Aftershock
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.
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