AFTERSHOCK Review - Eli Roth Unsuccessfully Tries To Take Selena Gomez's Shirt Off

I saw the trailer for AFTERSHOCK in theaters for the first time on the night I went to go see SINISTER. The trailer, which wasn't really well put together, showed signs of, "Hey, maybe this will be a good movie." The last shot of the girl coming up from the gutter was new and different, and something I wasn't really expecting. So after SINISTER ended I looked up to see when AFTERSHOCK was coming out. There was no release date.

When a trailer for a film like AFTERSHOCK premieres without a release date, that isn't always a good sign. It's risky - you're giving somebody a sneak preview of a movie that doesn't have a release date. It may never even see a theatrical screen. Plus, how can someone look forward to a day when they don't even know when the day is?

But because of that trailer, I was sold. I wanted it to be a great horror film. I'm not a religious man, but in religious terms persay, I prayed that it was a great horror film.

And then I read reviews from the Toronto International Film Festival, which made the film sound great. The film was announced a release date - May 10. A horror film in summer is never a good thing. AFTERSHOCK was made for about ten million. IRON MAN 3 was made for 200 million. Big difference. It's a lot easier to sell a big budget blockbuster than a low budget horror film during the summertime. AFTERSHOCK was the studio's way to dump the film so they can make a few bucks and gather up on it.

But then critic reviews started pouring in. More and more people that have seen AFTERSHOCK have said bad things about it. I wanted to not believe it. Then I found out it was only being released in just over 100 theaters but on VOD. Even the director, Nicolas Lopez tweeted to me and confirmed it to me. When a director cares about his project that much to tweet every single person that speaks a word about his movie, you know he has put his heart and soul into it.

I wanted to love it. But there is a reason why the movie only made $40k this week. Divide that by 110 theaters. That is $367 dollars per screen.

AFTERSHOCK is, without a doubt, one of the worst movies that you will see this year. It is unfortunate to say this, but it is very true. I bet Nicolas Lopez really put his heart and soul into this film. But reality is that he will probably never make this ten million back. I really think that we can blame this whole film on one name alone - Eli Roth.

Eli Roth's name is all over it. I don't know how this guy finds work, but apparently Quentin Tarantino really believes in him. And it's kind of offensive actually. AFTERSHOCK is HOSTEL disguised as an earthquake movie. Unlike HOSTEL, where the characters are the ones being tortured, in AFTERSHOCK, the audience are the tortured souls.

AFTERSHOCK begins with lots of Eli Roth character development. Basically, we spend thirty minutes following characters around the country of Chile as they hit on girls, make Jew jokes, and foreshadow events. Gringo (Eli Roth), Pollo (Nicolas Martinez), and Ariel (Ariel Levy) are touring the country of Chile and but Pollo seems like that he is the only one having a good time. Ariel's fighting with an ex-girlfriend. Gringo's girl problems is that his ex-girlfriend/wife has a new boyfriend, so he must find a new girlfriend.

They go to a wine factory, and they see a girl who has a Wu-Tang Clan trampstamp. It's admirable, especially for the Wu-Tang fan in me, but I bring this up because we see the girl for one more second and then she is shrugged off for the rest of the movie. Literally. She's shrugged off. One of the main characters says that he can't talk to her at the second or something like that in an ignorant manner.

Oh yeah, and have I mentioned how unlikable these three characters are? Pollo is a bald douchebag who sends a picture of his balls to Ariel's ex- girlfriend. Gringo and Ariel make Jew jokes for no reason other than to make it sound funny. And Gringo hits on Selena Gomez. Did I forget to mention Selena Gomez is in the movie? She's only in it for about thirty seconds, but it is the scariest scene in the movie. Eli Roth's character tries to work his magic on getting her in bed, but she shrugs him off. Eli Roth is 41. Selena Gomez is 19.

After all of this Selena Gomez mess, Gringo and the gang meet a group of ladies: Irina (Natasha Yarovenko), a young single mother who makes 150k a year modeling; Kylie (Lorenza Izzo), a young girl who has a drinking problem; and Monica (Andrea Osvart), Kylie's sister who follows her around and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid.

So they go to a club one night and the night's already fucked after Pollo sends a picture of his nuts to Ariel's ex and Gringo feeling like shit that Irina went dancing with some richer, smarter, better looking dude (Ramon Llao). But the night's fucked super more because of an earthquake.

I will give this scene much props. If there is a scene to watch from this movie, it's this. The death scenes are creative. An act of kindness turns horribly wrong. It's fun to watch. And then we get back to reality.

For the next fifty minutes (yes, it took forty minutes to get to this point), we follow this group of six people as they make bad decisions to try and rescue themselves. This is, however, a problem due to prisoners escaping from a prison during the earthquake and are after this group of people for whatever reason.

I won't say any more about the story. However, you should be warned. AFTERSHOCK, though manipulating, is an Eli Roth movie through and through. The characters are not good people so it defeats the purpose to root for any of them. The script is poorly written and the acting is wooden. (Someone tell Eli Roth he is not a good actor.) However, I'm not offended by any of this. What I am offended at, like I am with every single Eli Roth film, is his sexism.

Aside from the afore-mentioned Selena Gomez scene, there is a scene where one of the characters are getting raped by a prisoner. The scene runs for a pretty damn long time, but when she makes her escape, someone catches her and puts a bullet in her head. I'm trying to learn what the fuck this scene was really about. They made the rape scene look brutal (even from a wide shot) but just to kill her anyway seemed like Roth's way of showing how much he hates women.

I get attacked by feminists enough, but when rape is in a movie for no reason other than rape (as in, not used as a plot device), it's completely irresponsible. Will the leader of the feminist army attack?

And I'm not putting my blame on Nicolas Lopez for this scene. I feel like Eli Roth, who co-wrote the script with Lopez, asked for this scene for shock value. However, I will blame Nicolas Lopez for his poor direction and a terrible ending, but other than that, I really do feel bad for Nicolas Lopez. It was a nice chance for trying to break out in the mainstream, but nobody put any hope into this film. I guess this is why.