheral to the death experience: As if God stands outside of it waiting for us to make the right choices in life in order to be embraced in the light after death. With a couple of exceptions, the NDE interviewees of the movie reported a God of all love, grace, and light. Then, the movie proclaims that God abandons in death unless we have made a good choice. It’s a disturbing message and undermines the message of grace the movie seeks to inspire.
The producers offer movie goers a chance to “pay it forward” by purchasing tickets for those without means to view the movie. To obtain a pre-paid ticket, the movie goer must go to their website, angel.com, and follow the chain to viewing times and look for the prompt to request a free ticket.
Pericaffe 