Movie Nation

“Aftermath” is a sluggish, convoluted domestic horror thriller that can’t be rescued by a fierce turn by its leading lady, “Twilight” alumna Ashley Greene.

If you can make it to the ridiculously drawn-out and absurd finale — and Rotten Tomatoes has its running time wrong, it’s close to two hours — you’ll witness a good actress giving her all even when things go from straining credulity to nonsense.

Greene plays Natalie, a clothing designer struggling to get her marriage to Kevin (Shawn Ashmore of TV’s “The Rookie” and “The Ruins” and “Darkness Falls”) back on track after a “betrayal.”

They’re in counseling.

She’s struggling to get her designer dress shop open. He’s quit college, taken up working with a biohazard crime-scene cleanup team (Travis Coles and Jamie Kaler) prone to making wisecracks about a suicide victim creating “a Jackson Pollock on the wall” of their latest job.

And that’s when Kevin gets a really good deal on a house. That suicide wasn’t just a guy eating a pistol. He murdered his wife first. Despite her doubts, the fact that he didn’t consult her before starting the process, and despite the “disturbing” history of the house, Natalie goes along with this “fresh start.”

They move in, their dog starts whimpering at closed doors and bumps in the night. Because the dog ALWAYS knows. And Natalie starts seeing things and hearing other things, a “slender, pale” figure slipping into the house, using the restroom.

“Pump the BRAKES on the melodrama!” her husband barks. But he’s wondering about the strange things going on, the bizarre subscriptions that turn up at their door, the firebomb somebody tosses into their car.

Sharif Atkins plays the skeptical cop, Britt Baron is Natalie’s easily-spooked sister, Diana Hopper is the cute and flirtatious coed Kevin shares a class with as he heads back to school,
Paula Garcés is the sister of the previous owner and Alexander Bedria is her husband.

Yes, I’m leaving a few others out. It’s a seriously cluttered tale, as far as excess characters are concerned.

And yes, you can tell from the extensive cast that some effort was made to trick the viewer, or at least throw us off the scent and keep us from guessing where this is going. Screenwriter Dakota Gorman tries to have her horror, and her psychological thriller, too, and doesn’t let “plausible” slow down her type-type-typing.

“Aftermath” plays around with the mistrust in the aftermath of an affair and ghosts that horror convention suggests linger in the places where their lives ended. But Gorman gets lost in trying to rationally explain all of this while losing track of all that.

A savvy viewer’s first eyerolls turn up long before Kevin’s “Pump the brakes” crack, and continue apace through the thoroughly conventional climax.

Perhaps the filmmakers’ grasp exceeded their reach, or maybe neither screenwriter nor director could see what a mess it was before the camera rolled. Either way, it’s an untidy, unfocused and unsatisfying thriller that won’t gild anybody’s resume.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, profanity

Cast: Ashley Greene, Shawn Ashmore, Britt Baron, Sharif Atkins, Diana Hopper, Travis Coles and Jamie Kaler.

Credits: Directed by Peter Winther, scripted by Dakota Gorman. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:54

If it’s late enough — and “Death Drop Gorgeous” is nothing if it’s not a “Midnight Movie” — and you’re tipsy enough, I suppose there might be a few giggles and grins in this death in a drag club slasher comedy.

Emphasis on “I suppose.”

Written and directed by a threesome, with amateurishly broad acting and stereotypical drag queen bitchiness interrupted by gruesomely explicit violence involving knives, a screwdriver and the last thing any man would want caught in a meat grinder, it might have looked promising on paper.

I found it all a bit much and 100 minutes of nothing at the same time.

The serial slaughter takes place in and around a Providence, Rhode Island drag club — The Out House. And who would’ve guessed Providence was this lurid? Oh. Right. Brown.

The club is run by a dese-dem-dose but LGTBQ-friendly goombah nicknamed Tony Two Fingers (Brandon Perras), with a stage that plays host/hostess to the likes of Rosebud Cianci, Lindsay Fuckingham (subtle), Tragedi, Audrey Heartburn and the queen of the hop, Janet Fitness (Matthew Pidge).

