Movie: Aftershock
By: Maniac E
Date: May 11, 2013
So set in Chile and being loosely based on the Chile 8.8 scale earthquake from 2010 this movie is out for a bang. But did they succeed in this or not? Eli Roth is known for not taking things lightly, so let's that a look.
Gringo's (Eli Roth) enjoying some time in Chile with his buddy Ariel (Ariel Levy) and Ariel's lifelong friend Pollo (Nicholás Martínez). Courtesy of Pollo's minor celebrity status and seemingly bottomless bank account, the guys get access to all the hottest parties and the chance to take some ladies along for the ride. The divorced Gringo, recently single Ariel and ever-horny Pollo are thrilled to take their new Hungarian friends Irina, Kylie, and Monica (Natasha Yarovenko, Lorenza Izzo, and Andrea Osvárt) to one of the best local parties. It's all flirting, booze, and dancing at first, but after a devastating earthquake strikes the region, their big night out is consumed by bone crushing destruction, violent escaped convicts, and a lot of blood. Carnage breaks loose and people start killing people.
First off skip the first 30 minutes of the movie, it is so called character build up/bromance that is being shown just to let you feel something for the main characters. It doesn't work. To López and Roth's credit, once the action begins, Aftershock intensifies impressively, and doesn't pull any punches. The film is extraordinarily gory, playing up the sickening sounds and copious blood-spurting that inevitably follows in the wake of huge hunks of concrete and steel crumbling on top of human bodies. (Crushed bones and severed limbs end up being as much the star of Aftershock as Roth and his two buddies). And López purposefully avoids any of the "triumph of the human spirit" business common to the disaster genre. This is no The Impossible, in other words. As soon as the trouble starts, people of every race, gender, nationality, and social standing get killed, and the good are punished just as cruelly as the dickheads.
What they probably wanted to show us in this movie are the things people are able to do once survival instincts kick in. But it all was a bit hard to swallow and seemed a bit out of place from time to time. The whole earthquake thing was feeling way too low budget with just some shaky cams etc. Luckily it is a fast pace movie so it is over sooner than you think. Fortunately, "Aftershock" is far more about ripping the main players apart rather than putting fully fleshed out characters together. And this is a good thing because the characters be more cliche than this.
All in all I could enjoy the movie there is a lot of blood and gore in it which in my opinion saves the movie in the end. I don't see a big point in why people would start to murder each other almost right after an earthquake but ah well. Eli Roth still is a bad actor but luckily so are the rest in this one. Aftershock is a movie you would watch once and after that never ever be played. It could have been executed a lot better if they only would want to spend a bit more money but maybe next time. López and Roth did do their best to make it at least watchable.
Aftershock
Nicolás López
USA | Chile
2012
Nicolás Martínez, Eli Roth, Ariel Levy
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