Aftermath (1994) User Reviews

Will you be shocked or disturbed? Probably not.

[Tanuccoon · 6/10 · 26 May 2012]

This really isn't a movie. Hell, there really isn't even a story (nor is there talking). It's just some shock content and an overly long opening credits (around 5 minutes, which is absurd for a 30 minute film). While it's not exactly art it's definitely different. The film concerns a morgue where some morticians are doing autopsies. Later, one of the morticians proceeds to violate a female corpse while he's alone. The film features full-body nudity although I'm not sure if the bodies were fakes, real corpses donated to "the arts", or actors with prosthetic effects. Either way you see full-bodied nudity (both genders).

There's a weirdness to the whole thing. The scene with the morticians just going over their bodies is somewhat surreal. There's a bizarre character development that takes place despite the lack of speech and most of the mortician's face being obscured. His eyes convey his bizarre curiosity as he examines one of the men's naked frames, seemingly stopping on the genitalia. Later on when he starts with the female he seems to gingerly cut free her clothes. He plays with his blade delicately against her skin... then he guts her open. And a little after that the film really starts to get graphic, although I will say that he only uses one hand to examine her... There's a definite progression to the depravity.

It's a film that I wouldn't really think I'd be interested in but there was a certain oddity to this premise. And while the initial legitimate autopsies were harder for me to watch, a morbid curiosity better kept my attention for the second half especially since it was almost downright funny in places. I'm honestly not sure what they were going for with this, though. It's short, it's a little weird, but mostly it's just pointless. All the same it's really not bad and somehow has a strange charm to it. Ultimately it's more silly than disturbing, almost like an angsty teen's attempt to be edgy.

Well, it's probably unique if nothing else.

[poolandrews · 6/10 · 23 February 2010]

Aftermath is set in a Spanish hospital morgue where autopsies take place, the bodies of the dead are strewn across metal tables & are unceremoniously cut to pieces to determine the cause of death. For the pathologists who work there it's just another day in the office but one has a very sick secret, he gets off on violating a female corpse & having sex with it while a camera takes pictures...

This Spanish production was written, produced & directed by Nacho Cerdà & is a pretty strong depiction of necrophilia & the violation of a corpse, to be fair I found it quite watchable in a grisly sick sort of way but what I call entertainment many would disagree & Aftermath is definitely the type of film you don't admit to liking in public if you still want people to talk to you. There's little point to this thirty odd minute endurance test, there's some graphic (although clearly fake) autopsy footage & some necrophilia thrown in there for good measure & that's about it. There is not one word of dialogue spoken (apparently director Cerdà has been quoted as saying 'I felt a film about death should be silent.) & as such there's character development as such & Aftermath relies on it's shocking imagery to make it's slight point about even after death we are all vulnerable still & the way that pathologists treat the dead with utter disdain & zero compassion. The moral message is negligible, the imagery is strong & will be very shocking to some & at thirty minutes at least it's short, overall I liked it but as a rather sick curiosity rather than some profound piece of meaningful art. Yeah, I'm just weird.

The gore levels are high with graphic depictions of autopsies, bodies are sliced open, organs are removed & seen & terrible injuries are also shown, there's loads of graphic blood letting here with the human body sliced open & cut to pieces. The necrophilia scene isn't graphic, the pathologist is never seen naked for instance. The film is very stylish & great to look at, every shot seems to have been thought out with a nice clean metallic look for the autopsy room which further dehumanises the process & really nice cinematography with measured close-ups, long panning shots & a sleek visual look throughout.

Aftermath is a powerful film with shocking imagery that will surely be labelled as nothing but sick rubbish by many but the film looks great, it has a moral point to make although it's a little lost with no dialogue at all & I liked it but mainly because it was just a sick & twisted thirty odd minutes featuring lots of graphic gore & a bit of necrophilia, so shoot me.

