User reviews

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.

This is my favorite bad movie of all times. When the video store was selling off it's stock of movies that were not renting, I bought it. I had rented it two or three times previously.

I love Sci Fi, having grown up in the 50's and 60's where things like a nuclear attack were more apt to happen, so watching this was a combination of relief that we avoided this, and laughing at the seriousness of the production.

Over all, this is the yardstick by which all other good creative "Bad" movies MUST be measured against.

If you can find it, watch it.

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.

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.

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.

Actually, I grew up with Laura Barkett (Steve's daughter) who was but a wee tot in the movie (those of you who remember the line "this one's for Laura" before Steve offs a villain)--well, that's about the only memorable thing this movie had for me. One night in 1983, I was spending the night at Laura Barkett's house (in Oklahoma; her mom & her dad, Steve, were divorced & he lived in Cali making low-budget, weak-scripted movies that he threw his kids into for fun) and although at that age (11) was an apocalyptic movie NOT up my alley, I agreed to watch it with Laura because she was in it, after all; so was her older brother Chris, and of course, her dad was the one who MADE the movie. I lasted about 20 minutes into the movie. But I do remember being awakened toward the end by Laura telling me "You have to see this part! He says my name!" Hence, the "this one's for Laura" line. Sure, it was interesting seeing my 6th grade best friend and her older brother in a real live MOVIE, and although I was just 11 when I watched it (at least the parts I didn't sleep through), I just don't think I could sit thru it again--except to fast-forward to the parts where Laura and Chris are shown, since I actually KNOW them. The special effects weren't very special, and frankly, I was bored to tears. But hey--judge it for yourself. Frankly, I'd be surprised if it's still AVAILABLE on video. Steve Barkett would've been better off making home movies as a hobby.

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.

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).

In the UK this was originally released as The Aftermath, but a few years later it was re-released on VHS under the title Zombie Aftermath, however this is NOT a zombie movie. Two astronauts land back on Earth in their cheap looking spacecraft only to find themselves in a post nuclear aftermath. There are only a few survivors, these are comprised of a few good people, a gang of vicious thugs (led by Sid Haig, who excels in the role) and some mutants, who eat human flesh. Aftermath is a very violent movie, it did find itself on Section 3 of the Video Nasties list in Britain, though it was never prosecuted. It is also a very cheap looking movie, add to that a bad script and some very far fetched fight sequences, I did find it quite comical at times. So bad it's good. Well sort of. Certainly recommended for Sid Haig and post apocalyptic movie fans.

yes, total vomit, if I was in this movie, I would be totaly ashamed of it...

This is a good example of how NOT to make a movie

1) poor quality video 2) crap effects 3) cheap shots 4) lauhable acting / scenes 5) totaly unrealistic, people get shot in the legs and can still walk! 6) shocking sums it up

Only watch this if you want to laugh at a crud movie I give it 0.00000000000001

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Aftermath; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.75 Direction: 1.00 Pace: 1.00 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.25

TOTAL: 5.00 out of 10.00

Aftermath, for me, didn't quite make it into the B-Movie Cult Film Hall Of Fame for a few reasons. 1 - It's not bad enough (in the right ways). 2 - The story, characters, and cinematography are average. 3 - It's not cheesy enough. It's no Plan 9 From Outer Space, but what it is is entertaining.

Steve Barkett and Stanley Livingstone are regurgitating the old favourite of Sci-Fi flicks - astronauts return to Earth and find it terribly transfigured. In this case, the nutters in charge have all pressed their big red buttons, unleashing a nuclear armageddon across the planet. The plant life and wildlife are blighted, the cities have fallen, and the remaining humans are in turmoil. It's a good job that Newman and his team have returned to save the day...well, at least a couple of damsels in distress and a kid - well, you can't save 'em all. Though the narrative appears to be borrowed from a few pictures and stitched together, there are a few respectable ideas. One of the best is the narration. For most of the film, it's a nice feature to drive the story forward. But the ingenious bit comes when the narrator's voice changes, and we have a passing of the gauntlet moment. What lets the story down is its characters. The only two individuals who get fatted up are Newman and the boy Christopher. It could be because Barkett and his son play the roles - there's nowt like nepotism - or it could be that he made changes to the script on the hoof. Unfortunately, the rest of the people in the narrative are flat and dull. Even the miscreant Cutter, played by Sid Haig, is vapid. The scumbag laughs while his men rape and kill. It would have only been right to show this man for what he is and for what he stands for, but he's mediocrity personified. Regrettably, the rest of the story's population fares just as terribly.

Barkett tries to do better behind the camera, and to point, he succeeds. Though he repeats a couple of segments of footage, he appears to push himself to add interest and enthusiasm. There is a strange kind of joyful heartwarming sentiment throughout the picture. It's like you can feel Barkett's delight in making the movie. It's this emotional hook that, in part, kept me watching. I have to give credit to the FX crew for the devastated cityscapes and the atomic storms. Though you can discern their illusory content, it doesn't hinder the film much. In truth, they sent a cold shiver or three down my spine. Sadly though, the budget didn't stretch to the radiation zombies. The movie needed a faster tempo overall; it's a tad too slow, especially during the action sequences and the revelation of Cutter's revenge.

