Unearthed Films has blessed us with this special edition of Nacho Cerdas Aftermath Trilogy. The Awakening, Aftermath, and Genesis are the three short films in the trilogy. All three deal with death in general. Even though they are going in the same direction, they are completley different. So let's start with the Movies
The Awakening:
The Awakening is probably my Least favorite of the series. It was a ten minute short shot on 16mm showing a teenager in highschool getting a test back that he has failed falling asleep and from there on he sees the rest of the class is frozen. He proceeds to get up and look at his grade and that's when stuff gets weirder. The film is not as well done as the other movies int he trilogy. While for Nacho Cerdas first film, it's well done I guess. The editing is pretty good, but the framing is just horrible. The main guy is leaning over, part of him is cut off, hes to the far left of the screen, we see a few other classmates in the background, and I'm sitting there not knowing where the fuck I'm supposed to look. I'm not going to let this get on my nerves, I mean once again, it's his first film and it didn't distract me too much. The movie ends with him not being able to get out of the classroom, truning around and seeing himself dead on the floor with classmates performing CPR on him. It's a strange little short film, well edited, interesting, and brought quite a few thoughts to my head. Overall it's a 6/10
Aftermath:
This is the best of the trilogy. Aftermath is a short about the depravity of humans. A man is working at a mortuary, one night a body arrives of a young woman who was in a car accident. After an encounter with what I assume are the parents of the girl, the man proceeds to violate the body, set up his camera, drop his pants, and fromt here the comedy ensues. The movie is fucking amazing, there is no other way to put it. I enjoyed it more the second time I watched it. The fact that he meets the parents before he rapes the body shows how fucked up his mind is. I'm sure most people know that this happens in a majority of Mortuaries, so this stuff isn't fiction. The effects in the film are amazing, the dead bodies are the most realistic I've seen in a movie. The movies don't have many cut aways, they make you watch this guy masturbate and then rape the body. The movie is just great, well done, it looks like Nacho Cerda has learned quite a bit since he did his last film. The movie clocks in at about thirty minutes, great length. The whole movie isn't just him raping the body, the first fifteen minutes are showign the regular routine of taking the bodies apart and putting them back together. The movie ends with the man bringing the womans heart home, grinding it up and feeding it to his dog, and right next to the bowl the dog is eating out of, is the obituaries and guess who's name we see in there, the womans. I'm guessing the human heart ground up and fed to the animal that doesn't know better is showing how cold the man is, how even after encountering her parents who are mourning over her loss, still proceeds with the rape. The movie made me think about how horrible and depraved most human beings are, 8/10
Genesis:
So the last short on the disc is Genesis. This shows a man mourning over the loss of his wife. After she dies, he starts sculpting a statue of her, but the statue starts to bleed, and in time grows fleshy patches, while the man starts to notice the same material the statue is made of, is growing on him. This one wins the award for strangest short on the disc. While it kept me interested, and is incredibly well done, I just don't get it. Maybe it's showing for every death there is life, who the fuck knows? Why am I trying to figure this out? I'd give this one a 7/10, even though I don't get it, maybe it doesn't have a meaning like Aftermath does, or maybe I just haven't figured it out yet. The movies just well done and a cool short none the less
So the DVD release is great. Unearthed put a huge amount of effort into giving this the star treatment. The prints are crisp clean, except for Awakening which is pretty grainy, but I'm sure it's the best it will ever look. The DVD has some great extras on it, commentaries, making of's. probably hte most interesting feature ont he disc is a conversation between Nacho Cerda and director Jorg Buttgereit who is actually one of my favorite filmmakers. They both have made films that involve necrophilia and extreme gore. They pretty much are splatter directors.This makes me thinka bout how people think Splatter is a genre only for the sake of showing gore, when it's not. Look at Buttgereit's Der Todesking, Nekromantik Part 2, and Schramm, all amazing films, Nekromatnik 1 I'm pretty sure was jsut made to go against the censors, but his films are just mind blowing. If you can find any of them, buy without second thought. But the conversation is pretty damn interesting. It also comes with a small booklet which has short essay on the trilogy.
Overall buy the DVD. It's a great collection and well worth the money. There is a limited edition graphic cover (Which also kind of works as a warning, "Easily Offended? Then Fuck Off!") that is out of print, but I have found still in stock here
I give the DVD a 9/10
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