Return of the Living Dead: Aftermath

 

I watched this mostly AI film & deliver a novel-length review so you don't have to watch a second of this POS! The original The Return of the Living Dead is a lot of fun & should be viewed by those that dig horror-comedies.

(To clarify, I'm glad Aftermath was seen on Monday & I had most of this LONG review written before I unexpectedly had to go out of town on Tuesday. I'm back home now; the last part of the review was written then right before posting.)

If you consider this to be a “movie”, then it's the worst I've ever seen, no exaggeration. Before anyone melts down over how I viewed Aftermath... a random YouTube channel uploaded an SD copy. As they themselves stated--”director” Richard Driscoll of course doesn't have the rights to this property; this is one occasion where we have to root FOR Amazon to do the right thing & sue.

Recently, a huge stink has been raised over this travesty. In short, RotLD stars Linnea Quigley & Beverly Randolph were duped into becoming involved with something that evidently was to be a mix of Sunset Boulevard & Rocky Horror (?!)... only they filmed nothing with either star. They both have denounced this.

Randolph plays a different character from the original, anyhow. Instead, their likenesses were used for something that was almost entirely AI-prompted... and not even good AI prompting. As preposterous as this will sound, the plot is such nonsense, it's as if Driscoll asked AI to create an 80-minute script for a RotLD sequel then he used that same service to “film the script” without looking at the script OR the finished product before releasing it!

The “plot” makes absolute zero sense from a logic standpoint, nor does the presence of modern technology (cars, computers, etc.) in a movie set in Louisville, Kentucky on July 3, 1984. Ostensibly, this is footage of a TV station broadcasting the carnage of that night. EVERYTHING is wrong with this. Let me list just some examples:

At one point, a gun makes 80's video arcade game sounds!

The “zombies” constantly change in appearance.

The logo of the TV station-which is in the background of the “news desk”-is a synthwave sort of monstrosity. The logo on the mics of the reporters changes constantly. This local station has like 50 reporters.

There's missing dialogue, screams, & sound effects at multiple points.

This turns into an FPS shooter more than once! One of these segments is in essence a cop's body cam which has the date of... Halloween, 2024!

A rocket is “fired” from a tank... only it shoots off 90 degrees left of the barrel!

Of course this would have day for night issues. This is so inept, smoke from an ashtray is frozen at one point, not to move until someone passes by the ashtray!

Also of course this would sometimes feature text that is a garbled mess instead of English... will that always be an AI hallmark? This also features misspelled English words due to incompetence.

Words are mispronounced... including “Louisville” & “VHS” as “VAS”!

The paramedic from the OG movie appears... w/ a British accent.

A “music video” is filmed, only the movie is way later than 1984

The second half finally features AI versions of Chuck & Spider, briefly. The back half's just as much a disaster as the front half.

The nadir might be a dude filming a YouTube video for his video podcast... yes, in 1984. I'm not demented nor mentally ill enough to make up such a detail. He's attacked by AI Tar Man. That's at least better than the original creation of “Patient Zero”, which is basically a clown demon!

One horrific moment was ripped off from Alien, soon followed by the footage randomly appearing UPSIDE DOWN for a few seconds, before righting itself. Note that this scene also contains a voice that sounds suspiciously like CONAN O'BRIEN.

There's another Alien homage during an ending that makes zero sense even compared to what preceded it.

If these seem like a bizarre stream-of-conscience rambling from someone on meth—I'm not smoking any pipes, that's how incoherent Afterbirth was. Many of the scenes could have been assembled in any order and the story would have been as inept. That's not even factoring in the “acting” from the AI characters that's naturally robotic, or the stilted dialogue.

Evidently, “director” Richard Driscoll went to PRISON for three years for “fraud inflating the values of invoices of” three movies in the United Kingdom. If this wasn't bad enough, Driscoll is also purported to have a release coming out “starring” Quigley which is more AI nonsense where its genre is a mystery. It might be a DOCUMENTARY, as insane as that sounds.

No matter what that is, don't expect a review. There's still way too many actual films (& me acknowledging those who have recently passed away) for me to even view abominations like this, let alone writing a novel about them. Even something like Manos, The Room, or Birdemic have more value than Afterbirth.