Metacritic reviews

Aftermath is a bombshell disguised as a thriller.

With its slow-burn pacing and horrifying reveals, Aftermath remains a deeply compelling puzzle.

What gives Aftermath its peculiar strain of portent is Pasikowski's consistent suggestion of the futility of bold, desperate attempts to undo a wrong.

Aftermath's avoidance of Holocaust-film tropes lets the picture address weighty historical and moral issues while fitting into the genre shoes of a small-town thriller.

The film isn't so much about the moral atrophy of people who refuse to come to terms with their past as it is about cosmic karma passed from fathers to sons like an ancient curse.

What keeps the film so fascinating is how even its protagonists are greatly flawed. While certainly upsetting, Aftermath takes a look at the dangers inherent in an abundance of truth.

Director Wladyslaw Pasikowski has made the mistake of going about his business as if he were fashioning a horror film.

Pasikowski isn’t interested in actual characters or narrative nuance; rather, the prime concern here is censuring Polish anti-Semitism, which, no matter how righteous an aim, eventually comes at the expense of engaging storytelling.

Delivers its Holocaust-related story with the clunking force of a blunt instrument slammed into the skull.

The idea of framing Holocaust atrocities in contemporary genre terms, although intriguing, is not without its perils, and the secret, when revealed, looms too large to fit within the plot’s parameters, creating strange disconnects between form and content.