Afterparty (II) (2013)
2/10
Well, this left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
21 February 2019
A semi-slasher from Spain wanting to be a meta-satire on TV Pop culture and fandom, but comes off boringly pretentious, light-weight and unimaginative. Carlos, a pin-up teen idol and self-centered TV star of a horror TV show, is invited to a party, which turns out to be a wild, drunken night. The morning after, he wakes up to find that he's trapped in the mansion along with three girls who he had encounters with during night. However something much more sinister is at work, as the four soon realize there's no communication to the outside world, and that they're not alone, as there's a masked intruder (wearing the same outfit from his TV show) wanting to see Carlos squirm by toying with them.

The big cross going against "AFTERPARTY" is that it's hard to feel anything for these characters and the situations they find themselves in. They are a selfish, shallow bunch of caricatures that have no redeeming qualities. Then the uninteresting mystery and flat slasher traits predictably unfolds into an ill-conceived twist in an attempt to be clever, trying to make the viewer change their perspective. I just groaned. However it's the risqué finale encounter that should've had more of a kick, but the trite tonal shifts in wanting to be hip, makes light of something that needed to be darker and focus on the irrational psychosis with more thought than just throwing out the clichéd psychotic mind snap. It is a film of two halves, but there's no question there's a lot of running in and out of rooms, down and up hallways, constant locked doors, poorly lit crevices and numerous stab happy moments. Everything plays out accordingly; no surprises, no thrills, no atmosphere and no sense.
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