The elder-statespronoun of the parade is Gloria Hole (Michael McAdam), long in the tooth, dated in her act and despised by all.

Aspiring queen Brian (Christopher Dalpe) and close-friend and sometime bartender Dwayne (Wayne Richard) are the bystanders to all the mayhem that begins with a junkie lured into a car and callously poked with a screwdriver, his “blood drained” according to the detectives (Michael J. Ahern and Sean Murphy) assigned the case.

The detectives figure they have “a serial f–killing vampire with a taste for blood.” And even the detectives give off an overt gay-couple vibe here. We meet them as one is tidying up the other’s messy devouring of an éclair.

Again, subtle.

The funniest stuff here is the backstage dressing room digs that the queens dish out.

“If you’re gonna have two faces, at least make one of them PRETTY.” “I douched for THIS?”

Writers-directors (and co-stars) Ahern, Dalpe and Perras conceive an entire described world revolving around the drag club, with such eateries as “Papa Fagarti’s up on the hill.”

The murders — most of them humdrum, save for the bloodspurts — earn reactions of deadpan shock from those who find the bodies — “Damn, he had GREAT abs!” — and pseudo-zingers from the detectives, shaking their heads over the killer “shredding (the victim’s) meat and potatoes like that.”

Poor pacing always throws pedestrian performances into the foreground, and “Death Drop Gorgeous” is overrun with those as it plods along on ill-fitting heels.

Yes, the assorted queens have cute enough acts, and the drag shows — lip synched to original songs composed for the film — are the most professional thing in this.

But is it worth staying up for a midnight showing, spending for the drinks etc. you’d have to imbibe to dive into its vibe? Honey, no.

Rating: Unrated, graphic, gory violence, nudity, sex, profanity, drug abuse

Cast: Paul Bohn, Wayne Richard, Christopher Dalpe, Michael J. Ahern, Sean Murphy, Brandon Perras and Michael McAdam

Credits: Scripted and directed by Michael J. Ahern, Christopher Dalpe and Brandon Perras. A Dark Star release.

Running time: 1:44

This November release stars Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan and Ciaran Hinds, a coming of age tale set during Ireland’s “troubles.”

Outstanding.

A quiet, somber and downbeat story of 9/11 victims and efforts to get their survivors to sign onto a blanket compensation plan, “Worth” takes on “importance” thanks to its subject matter and its A-list cast.

Michael Keaton and Amy Ryan play the attorneys authorized by the Bush Administration to negotiate and recruit widows, children and other survivors to forgo lawsuits and settle for a cash payout. And Stanley Tucci plays one survivor/activist who pushed back at their number-crunching and tried to inject humanity into the considerations.

The “names” lend extra gravitas to a movie that doesn’t really need it. Their real “worth” in this Sara Colangelo (The Kindergarten Teacher,””Little Accidents”) is in showing as a simple journey from officious compassion to genuine empathy. The picture and the characters portrayed are almost myopic, buttoned down and narrow in their focus to “save the airlines, etc. from lawsuits” task. These very good actors show us lawyers — some of them anyway — discovering their humanity.

Keaton plays Ken Feinberg, a rich, DC-connected lawyer who, with his partner, Camille Biros (Ryan), specializes in fending off class action suits via mass settlement schemes on big cases on everything from Agent Orange to Big Asbestos.

We meet Feinberg as he’s teaching at Georgetown Law, prodding his students into discussing “What is life worth? The question actually has an answer and that answer is a number.”

Keaton, affecting an accent that fades as the film progresses, never lets this flippant, glib lawyer slip into caricature. Feinberg’s a sharp cookie, a professional, but a man with blinders that he puts on to avoid letting any case turn “personal.” Others may attack him because “to you we’re just numbers,” and have a point. But he’s no monster.

When 9/11 happens, Ken and Camille use their connections to land the “special master” role in setting up and running a compensation commission designed to save airlines and various corners of government from the lawsuits that would, Bush, Ashcroft and assorted Republicans are sure would “wreck the economy.” The lawyers will work pro bono, because this is something they “can do to help.”

