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!

Addendum

Recently 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.

Astronauts Newman (a solid and sincere performance by Steve Barkett) and Matthews (well played by Larry Latham) return to Earth only to discover that a nuclear holocaust has caused civilization to collapse and subsequently degenerate into a harsh barbaric state. Newman must protect himself and several other people from the evil Cutter (Sid Haig in fine nasty form) and his gang of vicious outlaw bikers.

Writer/director Barkett maintains a tough gritty tone throughout (for example, both women and children are brutally killed),relates the engrossing story at a snappy pace, stages the exciting action set pieces with flair, and delivers a chilling "adapt or die" central message. The moments of raw violence and stark savagery pack a fierce punch. The special effects are quite good considering the modest budget. Moreover, the fetching Lynne Margulies provides plenty of spark as the plucky Sarah, Forrest J. Ackerman has a small, but memorable role as a dying museum curator, and Dick Miller's voice can be heard on a tape recorder. The sharp cinematography by Dennis Skotak and Thomas F. Denove gives this picture an impressive polished look. John W. Morgan's robust score hits the rousing spot. An on the money indie winner.

Writer/producer/director/lead actor Steve Barkett only would create one other movie - 1990's Empire of the Dark, in which a private detective battles a Satanic cult, monsters and ninjas - but he lent his auteur spirit to this post-apocalyptic bit of strangeness.

Barkett was such an artist that while he originally filmed this in 1978, he wasn't happy and reshot most of the footage with different actors.

Just like Def Con 4 - or more to the point Planet of the Apes, as the film was shot in many of the same locations - Newman (Barkett) watches the world end from space and comes back to try and survive in the endtimes. Of course, he does that by undergoing a montage where he tidies up a mansion, but you'll have that.

Incidentally, that mansion belonged to Ted V. Mikels. It was literally the castle that he referred to when he kept a harem of women he called his Castle Girls.

Newman looks like every stepfather in the late 70's and early 80's, the kind of guy that takes you fishing even though you don't really want to go and says stuff like, "I really care about your mother" and "You don't have to call me dad, unless you want to" while at nights you ball your fists up and sob hot wet tears while he and your beloved mother act out the next ten pages in Dr. Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex.

He's no Snake Plissken. Or Max Rocktansky. Or even Paco Queruak.

Stop motion animator Jim Danforth plays a fellow astronaut and Forrest J. Ackerman - wearing the prop rings from Universal's The Mummy and Dracula - shows up as a museum curator dying from radiation (he even plays Newman a tape with Dick Miller's voice on it). And Sarah is played by Lynne Margulies. You may recognize her name from her involvement with Andy Kaufmann.

The real star of the show is Sid Haig, who plays Cutter, the leader of a gang of cannibalistic mutants who kill all the men and children, only keeping the wives. All of the meanness and brutality of this whole sordid mess can directly be traced back to Cutter. For some reason, our hero is so stupid that he allows him to escape and Cutter comes back and kills everyone to get back at Newman.

There's also a laser gun that gets made in this movie and we're just supposed to say, "Yeah, lasers exist."

If you read our Section 3 video nasties article, you already know that this film was seized and confiscated, but not prosecuted for obscenity.

As if this all wasn't weird enough, this movie was co-written by Stanley Livingston (Chip Douglas from My Three Sons). He also played Jeff in Paul Bartel's astounding Private Parts and Russ in Smokey and the Hotwire Gang.