after horror movie review

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Rent After on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Ryan Whitaker

Steven Strait

Karolina Wydra

Sandra Ellis Lafferty

Jackson Walker

Cast & crew

User reviews

Indie fantasy film worth catching

Oct 29, 2012
Oct 28, 2012

Interesting romance

Apr 30, 2015

Hotch potch

Aug 5, 2014

Low Budget Thriller That Delivers

Mar 6, 2021

How has no one mentioned the insane dissonance?

agitprop-46-852053
Jul 4, 2014

A Familiar Template Executed Well

Necroambulant
May 24, 2015

A good enough thriller.

gabriel_sanchez
Oct 22, 2016

Low budget Gem

May 21, 2021

The twist or revealtion toward the end is not too surprising

jordondave-28085
Apr 5, 2023

Good ideas and effects in this low budget indie

robertemerald
Oct 10, 2020

Really good for low budget

Jul 31, 2021

Uncompelling Characters, Horribly Written Romance, and Trite Tropes

May 30, 2014

A Giant Middle Finger to the Audience

Aug 27, 2018

After, we live what our own imagination created

Mar 2, 2013

WARNING : Do not be fooled by the plot.

Good mayhem.

cmovies-99674
Oct 3, 2017

Fantasy Flop

thelastblogontheleft
Dec 3, 2016

They were almost on to something with this indie flick

Robert_duder
May 16, 2014

Waste of time

ralph-68433
May 3, 2015

Definitely original . . . and a great story!

Jun 25, 2016

After life, before death, there's a medium!

Reno-Rangan
Oct 3, 2016

Remake of a Twilight Zone episode.

Dec 2, 2016

Total disappointment

shafq7-903-405162
May 2, 2015

For once all that driving around running from the invisible monster has a bit more substance.

face-819-933726
May 31, 2014

Horror News | HNN Official Site | Horror Movies,Trailers, Reviews

Film review: after (2012).

Lizzie Duncan 04/13/2014 Uncategorized

When two bus crash survivors awake to discover that they are the only people left in their town, they work together to unravel the truth behind the strange events.

It is always nice to see a film that successfully combines a variety of genres, and After does just that – with elements of sci-fi, horror and romance all featuring at some point or another. Indeed, I know that most films these days are ‘multi genre’, there are ones which work better than others. It is especially difficult mixing horror and romance together well, as these are the two genres most at odds, but After seems to have no problems with this. I guess After is a thriller at heart, and is very much a character driven piece, managing to remain gripping throughout despite only two characters being present for most of the screen-time.

Ana and Freddy are strangers on a bus, when, by sheer coincidence, they start talking and discover that they actually live on the same road. With a sound of a crash and screeching tyres, Ana suddenly wakes up in bed. She is confused to find that she is alone in the town – she goes to work but no one is there, she peers in everybody’s windows but still nothing. But later that night she discovers that there is in fact someone else around, Freddy from the bus. Relieved to have encountered each other, they are then both alarmed at the sight of a huge black fog closing in on the town, getting closer and closer with each passing second. What’s more is that there appears to be a horrific creature lurking in the fog that they should be wary of.

It is revealed quite early on that what has in fact happened to Ana and Freddy is that they are really in a coma, and all that is currently happening to them is just a psychological manifestation of their unconscious state. The incoming fog around their ‘world’ is the indication that their life support machine is going to be turned off in 3 days if the situation doesn’t improve. Armed with this knowledge, the two of them set about trying to help each other ‘wake up’ – which unfortunately means tackling the mysterious beast within the fog. This story is told with a couple of flashbacks, in what becomes a sort of story within a story type of situation. It is here that the more emotional side of the piece comes out, and the romance starts to be brought to the surface. I like the multiple layers to After, and despite the fact that I am not at all into the ‘romance’ genre, I think that it worked well to add a sense of drama and tension to what was happening. Despite being strangers to start off with, of course Ana and Freddy start to develop a strong bond, what with being the only two human beings in town and all.