Just another satisfactory working day at the morgue

[Coventry · 6/10 · 22 April 2007]

Pretty much everything the die-hard fans praise about this short film by Nacho Cerdà is true and justified. Yes, "Aftermath" is really gross, repulsive, sickening and genuinely stomach-churning! And yes, the special effects are indeed disturbingly realistic and the dummies are suspiciously anatomically correct. Heck, I'll even gladly admit that – in spite of the disgusting subject matter and scenery – "Aftermath" even is a beautifully shot film, with imaginative camera-work and a sublime use of classical music. And yet there's one little detail most reviews forget to mention! With "Aftermatch", Cerdà didn't have much of a message to communicate and the wholesome rapidly comes across as gratuitous and pointless gorefest that only serves to still the hunger of horror fans who continuously look for films that push the boundaries of extreme cinema. The reoccurring theme in Cerdà's three short movies (the other ones being "The Awakening" and "Genesis") is DEATH, but in this case it appears to be a very cheap excuse to show a non-stop series of post-mortem mutilation, dismemberment and even explicit necrophilia. The camera follows two morticians as they start another ordinary day at the morgue, with two male cadavers on their tables. Their working methods quickly get rather unorthodox, as one of them removes the brain of his patient and replaces it with towels while he puts the brain into the stomach before closing it up again. The other one goes a little berserk with his bone saw and cuts the corpse on his table until his face & uniform are entirely drenched with blood and gooey pus. One of the two (their faces are constantly hidden behind surgery masks) even goes several steps further, as he locks himself up in another room with the cadaver of a young woman. After dissecting her completely, the perverted freak stabs her in the genitalia several times, has sex with her cut-up corpse, photographs it in great detail and eventually takes "souvenirs" home with him. The gore is often groundbreaking, with make-up and images that are downright nauseating and sickening. I'd by lying if I said I didn't appreciate that. If you're a sick puppy, you HAVE to see this film, even though the lack of depth and moral is a bit insulting. What a crazy experience watching this movie was! My mother walked in on me when I was watching this, and I swear it's more embarrassing to explain than watching pornography! At least you can say porn satisfies primitive desires, but how do you explain the artistic value of a sick lunatic having sex a dissected corpse?

So powerful

[Casey_Moriarty · 7/10 · 29 May 2008]

Just watched this movie. Can't say much about it, except, WOW. This film is only half an hour long, but had it been any longer I don't know if I would be able to get through it. And I am not disturbed by movies... I have seen some pretty gruesome ones. But it's not the gore that makes this movie disturbing. And it's not even the necrophilia. We've all seen more graphic movies than this by far. It may not seem to be so upon first watching this movie, but there's actually not as much as it feels like there is. So I guess what makes this film so disturbing it is is the sterility of it; the coldness of the morgue; the fact that the victim has no idea she is the victim and the perpetrator of the crime shows no guilt towards his crime. The purely casual way this depraved character, excellently portrayed by Pep Tosar in a performance that hides half of his face most of the time, commits his indecent acts. That MIGHT be what makes this film a disturbing one- but it's hard to put your finger on it. Either way, you can't tear your eyes off of this thing once you've started watching.

What a waste of time

[pisino · 3/10 · 8 March 2011]

Back in 1994, if you would have watched this movie at a friends house... you probably would have been glued to the screen, trying to figure out if the VHS tape you were seeing was offering up some deranged snuff film. I have no doubt that you also would have bootlegged a copy and showed as many people as you felt comfortable in offending. That was then, this is now, this is the HD age of video. What does this mean? It means that you know right off that this is not real, and if you had any doubts if it was, as soon as you get a good look at the rubber dolls that they are cutting into.. your disbelief becomes overwhelming. So what are we left with here? A half hour of a guy cutting into rubber dolls, humping one, and then going home to his dog. I give this 3 stars just because of the whole VHS thing I thought up, but this is just not any good. It's slow, it's tasteless, it's boring, and you don't care about the rubber corpses on the tables any more than you care about the tables themselves. You want to watch something disturbing? Check out A Serbian Film, or Antibodies instead.