The cast is okay but not too dazzling, which I contribute to the script and direction, and not the actors or actresses. It's no surprise that Barkett senior and junior are the outstanding members, even though you have Sid Haig in the movie.

Aftermath could have been a fantastic Cult B-Movie Classic had they stuffed the story with credible individuals and allowed the cast to fill their boots. As it stands, it's a passable Dark Thriller of a Science Fiction flick that I'd recommend for an evening viewing on a cold and dark winter night when there's nothing else to watch.

So now you've crash-landed the spaceship back on Earth, please visit my Killer Thriller Chillers and The Final Frontier lists to see where I ranked Aftermath.

Take Care & Stay Well.

I turned to this movie on Prime Video because I love post apocalyptic films. According to the ad to watch it, it was supposedly made in 2019. Within the first minute I figured either: a. The year was incorrect or b. It was made to spoof movies made in the 80s. Yep, made in the 80s. It seriously looked like it was filmed on a beach, in the hills in So Cal, and in someone's bathtub using their kid's toy rocket. There's lots of violence and gore, tatties bouncing and nips on high beam. Bad acting and generally poor "special effects" place this way high on the list of movies I'll never recommend or watch again. Not even sure I'm going to make it to the end this time.

A sincere effort. Amateurish, exploitive, low-budget and clunky, but everyone involved in the movie gives it their all. Borrows (or rips off depending on one's viewpoint) from every famous post-apocalyptic horror movie made up to that time. Reminds me of the "men's adventure" serial novels (The Survivalist, The Last Ranger) that I read as a teenager in the Eighties. It's interesting to note that at the same this movie was in production George Romero was working on his equally low-budgeted, but far superior "Dawn of the Dead". Watch the two movies back-to-back if you want to see how truly skilled film makers can work with a low budget and semi-professional actors.

Nevertheless, I've always had a fondness for low budget flicks that are made by enthusiastic semipros. Eye rolling and silly, but watchable.

Like many cheaply made, poorly acted vanity pieces, this movie has long meaningless pauses, camera pan outs and crazy camera angles. I think the long pauses were caused by the fact that Steve Barkett was both actor and director and had to wait for himself to catch up. The only good part of this really boringly bad movie was the astronaut's costumes and the post apocalyptic sets. The locations, props and footage from other, better movies was the best part. The movie was so bad I couldn't even hate it. Also, the female characters were mere sex objects, incapable of defending themselves and only able to pout and be pathetic helpless creatures.

As a very early entry into the post-nuke game, this one was kind of a genre-defining film for what would follow. Yes, it was insanely low budget, and corny at times, but what really makes it work is Steve Barkett. You know he wasn't a pro, but his amount of enthusiasm for the project more than made up for his lack of skills. He's rolling, jumping, kicking, driving, shooting; no stuntmen here! Flicks like this probably inspired others to get into movie making. It just looks like they had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. This was a movie with a lot of spirit- something the 150 million dollar pictures can't say.

A group of astronauts is in space when WWIII goes down, and they return to earth of find a burnt-out, zombie-infested, wasteland. Criminals run loose, raping and pillaging at will. This film was blatantly copied by Def Con 4 several years later, which was good also. Sid Haig is great as Cutter, the ruthless leader of the filthbags. There is a good amount of decent gore and some nudity to keep you going, but the main plot is the good vs. evil and the battle with Cutter and his band of evil-doers. One thing: this movie will be hard to find. It took me a couple years to find it. UPDATE: I just saw that they have now released this on DVD as Zombie Aftermath! I need to go upgrade my old VHS copy at once!!

If you like B-movies and the post-nuke genre, you will not be disappointed. You may even want to go out and try to make you own movie! This one is a slice of tasty cheese. Recommended. Also, check out Survival Zone (another rare bird).

Great on the cheese-o-meter: get some Planet of the Apes, some Omega Man, and a low budget production, add Sid Haig as the bad guy, and you get what you expect: entertaining and cheesy junk. No doubt, The Aftermath is bad, but still entertaining, but only if you like the post-apocalyptic genre. Recommended if you like movies a la Def-Con 4, Damnation Alley and such pleasures.

First of all, you have to remember this is a VERY low budget movie. Made by a man who loves movies, and his son. I feel the story is excellent, yea, the acting could use a little work, but come on, not evey si-fi movie can be Star Wars. I'm not saying its the greatest movie ever, but it is very entertaining, and fun to watch, and that is what movies are all about!!!

This movie wasn't that bad. When I was a little kid I rented it and it always seemed eerie to me. If your bored one day just rent it, who cares if its totaly low-budget. It's fun to watch because I wish I could make a movie that like someday. Hey if your bored also rent "DEFCON4" Thanks.