Have we reached so low down the totem pole that we’re now ripping off Eli Roth movies? Is that the definition of desperation or what? “Aftershock” feels like one of those situations with “Poltergeist” where Eli Roth was ghost directing while Nicolas Lopez was credited as director. It’s a half hour of a lame tourist dramedy, followed by an hour of really silly gore and zero direction in its story, all leading in to a finale that shamelessly rips off the final scenes of “The Descent.” Thank goodness “Aftershock” is a merciful ninety minutes.
1996’s “Daylight” is pretty much just a nineties version of “The Poseidon Adventure.” There’s an eccentric old couple, a resistant tough guy constantly battling with our hero, a cynical woman who bonds with the hero, an epic disaster that is impossible to rebound from, a moment where our characters have to swim under water to make it to a safe zone hoping to escape inevitable drowning, in the climax we see authorities opening a hatch for our victims to escape through, and like Hackman’s hero, Stallone even screams at god as he fights to live in the climax.