Peeping Tom

[Abominog · 4/10 · 6 March 2008]

Is there anything else on earth to be more enticing than to learn what expects our frail bodies after, um, death. Spanish director Ignacio Cerdà (a soul-mate of his German colleague Jörg Buttgereit) provides blow-by-blow answer to our curiosity and invites us to an exciting journey in the world of preparation tables, scalpels, surgical saws, human entrails and warped minds.

Welcome to the autopsy room!

I don't know which facets of the film, apart of its notorious reputation, may have helped it to acquire sufficiently high rating.

Storywise it's fairly simple and straightforward - a day in the life (actually half an hour) of a troubled coroner (or, perhaps, assistant pathologist or whoever he is) that is fed up with his routine morbid duty and discharges his psychological tension in a non-traditional fashion, right at his workplace. I'm perplexed of what particular message the authors tried to deliver with this one-note plot. I suspect it may be somehow inspired by Udo Kier's character's quirky demeanor in Andy Warhol's Frankenstein.

Artistic values of the film are also questionable. It's hard to evaluate the performance of the actors that don't squeeze a single word. Their emotions are concealed behind the medical masks. There's also not enough room for great camera-work - basically, the entire action unfolds mostly within four walls.

Authenticity - effects and makeup are impressive and the setup looks very plausible, but only a handful of medical/forensic experts can judge how truthful and anatomically correct the dissection is carried out here (if anyone cares). Honestly, I used to think that the autopsy is done to examine the condition of particular organs and to ascertain the cause of death. Now I know that dead bodies are severed, raped and humiliated, intestines are ripped apart, brains are retrieved from the head, stuffed into abdomen and mixed with guts, then the body is stitched back and washed - nothing personal. And what are these poor lads expected to write in their deceitful autopsy reports afterward?

Shock and disgust factor - it's much unlikely that an unsuspecting viewer would discover, to his horror, that the disc he was intended to watch with his wife and kids beside a Christmas tree turns out to be a graphic video manual on vivisection. This obscure item is barely available, sought by people well familiar with the subject and not easily offended. Hence it would be pointless to warn anyone to sabotage this film. They are well aware what exactly they are watching and what they want to see.

Cerdà is really gifted and stylish director, which is clearly obvious from at least two other parts of his "trilogy" - preceding 'The Awakening', amazing black and white short, and 30-minute 'Genesis', visually stunning and moody piece with an off-beat and interesting concept. And I'm pretty sure that one day he will conquer the hearts of moviegoers with his new, more mainstream oriented, material. And sooner or later 'Aftermath' would become a rarity for the meticulous collectors of his "early" "warm-up" works.

But in the meantime, I'm afraid, it may be recommended strictly for medical students or specialists that study mental disorders and sexual deviations.

"I wanna be incinerated"

[yamaelle · 9/10 · 4 May 2000]

So, what goes on in a morgue after hours ? Non stop 'gore'/sex for half an hour, a very oppressing ambiance ( no dialogues ), the excellent work by Nacho Cerda and his team, make this short worth the 10 I gave it. The making-up is wonderful, you're really convinced you're dealing with real corpses, increasing the malaise Nacho Cerda wanted to create. The autopsies are very well done (although the ones in "Men behind the Sun" and "Camino del Eden", another spanish short about working in a morgue, are more impressive), but it's nothing compared with the scenes of necrophilia.

Never has necrophilia been pushed so far, Aftermath" really ranks the "Nekromantiks" among the Walt Disney movies (I nevertheless enjoyed "Nekromantik").

