4 Star

You Can’t See the Woods for the Trees.

Hungarian writer/director József Gallai (The Poltergeist Diaries, I Hear the Trees Whispering) and composer/editor, Cinematographer Gergö Elekes (Vulpes, Moth) once again team up to bring us a dark and mesmerizing Sci-Fi thriller. Mixing a cool Sci-Fi tale with great cinematographic atmospherics that have you keeping one eye looking over your shoulder and one hand smoothing down the hairs on the back of your neck.

A TV interview shows Dr. Jane Dunning (Sally Kirkland, The Sting, JFK) a neurosurgeon. She and her team are ten years into an experiment that could change her field of expertise forever, but she stresses that they are only seeing a pinprick of the full picture.

But ‘New Dimensions’ have been discovered.

Meanwhile, Kate (Fruzsina Nagy, Baptiste (TV Series) De Stamhouder (TV Mini Series)) is having a bad day, as she hurriedly packs her rucksack and leaves the house, and drives off. Her phone rings, it’s Robbie (Joseph Richmond, I Hear the Trees Whispering) her overbearing supervisor on the project she has been working on for five years, whereas he has only been on it for a short time.

The road is long and the mist is low as she rejects another call from Robbie, she tries to take a drink but spills it. Distracted, she tries to grab it, when she crashes and it all goes dark.

Kate wakes to find herself in a misty wood, she is OK but a bit groggy. As she takes in the surroundings things turn ugly, as a gas masked man raises an automatic rifle and shoots Kate in the back. She goes down, but she is not out. She gets up and it happens again. This time there are two of them, but Kate manages to grab one of the guns and take one of them out.

We knew you’d come!

Kate comes to once again, but this time there is a stranger trying to help her up. He is Bubba (Edward Apeagyei, The Legend of Tarzan, Gods of Their Own Religion) who is also stranded in this wood. He appears to have been here longer than Kate as he seems to know what she is going through and what may come.

Come with me, or else there’ll be nothing left of you by tomorrow morning!

The one thing they have in common is they both have photos of a family and written on it are some names Kate, Peter (Péter Inoka, The Poltergeist Diaries, A pillanat) and Sophie (Zsófia Gallai, Spirits in the Dark). Neither of them have any recollection of them, but there is something at the back of her mind.

Now is the struggle for Kate and Bubba to avoid the masked men out to get her. Can she get back to her car and get to safety? These are the questions, can she find the answers?

Aftermath is an eerie closed in experience, as the mist engulfs the trees, you and your mind, making you hold your breath as we see the struggle to stay alive.

József Gallai really knows how to creep into the tiny corners of your mind.

What is life. What is consciousness?

Aftermath on Blu-ray from the 30th of January via Bayview Entertainment