The Aftermath

I remember seeing this low quality cheese production several years ago. It was repackaged in the UK as 'Zombie Aftermath', but 10 minutes into this extravaganza, it became apparent that the only zombie on view would be 'versatile' 'actor' Steve Barkett.

Steve's the kind of guy who was always picked last in a line up to play school sports, an out-of-shape middle aged trainspotter who you would certainly not cast as the lead. At first you wonder how he landed this role, until a cursory glance at the video box reveals that he wrote and directed it.

There certainly are some laughs to be had, as Steve comes to terms with the horror of a post apolcalyptic Earth (and viewers come to terms with the horror Steve's limited abilities, both in front of and behind the camera) and if you're prepared to pan a river of boredom in search of a piece of cheese gold (as I always am) then get prospecting.

I saw this on Amazon after an especially hard day at work. I needed some dumb escapism. But you know what? This move is not lame enough to be really funny, nor good enough to be in any way entertaining.

The set up is simple. Three astronauts return to earth after some sort of mission to, well, somewhere. They land their craft just off the coast of Los Angeles, but the two survivors find dead bodies on the beach, the city devastated, and a band of mutant humans threatening them.

They make their way to a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, while encountering a young boy, Chris (Christopher Barkett, the producer's son), and Sarah (Lynne Margulies) an attractive 20ish woman fleeing what looks to be an amped up motorcycle gang / Mad Max cult. Along the way our two astronauts learn that most of mankind has been wiped out by nuclear war or biological warfare. The rest of the film is about their navigating and trying to survive in the dangerous post armageddon L. A.

Negatives?

-Wooden acting. Steve Barkett is the producer, director, writer, and star so this is clearly a vanity project. He is pretty deficient in each category. And fails to get much more from the other actors. Margulies tries her best, but is mostly relegated to being the helpless female, always in peril.

-Exploitive. There are gratuitous scenes of poor Sarah bouncing, jiggling about, on the run from what looks to be a biker gang gone berserk, her nipples plainly showing beneath her tight tank top. She's at the center of several disturbing rape / sexual assault scenes that are way over the top for violence. While no one was prosecuted for obscenity, this was the early Thatcher years in Britain. The film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act.

-A blaring, intrusive, off-the-VU meter musical score. The composer, John Morgan, used a full orchestra and got every dollars worth. Trumpets blast. Flutes riff. Snare drums snare. French horns warn. No one makes a move without the music overwhelming the scene. And it's usually inappropriate. Happy music, say, for an abduction scene.

-Looks cheap, but the budget in 2023 dollars is just under $500,000. Today that would make for a pretty good indie film. Maybe the money went for the score?

Positives?

+A for effort. The cast looks like they are having a good time, especially the senior Barkett.

Clearly this movie needs the RiffTrax, MSTK3 treatment.

A fabulous music score evocative of the Great Bernard Herrman films. It has a full symphonic original music score on a low budget movie!Landmark effects by the soon to be famous Skotak Brothers(3 time Academy Award Winners for ALIENS, ABYSS and TERMINATOR 2). This low budget film transcends the usual genre limitations, and deals with its subject matter on an emotional as well as visual level. That may be one of the reasons it is so disturbing to some, and so misunderstood by others. At a recent international sci fi convention it was voted among the best "end of the world movies" ever made. I saw it on laser and highly recommend it.

This movie is pretty entertaining really. It borrows from The Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man or The Last Man on Earth, and The Stand among others (although every movie borrows from something). Yet the movie still has a style all its own and while it is mostly a very funny movie that was supposed to be serious, it does offer a bit of creativity. Has several scenes that most directors would not have included, that's not a bad thing. A good movie for the fatalist. Worth watching for everyone else. Except kids I guess, there are some scenes of gore. (head explodes, a knife through the head via the eye, lots of bullets flying, dead bloody kid, mutants, and decayed bodies).

If you pick this up to watch a serious movie about life after a nuclear war, you'll give up on this in about 5 minutes. But if you like watching a movie that you can make fun of and groan at, then this is the movie for you.

As I was watching this I was thinking just how bad this movie was, but I kept watching to see what goof, inconsistency, bad line, etc. would come up next. And I was not disappointed.

You've got stupid people running around in the desert and guns that never run out (almost never) of ammunition. You've also got the chance of running into a radioactive rain storm, but only drive cars with no roofs. And much, much more.

This is a prime example that if you make the movie bad enough, but still entertaining, it will hang around for a long time.