Director Ryan Smith and main actors, Steven Strait and Karolina Wydra, must be praised for their work on After. Despite the fact that it is a relatively simple story, there are some quite complex aspects at play, which has been captured beautifully in the film. It is interesting to note that Ryan Smith actually claims that he’s not really a horror fan, aside from the more psychological ones such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining. He is much more a sci-fi guy, and this definitely shows in his movie. As opposed to recent ‘torture P*rn’ horror, he has made some protagonists that an audience can actually care about, and who have been developed into real people. After is more about exploring and putting pieces of a jigsaw together than running away from a mad killer. Therefore, it doesn’t have quite the bloodthirsty, shock value of a traditional horror film, but is actually much more intense to watch.

All in all, After is an effective little film and I do recommend it to anyone who likes Silent Hill or even John Carpenter’s The Fog. Similarities could also be drawn to Stephen King’s The Mist, for obvious reasons. There is not so much horror present in After (apart from the battling the beast scenes) and is better described as an interesting thriller which puts forward some intriguing ideas to explore. The CGI, though not integral to the movie, is also very impressive given the budget of the piece. It’s a much more psychological as opposed to visceral experience, but is still a movie which you want to talk about afterwards.

Tags 2012 After Jackson Walker Karolina Wydra Madison Lintz Ric Reitz Ryan Smith Sandra Ellis Lafferty Steven Strait

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After (Review)

by Blacktooth Aug 25, 2017, 9:03 pm 0 Comments

Director – Ryan Smith (Devil’s Shoestring, The Debt) Starring – Steven Strait (The Covenant, Sky High), Karolina Wydra (True Blood, Justified), and Madison Lintz (It’s Supernatural, The Walking Dead) Release Date – 2012 Rating – 3/5

After making my way through the 5 film set The Paul Naschy Collection and The Walking Dead Season 7 I decided to take a little break from polished films. I wanted an indie flick that would offer up something a little different. As I made my way through my review stack one film caught my eye. The film was simply titled After and the artwork for it stuck out.

The artwork could be split in two. The bottom half was a darker image of a teenage boy or a young man sitting among thousands of keys while the top portion of the film showed an obscure image of some sort of creature. I really enjoyed the artwork so I decided to give it a go. Thank you MVD for sending this one my way!

**Spoiler Alert**The film follows Freddy (Strait) and Ana (Wydra) who are on a bus headed to their home town. Freddy starts talking to Ana and learn that they grew up fairly close to each other when they are suddenly in a crash. They awake sometime later and things are unusual at first. They realize that a month has went by and then they find themselves alone before running into each other.

They look through town and find themselves reliving fond memories of their past before encountering a black fog approaching them at a very slow pace which they suspect will engulf the town in three days. While they are in the hospital they discover that they are actually in a comma and will be removed from life support. They rush to figure out how they can get out of their current version of life and back to reality.**Spoiler Alert**

I didn’t know what to expect from After . I was looking forward to a complex monster story that was more character centered instead of lacking originality. After was a very unique film in regards to story but I wouldn’t call it a horror film. In fact, it is more like a dark thriller than it is horror.

The acting in this one is entertaining. There is times where it was awkward to watch Steven Strait and Karolina Wydra interact. They have great chemistry but they sometimes have a hard time keeping their emotions in check. They come unhinged and emotional at times where they really shouldn’t. It made the scene feel less dramatic. The supporting cast does not play that much into the film but they do a decent job as well.

The story for this one has a lot going on but would have benefited from cutting some of it out. The film has two angles going on. The film feels like a dark thriller or fantasy following two people lost in their own world who race to get back to real life. This story was very promising but mixing it with the horror angle diluted it. The monster angle could have been completely removed and placed into an entirely different film. These two parts of the story just doesn’t fit well into the same film.

Finally, the film doesn’t have blood and gore. It is void of any practical effects and the red stuff that most horror fans love. We do have a CGI monster that looks horrible which once again supports my opinion that the film should have avoided this all together. Overall, After is a visually pleasing film with a very ambitious story that fails to successfully incorporate everything into a coherent film. I still recommend it but there is story issues.