Friday, October 12, 2018

Chills & Thrills: Aftershock (2012)



Movie Name/Year: Aftershock (2012)
Tagline: The only thing more terrifying than Mother Nature is human nature.
Genre: Action, Adventure, Horror
Length: 89 minutes
Rating: R
Production Companies: Sobras International Pictures, Cross Creek Pictures, Dragonfly Entertainment, Vertebra Films
ProducerMiguel Asensio Llamas, Helen Cappuccino, Mac Cappuccino, James Holt, Brian Oliver, Eli Roth, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Howard Young
Director: Nicolás López
Writer: Nicolás López, Eli Roth, Guillermo Amoedo
Actors: Eli Roth, Andrea Osvárt, Ariel Levy, Natasha Yarovenko, Nicolás Martínez, Lorenza Izzo, Marcial Tagle, Ramón Llao, Ignacia Allamand, Matías López

Blurb from Netflix: An American tourist and his friends are partying in Chile, but a major earthquake devastates the area and forces them to scramble for survival.


Selina’s Point of View:
I forgot I was watching a horror movie for a while.

The beginning of the film was just so slow. Yes, they were trying to connect the audience with the characters and make their plight more important to us – but they didn’t really succeed. I wound up thinking the majority of the characters were annoying.

I believe exposition is sometimes a necessity in film. But there are ways to go about it. In Aftershock it all seemed clunky and out of place – pointless, even. I get that they were trying to set it up so people understood how much a later scene affected one of the characters – but it failed. Besides, the scenes were so upsetting that I didn’t need the character’s perspective.

One thing Eli Roth always does incredibly well, is the violence aspects. They’re always done in a terrifying manner. The gore is always the kind of upsetting it was meant to be. When Roth has a hand in horror, expect the maximum amount of blood and gore an R-rating will allow.


Once the actual disaster started to occur, the horror/action amped up considerably. I went from being super bored to thrust into this sequence of action events. It was a little jarring, but it was meant to be.

The most horrifying parts of the film revolved around the human component – not the disaster. I like that in a film like this. It really shines a light on what’s wrong with humanity.

I can’t say the movie was phenomenal, but it wasn’t bad, either.

I just feel the need to warn you that there are a lot of scenes that can be triggering. One of my triggers was hit on pretty hard in the film and it made calming down a little difficult when it was over.


Cat’s Point of View:
There’s one word that comes immediately to mind to describe this – powerful. It both describes the natural disaster that drives the plot and the strength of the story, itself.

This movie is not for the faint of heart. It is graphic, bloody, and includes all sorts of scenarios that are simply horrifying on many levels.  In fact, they actually had to scale some parts of the original cut back in order to get their R-rating. It was almost NC-17. I certainly see why. This wasn’t my first viewing of this film, but my visceral reaction to the story was no less.

It’s a disaster-horror masterpiece, really.

The effects, largely practical, were on point; the performances were believable; and the gritty events were eerily realistic to how a scenario like this might just play out.

I just get chills even thinking about it. My husband and his side of the family are from California, so earthquakes are just par for the course for him – much like tornadoes are here in Northwestern Louisiana. While I love the climate out there in Northern Cali, the whole ground-shaking thing makes me nervous.


Add that, though, to being a tourist in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language beyond a handful of words when a big one hits. This exploration of human nature (for good and bad) in such a circumstance is, frankly, harrowing. I swear, Eli Roth (Rock of Ages, The Green Inferno, Clown) is a sadistic mofo to characters.

It starts a little on the slow side, but necessarily so for character development; because once it hits its stride, its nonstop pedal to the floor all the way to the end.

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia for you. Roth’s wife, Lorenza Izzo (Hemlock Grove, Feed the Beast, Life Itself), also stars in this film. She’s a Chilean native in reality, but plays an American tourist vacationing with her sister in Chile. I digress.

Eli Roth is quickly emerging as one of my favorite horror writer/director/producers. His brutally twisted takes on life and beyond rarely miss the mark. For this reason, I’m pretty excited that he’s hosting a new series on AMC called Eli Roth's History of Horror (2018). I can’t wait. It premieres this Sunday, October 14th at 11:12pm Central with its first episode focusing on zombies. My DVR is already set. I’m digressing again.

If you’re a fan of the disaster horror genre, this movie is a marriage made in hell – but in the best of ways. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you about the level of disturbing content.


Languages
Speech Available: English
Subtitles Available: Spanish, English

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 37%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 24%
Metascore – 39/100
Metacritic User Score – 5.9/10
IMDB Score – 4.8/10

Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating2/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating4.5/5

Movie Trailer:

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