What happens when we die?
The documentary After Death explores that most fundamental existential question. Specifically, it dives into the experiential phenomenon known as near-death experiences—experiences that are said to take place either when a person is clinically dead or nearly so.
Director Stephen Gray weaves together three overlapping narrative elements over the course of nearly two hours: First-person accounts of multiple NDEs, as told by those who experienced them; dramatizations of those brushes with death and what, potentially, comes after; and commentary from doctors and experts who’ve studied and written about NDEs.
The first near-death story chronicled here comes from pilot Dale Black. It was July 18, 1969, in Burbank, California. Dale and two friends were taking off in a small plane when one of the engines failed and the plane crashed into a massive, shrine-like mausoleum. “I suddenly found myself above the crash site,” Black recounts, “but unaware of what I was looking at or why. I was not in any pain; I was not in any fear or discomfort. I was just above the crash site.”
Doctors eventually managed to resuscitate Black, but not before he had a remarkable glimpse, he believes, at what comes after death. “I can’t be dead,” Black recounts, “because I’ve never felt more alive, free.”
Others tell their stories as well. Don Piper (author of the book 90 Minutes in Heaven) was hit head-on by a semi on a rainy bridge, killing him instantly (he says) and rending his body horrifically. Howard Storm (author of My Descent Into Death) suffered a ruptured small intestine and found himself falling into a hellish place as he died in a Paris hospital. Dr. Mary Neal (author of To Heaven and Back) plunged off a waterfall in Peru while kayaking, and she was trapped underwater for nearly 30 minutes.
Intercut between these and other dramatic stories of death and resuscitation, experts in the field describe the commonalities in NDEs: a sense of floating above their bodies and seeing themselves; a sense of experiencing God or transcendent love (or, in some cases, a demonic opposite); a deep desire to stay in that place even as some are told that it’s not their time yet, that they must return to their bodies.
“I think the near-death Experience is where science meets religion,” says cardiologist and author of the 1982 book Recollections of Death, Dr. Michael Sabom. And the research he’s done over the decades has challenged his inherent scientific skepticism regarding the claims made about what comes after: “There is a big difference between proof and evidence. This is all evidence. But enough evidence at some point makes it so close to proof that most people would say it’s right. It’s real.”
Later, Dr. Sabom adds, “I don’t think we ever will have all the answers in the scientific realm. What is the human soul? Is there a human soul? Does it live after death? I don’t think science is gonna answer those questions. I think all of these near-death experiences suggest that it’s possible.”
Accordingly, After Death explores near-death experiences with an eye toward science, but increasingly moves in a spiritual direction as it moves forward.
Much, if not most, of this film’s potential positive takeaway for viewers is inextricably woven into the spiritual stories of NDE returnees, which I’ll unpack below. That said, the experts, doctors and writers who’ve explored this topic have obviously tried to make some kind of sense of what these people have described. We see their desire to understand something mysterious and transcendent from a scientific perspective—even if the experiences themselves largely move beyond the bounds of empirical science.
After Death spends the majority of its run time exploring, dramatizing and speculating upon the transcendent nature of many people’s NDE experiences.
John Burke, author of Imagine Heaven, summarizes what many encounter: “Many talk about a God of light and love that they experience. This light is brighter than the sun. … They feel an unconditional love and peace and acceptance from this God like they’ve never experienced before. Ultimately, they either make the choice to return to their earthly body or are sent back involuntarily. … This God almost always says to them, ‘Your time is not up yet. You still have a purpose on Earth.’”
Several of those who describe their NDEs here are Christians who talk specifically about meeting Jesus, as well as deceased loved ones and friends, in a momentary taste of heaven that was so overwhelming that they didn’t want to return to this life. Dr. Mary Neal says, “I had the most overwhelming sense of being home, of being where I really belong, where we really belong.”
Dr. Neal also realizes that her experience changed her, deepening her sense of life’s purpose and the importance of relational connections here and now. “What we each say, and what we each do, and the choices we make matter. They really do.”
Don Piper, another Christian, talks about—quite literally—standing at the fabled “Pearly Gates” of heaven. “It was magnificent. It was like the inside of an oyster. It was pearl and dazzling, almost as if it was living.” He then notes, “One of the most difficult things about talking about heaven is that you have to do it with earthly words. And there are no earthly words that do it justice. … My senses were incredibly vivid. It’s just the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. … I wanted to climb that hill and fall at the feet of the great God of creation and say, ‘Thank You for letting me come.’”
These stories are often accompanied by spectacular sci-fi like visuals that bring to mind movies like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.
But while a number of people here identify as Christians and talk about their encounters with God and heaven from that point of view, not everyone who had such heavenly encounters seems to be coming from a Christian perspective. Steve Kang, a Korean-American who grew up Buddhist (but who nonetheless uses very Christian language about heaven and hell to describe his own experience) says, “I believe all over the world there are so many unique NDEs … and so many cultures and backgrounds, American or not, all types of religions, because death is as real as life. And I believe God in His mercy, no matter what religious background you are, allows you to go through that so that you can seek Him in the process.”
Kang’s own story involves a particularly violent suicide attempt (more on that below) during which, while high on drugs, a demonic spirit in the form of an “old Asian grandpa” told him to take his life so that he’d have “50,000 less years of hell.” As he literally lay dying in a hospital from his self-inflicted knife wounds, Kang says, “God came to me in, like, a ball of light” and pulled him out of the spiritual darkness he’d been falling into. “I looked up, and it was glittering like gold. And the walls were gold. I don’t know how it works, but it’s definitely a place where you’d go.”