“Worth” shows the clumsy, heavy-handed first steps they take, their first meetings with victims’ families, the “dispense reasonable payments” plan that operates on a financial formula built on insurance companies’ actuarial tables. That isn’t going to fly.

“My daughter’s life is worth as much as anybody in a ‘corner office!'” “He’s just hear to shut us up so we don’t sue!”

Tucci plays Charles Wolf, who lost his wife on 9/11 and who organizes other victims in pursuit of compassion, humanity and “fairness.” Tate Donavan plays the true villain of the film, a lawyer for the rich who wants to ensure that the survivors of the rich are the ones who get the lion’s share of the payouts.

The built-in pathos of any tale of 9/11 applies here. To turn the story into something that doesn’t drown in numbers and montages of tearful interviews with widows and family, “Godzilla” screenwriter Max Borenstein focuses — somewhat — on the conflict between the deadline-oriented lawyer and the “give these people their due” and “listen to their stories” survivor/activist. To do that, he leans on the two men’s (perhaps true) shared love of opera, which is the first thing in the movie that feels trite and cliched.

“Worth” can feel ungainly, at times. The film tends to stagger through the middle and late acts as Ryan has far too little screen time as the partner who “sees the light” first, and likewise Shunori Ramanathan is given short shrift as she ably plays a new attorney who narrowly escaped being in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 and is thus even more inclined to humanize what their work with still-grieving families.

I like Borenstein’s depiction of the “messy” lives that “don’t fit into the mold” that Feinberg’s formula was designed to apply — a fireman with a secret second family, a gay couple living in a state where homosexual civil unions weren’t recognized, which makes the surviving partner another “mold” breaker.

But it is the film’s stars who convey the larger message of “Worth.” We see adults with serious disagreements acting like adults, trying to ignore the “get re-elected” politics of the mostly-off-camera Bush Administration officials, and find compromises.

Sad to say that adults in positions of authority acting like adults — diplomatic, courteous — is the most refreshing historical artifact resurrected in “Worth.” There’s just enough screaming, name-calling and throwing drinks at the “blood money” lawyers to remind us that’s a lot more common in America these days.

Rating: PG-13 for some strong language (profanity) and thematic elements

Cast: Michael Keaton, Amy Ryan, Stanley Tucci, Talia Balsam, Shunori Ramanathan and Laura Benanti

Credits: Directed by Sara Colangelo, scripted by Max Borenstein. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:59

Little Accidents, The Kindergarten Teacher

Godzilla screenwriter

Rating: PG-13 for some strong language (profanity) and thematic elements

Cast: Michael Keaton, Amy Ryan, Stanley Tucci, Talia Balsam, Shunori Ramanathan and Laura Benanti

Credits: Directed by Sara Colangelo, scripted by Max Borenstein. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:59

If you’ve ever switched on a television, you probably figure everything that can be done with the idea of a “New York romance” has already been done. And thanks to “When Harry Met Sally,” Woody Allen, “She’s Gotta Have It,” “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “Living Single,” you’d be right.

Or maybe the genre hasn’t been beaten to death. It’s just that everybody coming along now has been so exposed to all the earlier rom-coms that finding “fresh” is nigh on impossible.

“Dating & New York” is another variation of the “Friends with Benefits” school. We’re cute together, we get along, why not try “all the benefits of a relationship without the miserable torture of actually being in one.”

Sure, never seen THAT before. But if the script is witty and poignantly romantic and the leads engaging and fun to hang with and enough “new” New York slang, locations and metrosexual practices are thrown in, it can be perfectly watchable, right?

Right. Except “Dating & New York” misses a few items on that checklist. Most of them, in fact, including the most important. The “romance,” which pairs up perky but bland Francesca Reale (“Stranger Things” with comically bloodless Jaboukie Young-White (“Set It Up”), isn’t romantic in the least. Going for a Hallmark PG (How they rated this inoffensive pablum PG-13 is a mystery) just underscores how serious writer-director Jonah Feingold was about making this the least sexy New York romance since we figured out what a creep Woody Allen actually is.

And as insipid and formulaic as it plays, adding cloying, tin-eared voice-over narration by Jerry Ferrara (“Entourage”) is like a pork rind topping for your fat-free yogurt cone.

