20130923: Horror Review--Aftershock

Aftershock

1. Fundamentals
1. Chilean live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 89 minutes, horror, thriller.
2. IMDB: 4.7/10.0 from 3,859 users. Spoken language is both English and Spanish with English subtitles.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 37% on the meter; 27% liked it from 5,328 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Nicolas Lopez. Screenplay written by: Guillermo Amoedo and Nicolas Lopez.
5. Starring: Eli Roth (also, story and producer credit) as Gringo, Andrea Osvart as Monica, Ariel Levy as Ariel, Natasha Yarovenko as Irina, Nicolas Martinez as Pollo, Lorenza Izzo as Kylie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film starts with nightclubs, something that looks like a rave, broken marriage, and a pointless and awkward Selena Gomez cameo.  There were plenty of self-regarding, shallow, parasitic, non-working idiots who exhibit plenty of class hatred for anyone except themselves.


2. The quake occurred while the stars were in a nightclub deep underground.  They escape only because one of them had shown a few moments of decency.  The surface was not much better.   Their transportation was rendered scrap.  Their cell phones do not work since the repeaters were down.


3. The tsunami alarm goes off.  They head for higher ground, as did so many other people.


4. They encounter gangs of murdering thugs and bad luck, the kind one dies from.


5. The aftershocks make things much, much worse.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: After an earthquake, idle rich tourists battle gangs, bad luck, and aftershocks.
2. Final Rating: 6/10


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Absolutely wonderful.


2. Sound: 10/10 Lovely.


3. Acting: 2/10 Eli Roth was just terrible.  I hope he quits acting altogether, and gets out of writing and producing.  Nicolas Martinez was often enjoyable.  Ariel Levy was wretchedly bad.  The actresses who played the half-sisters were quite annoying.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The beginning was too long; I was ready for the stars to begin getting hammered by nature after about three minutes.  Instead it was about 35 minutes.  After the lengthy introduction, I hoped all of them would die horribly.  So I guess the screenplay was a success up to the point of the earthquake.  The stars get shredded thereafter with a very small number of survivors, until the tsunami finally shows up in the end.  The screenplay did succeed at its objectives.