When you think about it, life is sort of a weird thing. In the grand scheme of things, we humans aren’t meant to stick around on earth all that long. When there is a death in the family, young children are quick to ask, “What happens when we die?” The funny thing is, they’re not the only ones. We all want to know. Do you go to heaven immediately? Is there a holding pattern? Is there really a bright light that we’re supposed to follow that is mentioned so often in movies? Or is it that when we die, that’s it – game over? Many of us tend to take the “wait and see” approach. But what happens when a person dies briefly, comes back to life and wants to share about their experience in the clouds or (gulp) somewhere else?
Over the years, many people have claimed to have died and gone to heaven briefly. They have written books and have been the guests of many TV talk shows. Hollywood has made a number of comedy movies about heaven and there have been a number of faith-based movies based on real events like Miracles from Heaven and Heaven is for Real, that try to capture what those people saw while they were away. It’s a difficult task and one that researchers didn’t even bother thinking about seriously until a number of years ago.
(Angel Studios)
After Death is a documentary that tackles the topic head-on with interviews of personal accounts, philosophical discussions and scientific research. The subject matter is so popular, the documentary film, After Death, debuted in the #4 top spot in the nation last weekend beating out The Exorcist: Believer.
Whether or not you believe in these accounts, After Death gives some pretty compelling evidence to suggest that a number of these tales are true.
“For skeptics, this film opens the door to begin to ask haunting questions,” says the film’s director Stephen Gray who has spent over six years working on this documentary “so that it might become a beacon of hope.”
A number of stories are told through a series of (obviously) reenactments from survivors in addition to interviews with doctors and scientists. These include:
- John Burke: A pastor, researcher and author of a number of books including Imagine Heaven, No Perfect People Allowed and Soul Revelation.
- Dr. Michael Sabom: A cardiologist at Northside and Saint Joseph’s Hospitals in Atlanta, GA. He founded The Atlanta Study, the first comprehensive study on near-death experiences.
- Dr. Raymond Moody: A psychiatrist who claims to have listened to thousands of accounts of near death, shared death and after death experiences.
- Dr. Mary Neal: A orthopedic surgeon who she herself was trapped underwater for nearly 30 minutes.
- Dale Black: A former airline pilot who became the only survivor of a terrible plane crash in 1969.
- Don Piper: A man who endured 34 operations after being hit head-on with a semi-truck.
- Howard Storm: A former professor and author of the book, My Descent into Death about his scary tale that didn’t take place in heaven.
While I did find After Death to be very interesting, I was hoping to hear more stories and see more reenactments from the survivors. Nearly two hours long, there is a lot of information to take in. Fortunately, the stories are broken up so that you see a number of reenactments and beautiful imagery during the interviews.
This isn’t a movie that tells fantastic and unbelievable stories from unreliable people. (Okay, there is one man with a story that I thought was a little “out there” at first, but he redeems himself in the end.) Not all of their tales are happy ones. Most of them dealt with some depression after their episodes when telling others about their experiences were mostly futile. And for the researchers, doctors and scientists, they all come out looking good. Most, if not all, were skeptics before they got involved.
Main Image: Angel Studios
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