After Death is a 2023 American documentary film written and directed by Stephen Gray and Chris Radtke. The film chronicles the stories of various near-death experience survivors, and features analysis of these events by authors and scientists as they try to determine what happens after people die.[3] The film features interviews, as well as re-enactments of events, as the people in the documentary discuss what may happen after death.[4][5] It received mixed reviews from critics.
Cast
Interviewees
John Burke – New York Times bestselling author of Imagine Heaven and founding pastor of Gateway Church Austin
Dr. Mary Neal – orthopedic surgeon and author of To Heaven and Back[6]
Dale Black – former airline pilot, author of Flight to Heaven[7] and Visiting Heaven[8]
Don Piper – an ordained minister and author of 90 Minutes in Heaven. Piper was involved in a head-on crash with a tractor trailer in 1989 and claimed that he went to the gates of Heaven where he was greeted by his late grandfather.
Howard Storm – a minister and author of My Descent Into Death
Dean Braxton – a licensed minister and author of In Heaven!: Experiencing the Throne of God
Dr. Karl Greene – a neurosurgeon
Steve Kang – author of From Hell to Heaven: Buddhism to Christianity through the Gospel of Jesus and a Near Death Experience
Anita Onarecker Wood – Director of Education and Evangelism for the Memorial Baptist Church and author of Divine Appointment: Our Journey to the Bridge
Eva Piper – author of A Walk Through the Dark
Re-enactment
Koko Marshall as Beverly
Michael Jovanovski as Gene
Kate Duffy as Eva
Doug Lito as Howard
Drew Neal Horton as Chuck
Nicholas Saenz as Don
Fabian Jaime as Paul
Chetavious Davis as Dr. Greene
Ryan Mcarthy as Dr. Sabom
Nick McCloud as Dale
Production
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Release
Box office
The film was released on October 27, 2023, in 2,605 theaters in the United States and Canada.[10] It made $2.1 million on its first day and a total of $5.1 million in its opening weekend, finishing in fourth.[11]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of 18 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10.[12]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 28 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[13] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled at PostTrak gave it an 88% overall positive score, with 62% saying they would definitely recommend the film.[11]
RogerEbert.com's Nick Allen, rating the film 0.5 of 4 stars, felt it "barely works as an infomercial". He went on to say "Midway through, the superficial After Death thinks you have been sold on these transcendental experiences (and maybe you have)… [It's] all about the spectacle and the emotion it can create from such an experience, and it then curdles with a creepiness when it lets people talk for longer."[14]Variety's Owen Gleiberman similarly criticized After Death's approach, writing "After a while… we start to notice that the film is presenting the recoveries themselves as miracles… That's fine; maybe it's even faith. But when faith feels compelled to sell itself by pretending it's something else, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's propaganda."[15]Indiewire's David Ehrlich, giving it a "D" grade, was also negative: "Audiences who swear by the gospel of Colton Burpo probably won't see the problem here, but those of us who are less inclined to believe… might struggle to accept a handful of teary anecdotes and bizarre medical anomalies as compelling evidence that Christianity got everything right about life after death. On the contrary, such viewers are liable to be left with more questions than answers."[16]
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