Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		2.5

The Aftermath Blu-ray Movie Review

Planet of the Maxes.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 24, 2018

If films were able to marry and produce their own offspring, it’s arguable that The Aftermath might have conceivably (sorry) been the progeny of a union between Planet of the Apes and Mad Max (as even some marketing verbiage on the back cover of this Blu-ray suggests). This 1982 release (filmed several years earlier) from writer, producer, director and star Steve Barkett is probably unavoidably in the schlock category, and yet it has an earnest quality that makes it oddly appealing at times. While the film itself is fairly ragged and features some not quite ready for primetime performances (including by Barkett’s then young son, Christopher), it also has something else that perhaps links it subliminally to Planet of the Apes: a really remarkable score. I’m old enough that I actually owned the original soundtrack LP (that’s vinyl for you young ‘un’s) of Jerry Goldsmith’s amazing (Academy Award nominated) music for the 1968 Planet of the Apes, a percussion laden enterprise with sonics that can only be described as astringent. The ultra modernist, near dodecaphonic, tendencies of Goldsmith’s approach perhaps deemed a Planet of the Apes soundtrack album unmarketable, something which in turn may have led to it being released on the lesser known Project 3 label, the brainchild of Enoch Light, a guy who had made his reputation in the early days of stereo by offering extremely wide imaging on a number of hit albums released first on Light’s Command Records. (Fans of Mad Men may be interested to know that the series’ iconic theme samples Light’s arrangement of “Autumn Leaves” for those memorable opening string voicings.) John Morgan’s score for The Aftermath is considerably more tonal, and as Morgan himself relates in one of the archival interviews ported over to this new Blu-ray release, he purposely fashioned his score as a kind of marriage itself, this one between Bernard Herrmann and Max Steiner. From some cursory research done in preparation for this review, it doesn’t look like Morgan’s score was ever released as a soundtrack album at the time of The Aftermath’s original release, though it is available now on a CD which looks like it came out in 2015. Commendably, VCI has included the music as a supplement on the Blu-ray (not as an “isolated track”, but as a standalone bonus), and even for those who may find the film itself something of a slog, this particular film score geek can’t recommend Morgan’s work highly enough.

Some kind of charmingly lo-fi vignettes document the life of a trio of astronauts, including Newman (Steve Barkett). They're attempting to get back to Earth, though kind of like their counterparts in Planet of the Apes, they're unaware that things have "change" back home. Those changes are summed up by a chaotic sequence showing a bunch of panicked people running from some nasty folks with lassos who are attempting to round them up. These unwilling captives include Sarah (Lynn Margulies, whom Barkett identifies on the commentary track as his girlfriend at the time). The chief bad guy is a really nasty villain named Cutter (Sid Haig), the sort of ruffian who laughs raucously as his henchmen mow down a bunch of innocents with their shotguns.

Once Newman crash lands, he discovers he’s in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, which doesn’t deter him from attempting to clean up a little place for himself. Ultimately he meets up with a museum curator (Forrest J. Ackerman), who has been mentoring a little boy named Chris (Christopher Barkett). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Newman and Chris become a pair of “road warriors” and of course manage to connect with Sarah. While Cutter and his gang are still on the hunt, there are also mutants who are rather zombie like (the film was evidently released in some markets as Zombie Aftermath). It’s all pretty relentlessly silly, with alternately wooden or hyperbolic acting styles adding to the tonal chaos.

The Aftermath Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Aftermath is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The cover insert is reversible and contains the following information inside:

This Blu-ray edition of The Aftermath from VCI Entertainment was meticulously remastered in 2K high definition in 2017 from the original 35mm cut camera negative and was step frame copied one frame at a time for the ultimate in clarity and color values.