Two other dark NDEs involve going to a place you definitely don’t want to go—something the film reports happens to some 23% of those who report NDEs. Paul Ojeda tried to commit suicide via a cocaine overdose, during which he found himself falling through an endless black tunnel until he cried out to God for help.
Howard Storm’s story is even bleaker. In the hospital where he was dying, he reports a group of people (depicted in hooded robes in the dramatization) met his spirit and led him away into darkness. They ultimately began, he says, to bite, scratch and disembowel him until he, too, cried out for Jesus, remembering the song “Jesus Loves Me” from his youth. “Jesus was a like a superhero. I called out to Jesus in complete desperation, and a star appeared.” He says Jesus came to him then ascended through the darkness like a “rocket ship” hurling into a nebula-like galactic heaven.
Apart from individuals’ stories, the only other reference to Christianity in the narration here is a quotation from the Apostle Paul from 1 Corinthians 12:2, where he writes, “I was caught up to the third heaven,” a passage some have speculated could have been the first-century equivalent of a near-death experience.
Several scenes include visuals such as churches and art related to Jesus and heaven. We see the Sistine Chapel in Rome, for instance.
None, really, save for a classic painting of Adam and Eve unclothed in the background of one interview.
As mentioned above, two of the stories we hear are dark—horror-movie dark. Howard Storm found himself led away into darkness by creepy robed people with glowing eyes (which is dramatized here). These entities eventually pin him to the ground and essentially begin to devour him. We see him writhing on the ground with what looks like blood covering his face and head.
Steve Kang describes cutting his throat and stabbing himself in the stomach, showing the camera long scars on both parts of his body.
Don Piper is shown on a gurney after his accident, has face still covered with blood. We hear how he lost a big piece of his femur in the accident, and we see his crushed car.
Similarly, we see the wreckage of Dale Black’s crashed plane in an old newspaper photo. Other scenes depict multiple people in surgery. There’s also a dramatic, CSI-like depiction of blood gushing inside Howard Storm’s abdominal rupture.
We hear three uses of “h—” as a profanity, apart from some other references to hell as a place of suffering.
Paul Ojeda talks about intentionally overdosing on cocaine in order to overload his heart and induce a fatal heart attack.
None.
From 1977 to 1982, Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy narrated an investigative TV show called In Search Of … that plumbed the depths of mysteries and paranormal phenomenon. It gave me the absolute creeps. And I never missed it.
Nimoy dealt with subjects as diverse as Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, the Bermuda Triangle, the lost continent of Atlantis and, of course, whether Bigfoot was real. (Definitely maybe?)
Mystery lay at the heart of the show’s appeal. Were these things real? What did they mean? How do we explain the unexplainable? Even though the show often left me more than a little freaked out as a tween, it was mesmerizing. I can still recall the hairs on my arms and neck standing up when the theme song played.
After Death isn’t much like In Search Of … really. Except that it kind of is. We’re drawn to mystery. We want to know what the truth is—especially about the journey from life to death that we must all ultimately take.
For many of those who tell their stories here, that journey has been one of paradox. On the brink of death, it was a path of terror—until they experienced the embrace of (the film says) a God of light and love and forgiveness and acceptance. And even the ones who seemed destined for something like hell called out to a God or Jesus, who delivered them from that fate.
In all of that, the film frames near-death experiences in a broadly Christian way. We hear about heaven and hell, reunions with loved ones and depictions of an experience so utterly transcendent that words fail. “Nothing compares to heaven,” Don Piper says. “It’s just—that’s the most real thing. That’s my reality. This is not.”
In a message during the credits, director Stephen Gray tells viewers, “I hope [After Death] causes people to stop and think. [I hope] it’ll actually cause people to pause and consider eternity.”
I think this intriguing, well-made and at times unnerving documentary has the potential to do just that. But it still comes with some important caveats.
First, despite the film’s general alignment, broadly speaking, with a Christian understanding, it doesn’t suggest that “going to heaven” is absolutely linked to having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Several people here do have that relationship. But the film doesn’t specifically talk about how Jesus saves us from sin or the need to have a relationship with him as a prerequisite to eternal salvation. Instead, the movie seems to strike a much more universalistic stance, with several people saying that people across different cultures and religions have all had similar experiences of God’s heavenly love and light.
Second, when it comes to evaluating the phenomenon of near-death experiences from a biblical point of view, Scripture offers little explicit guidance. Apart from Paul’s mysterious reference to being caught up to “the third heaven” in 1 Corinthains 12:2, there’s no clear passage of Scripture to help us discern the authenticity or veracity of such experiences. The stories here potentially have the capacity to encourage us with regard to what lies beyond, but these experiences remain almost a textbook example of something experiential and extrabiblical that’s outside the guidance and framework for spiritual truth that the Bible provides.
Finally, After Death does offer two glimpses at a hellish afterlife experience that feel very much like something out of a grim horror movie, even if only momentarily. Despite the movie’s potentially redemptive themes, it’s not one I’d recommend for families with young or sensitive viewers.
All in all, After Death delivers a provocative and potentially encouraging look at the subject of near-death experiences. But the theological caveats and content concerns noted in this review mean it may not be an experience to be shared by every family.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
