Aftershock

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1780762/

Horror flickers are the 3 a.m. date of film genres. Those who enjoy them hope no one sees whom they’re going home with. Too bad, when a good one comes along it’s almost universally ignored.  I remember thinking Alien was a masterpiece the day I saw it, but had a lot of trouble convincing those around me.  Now they teach it in college film courses. (Too bad I wasn't as prescient regarding Microsoft.) Thank God the French discovered Hitchcock or we’d still think of him as the funny guy on old TV shows.

Such is the Eli Roth-produced, Nicholas Lopez-directed film Aftershock.  Let’s face it; everyone knows the purpose of these movies is to get your date to jump into your arms in a dark movie theater. If you can pull off a desperate but sincere hero grope, all the better. On this count, Aftershock will keep your sweetie pie close by.  How you take advantage of this situation is up to you.

Aftershock

The producer and director also wrote the script along with Guillermo Amoedo. For the first half-hour we find out how much fun Chile is these days. I guess turning from a military dictatorship to a tourist economy does wonders for a country. The young folks are all ga-ga at the go-go until a mega quake shakes the little hillside town to pieces.  There’s welcome relief from normal earthquake movie images. There are neither freeways collapsing nor people falling out of office buildings.  All the tremors take place in the relative confines of a nightclubs, verandas and churches.

Regardless of who gets the directing credit, this is an Eli Roth film and if you've seen his fascinating (and horrific) film Hostel, you know you can expect some nasty earthquake injuries. And Roth never shies away from showing us the gooey stuff. There’s a pause for a humorous sidebar involving the desperate search for an appendage. But too soon the characters get alerted to the danger of tsunami. With lots of aftershocks and an impending disaster - Part II, viewers can look forward to getting carried away by some nice twists.

This Chilean-American feature was released at home last fall and is in limited release so you may have trouble dragging mom out to this one Sunday. I’m looking forward to getting the DVD because I think it might have been more charming in the native Spanish. You certainly don't need a translation to know what the characters desire before or after the shakedown. I really liked the nightclub scenes and the soundtrack. There’s some great scenery as well.  For all these factors, I’m giving Aftershock three Cronenbergs out of four.

   

This week’s Overlooked Film of Significance: David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers has freakish gynecological instruments and not one, but two, extra fine Jeremy Irons performances.