Putting aside the kind of odd "cut camera negative" and even odder "step frame copied one frame at a time" (does VCI normally just let the film run willy nilly through the scanner several frames at a time, and, yes, that's a joke), this is in some ways one of the better looking transfers we've seen from this sometimes trouble plagued label, which is not to say it doesn't have its own issues. While there are none of the really odd encoding anomalies we've seen in other VCI releases (some of which had to be recalled), and while the palette looks exceedingly vivid and nicely saturated, this is one of the more oddly inconsistent releases I've reviewed lately in terms of grain structure and (occasionally at least) compression. The opening optically printed title sequence (which includes special effects opticals on top of everything else) has a noticeable grain structure that's quite appealing, but for large swaths of this presentation, you'd be hard pressed to find anything that would make this look more like celluloid and less like video. You can clearly see the smooth texture on some of the screenshots accompanying this review, but the rather odd thing about this is that the grain kind of comes and goes for no discernable reason. In fact, in the spaceship crash landing scene, pay attention to when the red lights are flashing on and off, and in some of the red hued moments, there's clear grain creeping through the frame, while in other red hued moments, it's all but invisible. The most visible grain tends to be in some of the special effects shots, which I'm assuming were all optically composited. Even with this grain shearing, detail levels can be quite good in more brightly lit moments, though again, fine detail levels tend to ebb and flow. One of the interesting things I'd recommend to folks is freeze framing at random moments, where even in relatively grainless moments there are some odd underlying compression anomalies that approach macroblocking territory. They're not readily apparent with the film in motion unless you're examining things very closely. Contrast, brightness and black levels are also at least slightly variable, with some scenes looking kind of milky or with a hazy overlay masking the imagery. I feel kind of churlish going after VCI this way, since it's obvious they're out there swinging for the fences, but the good news is, they seem to be improving, even if they haven't quite been able to master the art of a home run yet.

The Aftermath Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Aside from some slight (and transitory) synch issues, and a random pop or two, The Aftermath's LPCM 2.0 mono track sounds rather nicely full, especially with regard to John Morgan's excellent score. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and while some of the sound effects don't really resonate with much force, there's no outright damage or distortion to report.

The Aftermath Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Laser Disc Extras (1080p; 14:44) offer an assortment of actually kind of sweet bonus items featuring several members of the Barkett family, along with folks like composer John Morgan.


• The Aftermath Trailer (1080p; 3:03)


• "Night Caller" begins with a text introduction (1080p; 2:00) followed by the short itself (1080p; 21:01). This has some of the same post-apocalyptic elements as The Aftermath, not to mention Steve Barkett in the lead role, and has at least a tangential relationship to a Ray Bradbury story. The plot involves one of the last men on earth who gets an unexpected phone call from a mysterious female, which sets him off on a quest to find her. The denouement at the end would not have seemed at all out of place on any given episode of The Twilight Zone. This black and white feature is in Academy Ratio and looks like it may have been shot on 16mm, and the good news is this transfer has noticeable and organic looking grain, along with a fair amount of age related wear and tear.


• Original Motion Picture Soundtrack again begins with a text introduction (1080p; 1:00) followed by the soundtrack itself (1080p; 1:09:59). The soundtrack plays to a poster of the film, with track information on the right side of the frame. It is possible to chapter skip to access individual tracks. The track is presented in LPCM 2.0 and sounds nicely full bodied. Morgan's orchestrations are outstanding.


• Empire of the Dark Promo (1080p; 8:46) once again begins with a text introduction, though this time it's been authored as part of the overall supplement. This is kind of a "coming attractions" feature from VCI, which states this set of snippets from the film is upscaled from a standard definition source (and which looks like it), but which the label also goes on to state is currently undergoing a 2K scan and restoration for an ultimate Blu-ray release.


• Audio Commentary features Steve and Chris Barkett. This is accessible under the Setup Menu.

The Aftermath Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Aftermath was evidently something of a family affair, with several of the Barketts involved. That gives this enterprise an unexpectedly sweet ambience some of the time, despite the somewhat hilariously overamped plot mechanics. This release has some inconsistencies in its video presentation so that fans may want to carefully parse the screenshots accompanying this review, but VCI has assembled some very enjoyable supplements, including the separate presentation of the winning score by John Morgan.