Aftershock

Aftershock is a disaster film with horror elements starring Eli Roth, Ariel Levy, Nicolas Marinez and directed by Nicolás López.

The film is set in Chile and after a massive earthquake hits, the darker side of human nature is explored. The narrative is told through the story of three people who are travelling through Chile, they meet three girls, arrive at a night club and once the earthquake strikes, they do what they can to survive. However, the earthquake has also broken the walls to a nearby prison which of course lets all sorts of psychos out on the street.

If you are a huge horror fan, then the name Eli Roth should stand out as one of the pioneers of horror. As he is the one who started a whole new genre known as “Torture Porn” with his films Hostel and Hostel part 2.

Although he didn't direct Aftershock, his name is attached as producer and he stars in the film, which I suppose is a good way to garner attention to the horror fans as any film with Eli Roth should be pretty good.

This is sadly not the case this time around. The one problem is the characters don’t seem to have any back-story whatsoever, there are one or two who have a very minor backstory but it isn’t enough for us to identify with them. “This is a horror, so why should we care about the characters?” I hear you ask. Well for one, the first 40 minutes of the movie just focuses on them exploring Chile and going to parties, with absolutely nothing else happening. The only reason for this incredibly long exposition is to get the audience emotionally attached with the characters. However, due to bad acting and bad script writing, it just does not happen.

Another problem with this movie is the supposed theme of exploring the dark side of human nature. Before watching this movie, I had a feeling this was going to be on par with The Purge, which also has similar themes. However this is not the case. The escaped prisoners that are mentioned hardly show up, except for one scene, and that scene itself is devoid of all tension. For the most part of the movie, the protagonists have to deal with street hooligans and rioters who were shown as terrible human beings from the start.

The fact of the matter is, this film had a lot of potential, but it is left disappointing and nowhere near what it could have been. Even the gore hounds, who know Eli Roth’s work, will be left empty handed as the gore is quite minimalistic, with maybe one or two scenes at best which will leave you wincing.

The one thing going for this film was the ending. I was expecting a traditional horror movie ending, but was left pleasantly surprised with the little twist.

My advice would be to give this a skip and wait for Eli Roth’s next film, The Green Inferno, which is due for release in September 2014.

So with that in mind, Aftershock gets a mild tremored 4 out of 10

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