I also have at end of my tape a Nacho Cerda's interview, plus part of the making of (very interesting, and very needed! ). "Aftermath" was originally a 2h30 movie with more autopsies, and more sex scenes where the only 'non-corpse' actor is extracting silver from teeth he had previously removed, ... Without any spoken words, and having most of his face hidden, this man manages a magnificent performance. He confirms in the interview this was the hardest performance he ever had to make. Shot in 8 days, "Aftermath" due to a lack of time/money was reduced to a '30 min short. Maybe that's a bit disappointing, but for the themes approached (morgue, necrophilia, ... ), it's really THE reference.

Definitely the kind of movie I'm hiding from my parents!

10/10

A lot of hype, not a lot of movie.

[gerard1976 · 3/10 · 25 May 2008]

This movie is not so good as I thought it would be. There is no story whatsoever, no characters and some dialog would have been nice. The gore effects are good and it gets quite bloody at times but nothing over the top. It starts with an autopsy on a man and when that is over the scene with the girl starts. The music is a classic score and fits the movie very well. They should have made a 90 minutes version in which they could have had some time for character development so we can feel sorry for the person on the autopsy table. And some more info about the morticians would have made this movie far scarier than it is. Don't expect a scary movie but a nice, gory special effects reel.

A powerful look at necrophilia

[tom-hlavenka · 9/10 · 13 January 2006]

This short film presents in graphic detail the dirty little secret of funeral services. All too often, bodies are mutilated and raped. Karen Greenlee was jailed and became nationally famous for her rampant necrophilia in the 80s. Here, Nacho Cerda presents this topic with a great attention to detail and no sensationalism. The mortician fondles, mutilates, and rapes a corpse after the viewer witnesses a very accurate autopsy. The mortician takes home some souvenirs, pictures for himself and a heart for his dog. That's it, no distractions from the reality of the subject matter. It's not filmed in such a way as to shock the viewer but to present unapologetically the very sickening reality that things like this happen more often than we'd like to believe. The realism is the most disturbing part.

Rather Sickening To Be Honest

[sddavis63 · 3/10 · 5 July 2011]

This Spanish short film (if you take away the opening and closing credits) it probably comes in at about 24 minutes) is not for those who have queasy stomachs. It's set in a morgue and deals with the preparation of corpses. The opening 10 minutes or so is disturbingly graphic, but offers a portrayal of the probably fairly typical activities that are involved in the work. Be warned, though. Bodies are sliced open and organs are pulled out. It's very graphic. After that, though, the movie leaves the realm of graphic and becomes really quite sickening.

When the body of a young woman is brought into the morgue we discover that one of the morgue workers is - to put it bluntly - quite depraved. Alone with the body, he engages in very violent and very graphic necrophilia. This part of the movie isn't pleasant. It's not even interesting. It's quite sick.

Credit has to be given for the very realistic look to everything, and the performance of the actor playing the depraved morgue worker was quite good and quite believable. There are no words spoken in the film. When communication is necessary (as the movie begins there are two workers in the morgue) it's all done with the eyes. So, yes, credit for those things, but this is nevertheless a disturbing and unpleasant film to watch, and in all honesty it seems to lack any particular purpose or goal. Only for the strong points mentioned above I'd give this a 3/10.

Artful, yet sickening.

[mandaloon · 14 June 2002]

The gore is well done, the production values are top notch. Nacho Cerda is obviously a gifted filmmaker. But this movie did sicken me at the same time, because of how real they made everything look, this is definitely a movie to hide from the kids.

Not good.

[XxBabyKillerxX · 3/10 · 16 June 2012]

I checked this out because soooo many people found it disturbing.

I was curious how it could be so disturbing and gross if it is so short and well it isn't.

There is no talking in the movie whatsoever and it really just seems fake to me in general.

I understand the whole necrophilia thing is disturbing and gross but this movie really isn't that graphic to me.

Some people might find this outrageously gross and might get a little sick from it but it isn't one of the most disturbing I have seen.

There was really no story at all so it might be best to skip this.

~Joe

Don't Believe the Hype

[EVOL666 · 3/10 · 24 August 2005]

Honestly - this short film sucks. the dummy used in the necro scene is pretty well made but still phony enough looking to ruin the viewing experience. the Unearthed DVD is crisp and clear and I haven't made up my mind if this helps or hinders it. If the film was a little grainy it might have added some "creepiness factor" to what was going on. I have no idea why this film has so much hype surrounding it other than the subject matter - but to be honest the necrophilia scenes in films like NEKROMANTIK and VISITOR Q among others, are more shocking than in AFTERMATH. All this talk about the film being about loneliness and all other manner of deep philosophy is bull****. This is an expensive, beautifully filmed turd. It's not that shocking, it's not that disgusting. if you insist on viewing it - rent it. I give it a 3 for the fact that not many people make explicit movies about necrophilia (there should definitely be a bigger selection for us sickos ;) - the filming is good and it does have some "gore" (if watching a rubbery looking doll get cut open is considered gore...) but other than that - absolutely nothing going for this over-hyped mess. On the other hand - GENESIS - Cerda's "sequel" to AFTERMATH (now available as a "double feature" released by Unearthed films) is an absolute masterpiece of a short film, really showing what a good director Cerda really is when given the right material. Although I don't care for AFTERMATH at all, GENESIS is so well made that I will forgive Cerda and Definitely keep an eye out for him in the future...

Extreme to the Max

[chanelit-1 · 8/10 · 6 May 2003]

The box cover to this has a corpse lying on a table, waiting for autopsy - the back has several gory images, yet no credits or plot summary anywhere. You just know that this is going to be special.

The film is thirty minutes in length, with no dialogue. Classical music introduces the breif credits and then we are in an autopsy room. An autopsy is done on a man in explicit and gory detail. After finishing, the corpse of a pretty girl is brought in. This is when everything starts getting really nasty as the surgeon has sex with the corpse, mutilates it and so on.

A classic - probably the most extreme film I've seen and beautifully made. Due to its arthouse overtones it sinks in to the viewer and stays with you for some time after; this is not a cheap gorefest, not by a long way.

Watch it today, but be warned - it's VERY strong stuff

Business before pleasure

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 2 July 2015]

This is "Aftermath", a half-hour short movie from over 20 years ago written and directed by Spaniard Nacho Cerdà. Basically you could divide this film into two parts. First part takes place at a morgue where a man working there does the autopsy of a corpse. His colleagues and apprentices are carefully watching, but nobody's talking. There are no spoken dialogs in here. Everything seems normal. Second half takes place also at the morgue, but the guy from before is a lone. He has a young woman at his tables and starts severing her body parts, one after the other. It becomes a pretty bloody mess. Now we know, he who seemed so normal (if you can be normal in that profession) is a complete sociopath and a killer. In the end his dog also gets a bit of the body.

I have to say I found this pretty uninteresting. Yes it's bloody and supposed to be shocking, but it dragged so much by half of the film already that the big spectacular second half left me complete unattached. There is also nothing in the script, with which the actors could show their talent, if they have any that is. Also it's a piece of style over substance. The only purpose I can see in here from Cerdà's side is to make a film as shocking as possible. There is no real story or elaboration on the characters, nothing. I have no idea why this got some awards attention. And I am even more clueless about the fact that there is a sequel. I will give this one a look later on. Hopefully, it's better. As for this one here, not recommended and actually should never have been made.

Grisly necrophiliac opus.

[Ky-D · 8/10 · 29 August 2005]

Oft lamented gore short in the same vein as 'Necromantik', though arguably a superior product.

A coroner performers his daily duties of managing the dead, but when the day ends and all others go home the dead are his to do what he pleases.

Timeing in at a mere 30 minutes and lacking any spoken dialogue, the film is very short on story. Aside form a couple quick bits out side of the operating room, the film doesn't concern itself with story details; it already knows exactly what it wants to show you. That being the graphic dismemberment and eventual sexual desecration of the dead. Showing as much of the process as the (very convincing) corpse effects will allow, hardly a detail is spared from view.

The coup de grace is, of course, meant to be the ultimate act of intercourse with a gutted out body, yet that was not the scene that affected me the most. A different scene involving a more real-world process of preparing a cadaver was (to my mind) more disturbing. It was so simple, by the numbers and unemotional, and no matter what I will be there someday.

Technically the film is outstanding. Effective camera use, perfect lighting, and a great use of both music and excellent sound effects. It could be argued that the film needs something resembling a story to further flesh out, and I would both agree and argue against it. Without a deeper story, the gory visuals do lose some emotional impact, but adding to much more would have thrown off the pace and dulled the impact of the film.

Definitely shocking, undeniably well made, but to simple to garner more than a curiosity viewing. Genre fans only please.

8/10

It's no Necromantik

[yaktheripper · 4/10 · 26 July 2012]

Ehh, oh boy...this is way the heck out there. Disturbing as the day is long it is cold blooded and brutal and exceptionally filmed. This movie is revolting! That of course is it's strong point. I watched it and immediately tried to remove it from my memory. Is there some sort of message here? I don't know. Maybe. "Aftermath" was a movie I had laying around in a stack of DVD's, had no idea what it was, and was pretty shocked at what I saw. That is saying something. I have seen "Necromantik" and it's sequel and am a "fan" of both, for as high as the production value was for "Aftermath" the "story" couldn't hold the weight that "Necromantik" could emotionally. It is a "good looking" movie as previously stated, the production is tight and polished. The shock value is the only weight in the end however. See it as a curiosity and you will be shocked and even offended, but look for a story or meaning and you will be challenged.

a thirty minute trip to hell

[hairofdog86 · 4 October 2009]

first of all i cant necessarily complain because i knew what i was getting into. being jaded though i didn't heed any warnings. Im sorry people can say that this film is art and they are welcome to there opinion, but what ever they saw in this film i did not. maybe I'm bias in the fact that necrophilia in general gets under my skin. i couldn't even sit through nekromantik,and this film has all that times 10. However unlike nekromantik,aftermath doesn't try to make the subject matter erotic or stylized in anyway what so ever. All it does is place a very real and very ugly truth and puts it out unapologetically for all to see. when it comes to gore and the really unpleasant stuff,the only thing worse then this is maybe august underground mordum. this film is not for most people. in fact i know gore hounds who couldn't handle this. This film is not a test of manhood and showing this to your friends could easily get you labeled as sick. you have been warned.

Fairly Disturbing.

[DarkSpotOn · 5/10 · 14 May 2022]

I have seen a clip of this inside of a mixtape movie, and it shocked me when i saw it the first time. Today i have watched the full movie, and i was kinda expecting a bit more of a plot. Yes, gore effects are amazing in this. The corpses look incredibly real. The movie is thin as it is, people that work with the dead, do autopsies, until one of the workes, decides to sexually interact with a female corpse. I was hoping for a bit more of a plot to follow, the film is very simple it's self, there's no speaking, it has the goal of being shocking, and it does that very well, it's pretty much a necro version of Guinea Pig 1 and 2, an empty plot movie, that is not afraid to show it's effects, that are very well made. The acting is good, everything is great, just the plot is thin as it is, it's hard to rate it more then a five.

Extremely disturbing. The reviews don't lie

[disinter · 10/10 · 26 November 2005]

A lot of times when ppl post reviews they may or may not be based on facts, just opinions which everyone is entitled too but when ppl say this movie is disturbing and sick, it's no opinion. It's been quite sometime since I have seen something so vile. The only things that come close to it are the shockumentories like "Traces of death" (if all you have seen in the realm of shockumentories are the "Faces of death" series, you have no idea what I am talking about.). The only way and I mean ONLY way this movie could be anymore disturbing is if it were true. With all that being said, I highly recommend it as long as you are mature enough to handle it. It is a very well done piece of art and holds nothing back.

Over-hyped

[gavin6942 · 5/10 · 13 November 2015]

A short film about a coroner or funeral director or something who treats the corpses in his office in a very inappropriate manner.

So, this short film came my way because someone put it on a list of the best horror and thrillers. I have to disagree with that. It is alright, but not really much better than average. The same person says it is more disturbing than "A Serbian Film" and "Human Centipede" combined. Again, disagree. I actually did not find this film that bothersome. But then, I don't find Human Centipede bothersome...

This is just a lower budget film about a guy with bad habits... nothing really special.

Art in a Dario Argento's way

[ericz_5 · 10/10 · 23 April 2003]

I've seen Nacho Cerdà's Aftermath in a local theater and I must say it blows my mind! More than it's disturbing plot, the film is a visual piece of art. Cerdà combines classical music with traveling, smooth camera's movements and fade in order to hypnotize the viewers (reminding us the camera works of the italian master Dario Argento). Also, he uses large shots to out distance the viewers from the events; allowing us to see how disturbing the dead girl's rape is. Is aesthetic is clinical, like the morgue where the short takes place, and fits perfectly with Cerdà's purpose. Finally, the sound effects are very realistic and disturbing (the sound man did a marvelous job). Also note that Cerdà uses students and teachers pathologists to build the movie's special effects (and the actions of his main character who is a pathologist).

I would resume with one phrase : Cerdà's Aftermath is an art masterpiece.

Your basic Exploitation film

[aaronrumph · 3/10 · 25 July 2019]

I found this movie very boring, usually I like a good disturbing movie, but this one just didn't hold my interest, maybe because there really isn't any story in it that there is really nothing to invest in

Disturbing, Revolting Masterpiece

[CinemaPat · 9/10 · 18 October 2010]

What happens when you die? What was the first thing you thought of when you read that question? Most people would immediately think about whether there is a Heaven or Hell. "Aftermath", the controversial 30 minute short from Spanish director Nacho Cerdà takes a look at (in graphic detail) what happens to the body after death. This powerful film is not for the easily offended or those with a weak stomach. There is no dialogue and primarily takes place in an actual morgue. "Aftermath" will make you question how you want your body handled after death and it will open your eyes to the horror that is present in the world. Cerdà decided to make a film that covered both issues when I suppose he could have stuck to one. Although this is only 30 minutes, after the second act you will feel as if you have been watching for hours. That is if you make it to the second act. Make no mistake, this is 30 minutes of the raw, uncompromising reality of Autopsy's.

That being said...there are some things you should keep in mind while watching in order to understand, respect and ultimately enjoy what Nacho Cerdà has put together. You have to take into account the cinematography, the fact there is no spoken dialogue, the soundtrack and the moral questions it brings out of you. Cerdà did an AMAZING job with the filming using slow moving camera work mixed with an eerie classical soundtrack. Speaking of sound, the sound effects were that of a big budget film. The clarity and realness was nearly more disgusting and frightening than the action on screen. I cringed more from the sound than the visuals at times.

This film makes the viewer think about what happens after death. Most people may think their soul leaves them and their "temple" aka body gets laid quietly to rest. They don't think about what goes on between the time of passing and when the body is six feet under or cremated. They certainly don't think about how the autopsy will go or what will happen with their organs if they are an organ donor. The first person doing the autopsy seems to have no care in the world for the body he is mutilating; however, you later realize that he is just trying to do his job (quickly) and get out. I would be the same way. Wouldn't you? Then you're left to realize the second character, meticulously played by Pep Tosar, is really the sicko. This movie may be a lot more than most people can handle, but if you can put aside the "shock" of seeing a graphic autopsy and sickening necrophilia what you are left with is an important film that begs the viewer to confront their thoughts of what happens after you die. A powerful film.

http://cinemapat.blogspot.com/2010/10/aftermath-nacho-cerda-1994.html