Aftershock (2012) | a "Disaster' film
I referenced this movie in 2020 while discussing the production of Eli Roth's Green Inferno (2013). So let's dive into that connection a little bit more. According to an interview with the two of them at the Toronto International Film Festival. Roth was enamored by Lopez's debut film Promedia Rojo (2004) shown at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. This led to a back and forth between the two directors who eventually settled on a script concept after Lopez expereienced the 8.8 Chilean Earthquake in 2010. They co-wrote the script along with Uraguayan screenwriter Giullermo Amoedo who was another frequent contributer during this period. Lopez and Roth maintained orbit with each other. For Lopez he cowrote Knock Knock along with Roth and Amoedo as well as his production company Sobras International helping produce both films. Roth himself was enamored with Chile as he states in this Cine Latino article. He spent several months off and on in Chile and married Chilean Actress and Model Lorenza Izzo who was also in the trilogy of films already mentioned.
This period with these creators is called 'Chilewood' and you already know how I feel about those kinds of monikers.
So I don't know if you've caught it but I've already fallen into a kind of critic trap. It's the part were in describing the production of a film I manage to linger on the more widely known creative and not the actually creator. Think anything Jordan Peele has every produced. If you're hip and with it you say Ryen isn't it usually a bad sign when a movie poster or advertisement starts with the producer. As if the marketing team feels unconfident that the actually director can draw interest for the film and uh yeah it's usually a bad sign. I'm going to be honest; This is a really weak film.
I think the worst part about the fact that so many of the cast and crew are kept over from these projects is that I have seen Eli Roth's contribution to 'Chilewood' and he has used these actors and cinemtographers and it's very clear how much direction helps bring out the best of the creatives in these fields. At this point we should probably introduce the cast.
In the TIFF interview, Roth and Lopez discuss how they kept the first third of the film for character building much in the vein of the many many disaster films of the '70s. This is a noble concept through I am going to push back on the notion that our cast of characters are fleshed out in any sense. Here is a quick run down of the relevant personal information of the main 6 characters:
Gringo (Eli Roth): generic but moody jock uh no personallity
Irena (Natasha Yarovenko): the wild child party gurl who loves to drink and is generally kinda a bitch
Monica (Andrea Osvart): her uptight older sister who's here to babysit for some reason
Ariel (Ariel Levy): gringo's guy friend whose hung up on his bitch of an ex and has no personality traits besides that
and of course
Pollo (Nicolas Martinez): the rich chilean guy thats showing them around.
Several of these characters stand out for various reasons. I like Osvart's performance. She manages to have some nuance and interest and her casting is reminscent of the type of pixie cut heroines of the 2000s like Kate Beckinsale or Milla Jovovich. I think there is definetly a better version of this script where her character takes the lead.
Martinez also manages to give the most nuance for his character. He is a rich guy who likes to through around daddy's money but he also seems fairly chill and his kind of geek stylings add a level of characterization that the other characters don't get. I'mma going to be honest I haven't seen the 2009 smash hit comedy The Hangover but the visual comparisions of the male trio and the Galifianakian styling of Martinez here feels very intentional. The nachos are getting reheated it seems.
The obvious loveboat of the movie is of course Eli Roth, who despite it all is a pretty hot guy. He also, by which I mean no offense, looks like if Zachery Quinto did gay for pay porn. Its very Malik Delgaty he has this kind of naive but hot face and he stands out like a sore thumb. Much like Selena Gomez's cameo here, his performance is less wow what a great performance thats also done by a recognizable character, it's more wow thats just Eli Roth. He's in this movie for some reason.
I'm gonna be honest I don't think Roth is a strong actor. He doesn't add much to this film besides being hot and baby gurl that is a low low bar for his face card.
The acting in general is rather weak, there's this really interesting thing were a lot of the lines sound dubbed which would make sense if they were being spoken by like a Spanish actor and it was ADR but no; the lines are just that wooden. Your'll have American actors speaking English in American accents, (in the context of the film), and they'll still sound like the kind of flat affect you hear from a Netflix dub, very commerical and with the most generic of inflection.
Enough of that let's talk about the script.
So Eli Roth is best known for his tense fixated gore scenes. These moments of ultraviolence. Lopez is famous for his comedies so you might expect a blending of these two styles and you would be right but it's not good. What makes the gore good in a Roth film is its impact on the tension of the film. If a horrible thing happens quickly the character and the audience expience shock. They have to emotional deal with that. Here the gore feels slapstick in the worse way possible. There's two ways you can make sudden death work for a film. On one hand, make it silly and absurd, lots of people cutting off there hands and blood squirting and squibs, (ugh note: the hand decapitation is based on real events apparently so they get a pass I guess), or you make it sudden and shocking. I would point out the 2012 Anime Another as a good example of this. The deaths in the show happen quickly, the snapping of a neck, a backdraft, being hit by lighting. These deaths are swift, violent, sudden, they trigger fight or flight. These two styles of death are mutaully exclusive. A death either must have no tension and be funny or have all the tension and be a threat and this film tries to have it both ways and lets the steam out of its sails.
