WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Afterlife of the Party, now streaming on Netflix.
In Netflix’s Afterlife of the Party, there are plenty of endearing moments as Victoria Justice’s Cassie mends relationships after her death. Her ghost has to fix select issues, or else she won’t be able to ascend into heaven, and her best friend Lisa (Midori Francis) is one of these key relationships. And as Cassie appears to Lisa, she uses her bestie to help cross off her. However, while this leads to the movie’s most sentimental moment, it also becomes the film’s scariest.
Lisa and Cassie are like sisters because Sofia, Cassie’s mom, left when she was a kid, leaving Lisa and her mom to help raise Cassie. But sadly, as inseparable as they were, they grew apart after Cassie became obsessed with being a socialite. In fact, the night they fell out, a drunk Cassie hit her head and died, leaving her unable to fix things.
After coming back as a ghost, however, Cassie calms Lisa’s guilt about berating her the night she fell. But Cassie also realizes she needs to get Lisa to be more assertive about her dream archaeology position and the next-door neighbor, Max. He’s clearly head over heels for Lisa, so Cassie lays a romantic trap. The pair end up on a date and kiss, and Cassie feels good after getting her friend to take this big step. When Lisa comes home the next morning, they talk about love and kids and how she and Max are so perfect, it’s hard not to imagine a fairytale ending.
But this is where Afterlife of the Party takes a dark turn. As the friends sit in bed, they reminisce about what was and what could have been. The comedic essence of the movie disappears when Cassie’s tears turn from that of joy to sorrow as she talks about why young people dying is so unfair because they just want to try and enjoy certain aspects of life. Lisa also chimes in about how cruel it is, which causes Cassie to panic about how she won’t be on Earth for her friend’s job promotion, wedding or any other major moments.
As happens with so many young people, Cassie forced a fast-paced life as a social butterfly to get over her own hangups, and it ultimately ended in tragedy. And while this is the film’s attempt at injecting drama, for the film’s target audience, Cassie’s story may give them a horrific epiphany that could lead to a lot of introspection about shaping a world without some people in it.
To see Cassie’s scary speech about death, Afterlife of the Party is streaming now on Netflix.
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