Like a crossbreed of Final Destination, Hangover, SNL and some random horror-gore flick.
Eli Roth’s Aftershock puts together three friends that are copycats of the Hangover gang: Gringo (Eli Roth), their version of Stu; Ariel (Ariel Levy), their lovelorn version of Doug; and, amazingly, they even have their very own Zach Galifianakis—a character named Pollo (Nicolas Martinez). And they’re headed not for Las Vegas for a life of hedonistic revelry, but to go crazy and party all night in the “Indie station of Latin America,” i.e., Chile.
The first thirty or so minutes of the movie is a visual cacophony of the female anatomy in an MTV Spring Break-like atmosphere; bums in thongs, legs, short skirts, and Selena Gomez; the camera like a perv—a hormonal teenager on the hunt for a petty fix that you start getting impatient for the earthquake to happen. Meanwhile, the “Hangover” gang gets together with three women travelers, and the six of them will become our “Final Destination” team. After a lengthy night life and a fairly nice tour of Chile, interrupted by the contrived lines of the dislikeable Hangover copycats, finally the earthquake happens. And after watching these unpleasant and unfunny people, you cheer! Because the earthquake has become your long-awaited hero finally arriving to kill them all. It's the protagonist of the movie. And you can’t wait for the tsunami, too.
But the moment the earthquake arrives, the movie suddenly becomes a Saturday Night Live skit; we are tortured by the comical screams and the unnatural cries of agony; all the performances delivered with embarrassing effort and sheer fakeness that the whole time you’re watching you can almost read the screenplay and the director's (Nicolas Lopez) instructions. One by one, the members of the team delivers a parody of death. Then the film takes another twist: from a cheap Mad TV horror-gore, it suddenly becomes a fantasy zombie/vampire/monster-like movie—in the form of escaped prisoners. Yes, all Chilean prisoners here are either murderers or rapists.
Aftershock is insultingly bad. Like a product of juvenile writing that un-funnily and amateurishly makes a mock out of real movies. A real tragedy.
0.5 out of 5
Opens on July 10, 2013 exclusively in SM Cinemas.
Photo credit: Aftershock official Facebook page.
This review is cross-published in InterAksyon.com.
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