FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Steineded How sad is this?

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Leofwine_draca Don't be fooled into expecting some high budget end-of-the-world epic like Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD or otherwise, as THE AFTERMATH is strictly an amateur production (good production values and editing, but amateur nonetheless), with the same guy, Steve Barkett, directing, writing, and acting all at the same time. Strictly, this should be a rubbish movie, as it's packed with cheap effects and poor acting. Yet somehow, everything gels together and this actually becomes very good towards the end. So good that I've found myself going back to it over and over again, and enjoying it more and more each time (even if there are a number of dropouts in the tape I have and last night I was finally forced to put it in the dustbin). Yes, it's amateur trash, but it's a trashy gem made by people who love the genre and who know what elements to include.Things start off poorly, with a space shuttle flying through space. Obviously they couldn't afford anything like STAR WARS had, so instead we are left with a tacky-looking model jerking through the air. It crash lands into a fish tank, or what is supposed to be the ocean. Then the fun really begins, as the next half an hour consists of our heroes exploring the desolate world and trying to create new lives for themselves, discovering all manner of rotted and mangled corpses as they do so. I just like the concept. After this initial setup, the film deviates and becomes more of a human drama, as a number of characters are introduced, as well as an evil gang of rapists and murders lead by the psychotic Cutter (played by veteran Sid Haig). Our hero rescues a number of prisoners, who are massacred in revenge when he's not around. The finale is of the standard revenge one-man-mission as Barkett enters the enemy camp and single-handedly eliminates the entire gang. Accompanying this is a stirring soundtrack of what I guess to be library music, sounding suspiciously like the stuff in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.The acting is of strictly an amateurish level, especially from Barkett. You wouldn't really imagine this middle-aged guy with a moustache to be a hero in a film like this, but I liked him in a strange kind of way. He's adequate, if not particularly inspired. If Barkett is just okay, then the rest of the cast are pretty awful. At least Barkett gamely plays along, delivering his lines in a solemn yet campy kind of way (you can tell this is doing wonders for his ego). The female lead is particularly awful, picked for her looks rather than her acting skill. Sid Haig is the only other good actor, making the most of his comic-book villain as he slaughters his way through innocent victims and growls evil dialogue. A surprising amount of genre veterans turn up now and then, from Jim Danforth (a special effects artist) as an astronaut, to Forrest J. Ackerman as a curator of the last museum on earth, to Dick Miller as a voice-over on a cassette tape.There are quite a lot of special effects involved in this film, all done admirably on the low budget. From the many desiccated corpses to the scenes of an LA reduced to rubble, this impressed me a lot. There are also some really ugly mutants hanging around too. The film is very gory and violent in places, with a victim getting his head shot gunned off, a little girl getting brutally murdered and a baddie getting a knife through his chest and into his eye. The final twenty minutes is made up of all-out action, with Barkett bloodily dispatching about a hundred bad guys with his pistol and rifle, while lots of things explode. This is what all action films should be like! I also rather liked the twist ending, which puts things in a whole new perspective. Sadly, this didn't get released until years after it had been made, but thank goodness they did bring it out in the end. THE AFTERMATH is a fast-moving, action-packed, end-of-the-world epic done on a shoestring budget by real fans. A classic! AddendumRecently I was browsing through a car boot sale when I came upon a different copy of this movie - this time, the pre-certificate release on the World of Video 2000 video, titled simply AFTERMATH. I instantly bought the video and settled down to watch it, and discovered a bizarre number of minor differences in the movie. A snippet showing the ship crashing into the sea at the beginning of the film has been cut out (maybe the distributor didn't care for the effects either), and then bizarrely a whole sequence in which Newman discovers fried corpses on the beach has been eliminated, thus throwing into confusion how he actually gets hold of the satchel which he carries during the cliff-top climb. The chilling "beach" sequence is the first inkling that something is wrong and one of the most atmospheric shots in the film, so why it was cut I have no idea. This version also has a considerably longer death for the Mexican villain, who now gets a knife slowly slid into his chest in graphic detail before getting stabbed in the eyeball - this bloody sequence was extensively cut, for obvious reasons, in the 18 certificate version.

Air_Traffic_Supervisor After knowing it "inspired" DEFCON-4, I went in search for this film, since I'm addicted to PA (Post-Apocalyptic) movies. I don't care about budget and technical limitations. I'd rather focus on the feel and the honesty of the work. And in this field, The Aftermath really shines. The history and characters easily overlook the obvious low budget restrictions and put to shame many hi budget counterparts.The premise is: 3 astronauts come back to Earth after a long space mission, just to find it destroyed by nuclear war. One of them die on the spaceship forced landing, and the other two must find their way through the new and haunting reality of a nuked world, facing radiation, mutants, marauders and the lack of hope for the future.The dialog, acting and the action scenes are somewhat laughable, but no one can deny the fact that there's an obvious labor of love beneath each take. OTOH, inventive (altough simplistic) visual effects, a huge and loud soundtrack and the voice-over only adds to the bleak atmosphere. There are effective sequences like the radioactive rain, the dead city landscapes and the corpses on the beach. Surely they're the film highlights.A great movie despite the low budget restraints, and much better than the most contemporary (and some newer) PA movies.

Kammurabi 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).

Ninja Thunderbolt 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.