Doing a double take in "After.Life"

Christina Ricci dons a negligee to play a crash victim caught between two worlds in "After. Life," a title that squanders an opportunity.

An opportunity to call the movie "The Half Naked and the Half Dead," an apt description of the way "After.Life" functions as a psychosexual horror movie and M. Night Shyamalanish spiritual thriller.

Ricci is Anna Taylor, a high-strung girl who mistakes her boyfriend's clumsy marriage proposal for a breakup speech, then drives off in a tearful rage, right into the back of a truck.

She "wakes up" in a mortuary, where a creepily phlegmatic undertaker (Liam Neeson) prepares her body for a funeral three days hence. Anna argues she's still alive, the undertaker explains that she's a spirit who can speak and interact only with him - he has a "gift" for speaking with the dead.

"After.Life" is officially on the fence, loath to reveal whether the mortician is drugging and torturing Anna, or whether she's really in spiritual limbo, afraid to walk toward the light.

For the viewer who has ample to time to examine Ricci's scantily clothed and ultimately naked body in detail, this raises troubling questions. Is that goth makeup or is she dead? Am I a Ricci fan or a necrophiliac?

"After.Life" means to walk this creepy, unnerving line - it's an exercise in making your skin crawl, and there are moments when it works. Director Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, whose name is very hard to type, creates a somber, attenuated "Sixth Sense"-type of mood, and borrows from Shyamalan the use of color cues, and even a weird kid boy who sees dead people.

"After.Life," though, is itself caught between two worlds, including a commercial one that demands fake-out dream sequences and other mainstream horror movie staples.

You end up with something that's half art film, half hokum, and the actors, particularly the fitful Ricci, seem unsure of how to approach the material.

It's a nice try, though, from Wojtowicz-Vosloo, who finds novel ways to illustrate the idea of parallel worlds. In one scene, Anna escapes from Deacon's basement and tries to call her boyfriend, reaching his cell from a rotary phone. I guess you know you're a goner if you're still dialing.

Produced by Brad Michael Gilbert, William O. Perkins III, Celine Rattray, directed by Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, written by Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, Paul Vosloo, music by Paul Haslinger, distributed by Anchor Bay Films.