Aftershock follows three friends who take a trip to Chile where they meet three beautiful women to party with. Shortly afterwards an earthquake obliterates the town and the paradise becomes a wasteland, filled with rapists and murderers. It’s a fairly ridiculous plot, promoting the idea that a disaster would cause an entire community to turn into total arseholes. It also doesn’t help that the film seems unable to pick a genre, starting as a romantic comedy before descending into a disaster film, transforming into an apocalypse movie and even featuring a last minute switch into a slasher flick. The only constant is how awfully handled the film is. Whereas some films may be able to balance multiple genres, Aftershock struggles to even manage one.
Much of the story defies logic. Monsters come out of the woodwork after the earthquake, with no explanation for why they have suddenly decided to go on a raping/killing spree. A character loses a hand but suffers very little blood loss. Many of the death scenes are totally laughable, even more so than in parody films like Scary Movie. All of the blood is a strange pink colour for some reason, they are humans right?
Right from the start the male leads prove incredibly unlikeable in their own ways. There’s Eli Roth’s annoying character, a fat rich dude, and a guy who can’t get over his ex-girlfriend. Somehow they are able to pick up pretty women despite acting like total tools. The women don’t fare much better, there’s a former druggy, her controlling sister and a slut. It’s one of those horror movies where you just want the cast to drop dead and thankfully many of them do in violent ways.
There are only a couple of extras, two of which are virtually identical. Both the interviews cover the same topics, the only variation being the addition of Eli Roth in the second one. They don’t provide much in the way of interesting information and throughout much of them Lorenzo Izzo just looks perplexed by everything coming out of the director’s mouth. You also get a trailer for the film.
Overall Verdict: A ridiculously stupid film that is more horrifying for its characters and story than in terms of actual scares.
Special Features:
Interview with Nicolás López and Lorenzo Izzo
Glasgow Frightfest Q&A with Nicolás López, Eli Roth and Lorenzo Izzo
Trailer
Reviewer: Matt Mallinson