Let me give you an example. As the group goes to leave the nightclub they climb a ladder up to the surface and a cleaning woman (Gabriela Hernández), peers her head above the street and then promptly gets hit by a truck. The film lingers for a frame on her smooshed face and then cuts to the entire crew standing on the street. The perceived threat is ignored. Now you might think this film with its Wu-Tang Tramp Stamps and slightly camp deaths in the night club that were viewing a comedic death style but as the rest of the movie features death scenes that become increasingly maudlin in there sincerity, we understand thats not the case. A dramatic film would have our characters overcome obstacles like the dangerous man hole cover in the middle of a congested street but this film doens't. The deaths don't feel tense. The crew gets injured one by one and then they get picked off by what every contrivance is affecting them at the moment.
The deaths suck are what I'm saying. A good disaster film is Man vs. Nature right. It's about danger after danger being thrown at you, about trying to find safety and it escalates it becomes more and more dangerous as the movie progresses. At least thats what a good disaster film is like. Bad disaster films also have there place and they tend to be more palatable then mediocre ones because they understand the need for spectacle. Take the clearly awful film Christmas Twister also from 2012.
Is the film good? No.
Does the film understand I'm watching this for a lot of twisters to twist people? Yes.
The twisters attack in the film. Because a disaster film requires disasters. It requires collapsing building and insane set pieces and a lot of interesting moving parts. This film is light on all of that. If you are famalier with the 2010 Chilean Earthquake then your'll remember that part of its impact was a tsunami that attacked multiple port towns and islands in Chile, including Val Pariaso. While Apocrypha, (Wikipedia), claims that the waves only reached about 4 feet in the city you might think that a disaster film might exaggerate the impact for y'know dramatic effect. If I make the point of loading the gun around the 40 minute mark with tsunami warnings, I would expect it to go off but apparently Chekhov is a bitch. For all you waveheads out there the tsunami does hit as an ending stinger. Which is the type of cheap narrative trick that I would expect from a bad sharksplotation film on the SYFY channel. Another kind of B-movie film that understands how to use gratutious violence for effect. Lopez please take notes here.
Now at this point in my screed, I feel like I have sufficiently proven that this film lacks any concrete sense of Man vs. Nature. So what is the danger? Who are the characters fighting against? What's the conflict? Well, the answer is Man.
So throughout this film the characters are stalked by violent tatted thugs in a roving sadist gang. This is presumingly meant to be a kind of Con Air (1997) situration inspired by the real-life jailbreak of over 200 inmates in the city of Chillan during the disaster but it comes off as terrible cliche. Its very MS-13 in Chiraq energy. Very Fox News. Also the 'Chilewood' crew make a point about showcasing Chile as a modern developed country as opposed to the kind of mosquito coast trappings that western audiences imagine but may I say Monsiers Roth, Lopez, and Omeida depicting Latin America as quick to violence and filled with dangerious criminal types is also a kind of prenicious stereotype and your use of thugs here is not helping with Chilean soft power. The gang members are such aggregious cartoon villians that it boggles the mind. I'm not stupid ok. I understand the point of the script was about how 'men are the real monsters', how people are selfish in tough siturations and yes maybe that message would be more meaningful if it didn't happen in the midst of the zombie craze were everyone and their cousin were writing Romerean apocalyptical settings about it. This film is in a sea of stories commenting on the same topics and it is so heavy-handed in its executions.
Its script is weak, its acting stale, its use of set pieces much too sparse and the interesting moments are few and far between. It's a dud on so many levels and I don't like to bring up this kind of thing but It needs tob e said. Nicolas Lopez has been accused by multiple woman of sexual hurrasment much of which would have occured around the production of this film, (through to the best of my knowledge not to the woman in this film. Correct me if I'm wrong). Suffice to say it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Aftershock if it can be credited for anything is a curiosity. It's a footnote in the work of Eli Roth, a microtrend in Chilean Cinema and overall its main historical interest lies in the careers of its creatives over any substantive narrative or thematic value.
Which is sad to say. It's a bad movie that lacks the kind of depth and interiority that it deserves. It ghoulishly profits off a national disaster that killed over 500 people and does so with cracker barrel takes on the human condition. Actors give wooden performances with flat characters and the whole charade leaves me wanting more. It's a poor showing by everyone involved and everyone is worse off watching.
I want to be clear here that this is not the worse film I've ever seen. It's not distasteful and Nauseating. It's not a film that is quote unquote 'unwatchable' it is as the kids say. Aggresively mid. A film that manages to be simply mediocre. Poor in execution. These become the most egregious of films. Because there not bad or lazy enough to hate or round the bend enough to find camp and funny. There simply shoddy poorly made films. They're frustrating to watch. They're irritating because the flaws in them are so obvious, the work lacking the much needed polish. The worst part is not that the film is unsalvagable it's that no one ever tried to salvage it.
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