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
Producer: Miguel 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 Rating – 2/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating
– 4.5/5
Movie Trailer: