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?
