The Horror Show
Aftermath
(formerly known as Remnants)
by Peter Engert
I first heard of Aftermath when it was going by its former titler "Remnants." I was really looking forward to the film back in 2012 when I first read about it, but alas, its release was delayed and delayed, until I eventually forgot about it and then it popped back up into my radar again this week, only under a different name.
There isn't much information about the film that I could find other than there were a few issues with distribution and that's why it took over two years for the movie to finally get released. I remember the initial synopsis that I read on the film was something along the lines of "after a nuclear holocaust, a group of survivors must fight hordes of infected" and blah blah blah. So I thought, okay, cool, a nuke/zombie film, I can totally get into that! But when the film resurfaced, I saw that the synopsis now states that a group of survivors hole up in the basement of a Texas farmhouse and deal with claustrophobia, radiation sickness, and starving, dying, and crazed survivors in the area after WW3 happens.
Yeah. Two totally different sounding films. But, it boasts itself as a horror film and I thought I'd give it a shot.
But I'm spoiled. Especially spoiled when it comes to apocalyptic fiction. I have high standards and have seen some amazing films, one of those amazing films is a nuclear holocaust film by the name of The Divide. The Divide is probably one of my favorite nuclear PA films. It's brutal, bleak, beautiful, haunting, horrifying, and hilarious all at the same time.
Aftermath is not.
Bleak, yes. Brutal, for about 5 minutes at the end. Haunting, no. Horrifying, definitely not. Hilarious, only when it doesn't mean to be.
The film wanted desperately to be The Divide. It wanted desperately to be anything that it wasn't. It tried so hard to be some harrowing portrait of human beings clutching to life after World War III occurs, but it just fails miserably with sub-par acting, awkward plot line, random spurts of insanity and violence, and just ended up being a jumbled mess of people getting sick in a basement for an hour and a half.
There was zero character development and without IMDBing it, I couldn't even tell you anyone's name except for Brad (because Edward Furlong does play an excellent redneck imbecile) and Hunter (main character). That's about it. Hunter is a doctor, Brad is a redneck, and everyone else is just kind of there. The kid whose cellar everyone is holed up in didn't even leave an impact on me. And to piggy back off the fact that none of the characters left an impact on me, whenever someone died in the film, it was as if everyone just said "Meh, shit happens. Let's smoke our endless supply of cigarettes that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in this basement."
I really don't recommend this film. I didn't hate it, but it's just not worth watching. The best part is the ending, but only because I'm the type of person that likes unhappy endings...but even the ending didn't save the film.
Save yourself some time and watch The Divide, which is, as I stated earlier, one of my all time favorite PA films. You can thank me later.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.