Plaza gives the film its motor, and if Baena's control of the material is occasionally uncertain, 'Life After Beth' plays best when it feeds off her manic, gonzo energy, and runs with it.

Getting people in creepy makeup to gurn and shuffle and get shot isn't automatically scary plus hilarious.

Plaza steals the show with one foot in the grave, her rotting heroine ricocheting between adolescent snarkiness and cadaverous rage, a lethal combination of which no one around her has the measure.

It's their unlikely chemistry that rounds 'Life After Beth' round the bases, even if it occasionally limps its way across home plate.