Wendy and Milo meet via app, hook up and stumble into each other again after an accidental ghosting. Their friends — Catherine Cohen is Jessie, Wendy’s BFF, Brian Muller is Hank, Milo’s wingman — meet each other at the same time.

So we have that “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” set-up, with the secondary couple coupling up and advising the delusional lead couple through their “relationship contract” arrangement.

Wendy offers that she’ll be comfort food companionship, “like that episode of ‘The Office’ you know line by line. You know what to expect.”

So do we.

Wendy and Milo will dine out, hang out and hook up, and occasionally counsel each other through “dates” outside their “arrangement.” No tears, no ghosting, no hard feelings. And they won’t be what every single New York without a dog fears the most — “alone.”

If you’ve ever seen any of the sitcoms listed above, or “How I Met Your Mother” or “Living Single,” you know where this is going and can guess every single step taken in that journey.

Narrator Ferrara plays Cole, a doorman and “voice of reason” who asks the obvious — “What happens when one of you ‘catches feelings?'”

A couple of bit characters come closest to landing a laugh. None of the leads do.

The script is social media savvy, making tepid jokes about the “commitment” difference between a couple selfie “in your story” or on “your grid” on Instagram.

There’s got to be a women are “playing chess, we’re playing Nintendo 64” crack, an “only in New York” observation or three, a “We need to talk” moment.

But as helpful as it is to know that Tompkins Square Park is “New York’s break-up hot spot,” and the difference between a “boug-dega” and a “BO-dega,” that’s not enough to warrant the 90 minute teeth-grind that is the instantly-dated “Dating & New York.”

Rating: PG-13 “for sexual material and brief language,” but really much closer to PG.

Cast: Francesca Reale, Jaboukie Young-White, Brian Muller Catherine Cohen and Jerry Ferrara.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jonah Feingold. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:31

Rosamund Pike and Sophie Okonedo are among the stars who will bring Robert Jordan’s epic sword and sorcery fantasy to Amazon, starting Nov. 19.

Only seven episodes? It’s like a 14 book series, so you know what these means…

Sept 10 this true story caper comedy hits theaters.

Laughed a couple of times at this trailer to an October 1 release.

Irreverent, “too soon” and biting and seriously offhand and off-the-rails.

Although I liked the sweet, sentimental vibe the weeper “Afterlife of the Party” reaches for, it never comes close to transcending its modest aims and becoming special.

But I’m totally on board the idea of Netflix being the after-teen-stardom home for Victoria Justice, whose taste or offers still put her on the “family friendly” side of the Hollywood equation.

She’s the perky, sometimes manic anchor of this story of a party-girl/party planner who meets an untimely end. Her “Afterlife” sees her forced to spend a short stint in purgatory taking care of “unfinished business” with the BFF (Midori Francis) she had a falling out with just before her accident, with her sad and lonely yoga instructor Dad (Adam Garcia) and the wife and mother (Gloria Garcia) who walked out on them both years before.

Miss “Victorious” plays Cassie, whose insistence on a week of partying — “Cassie-palooza” — to celebrate her 25th birthday is pretty much her undoing.

Paleontologist, childhood friend and roomie Lisa (Francis, of “Good Boys” and TV’s “Dash & Lily”) would rather stay home and do jigsaw puzzles, “like we used to.” Nothing doing! Champagne with my “friends!”

“It’s like you aren’t worth anything if you aren’t seen,” Lisa whines.

Cassie is shallow, sure. Always perfectly turned-out, too. But she doesn’t stay in touch with her father, and is flat-out estranged from her mother.

And since yes, you can die from a hangover (tripping), she’s a goner. This helpful guardian angel (Robyn Scott, kind of funny) is here to “help you with the transition” and lay out the rules — the number of days the unseen/unheard Cassie has to “fix” what she left broken in life.

Hallmark movie veteran Carrie Freedle scripted this, and one sign of a lazy script is when it goes to the trouble of introducing “rules,” and then can’t figure out how to write around them. That “can’t see me/hear me” thing falls by the wayside at the drop of a hat.

The cleverest bits stick to that rule — Cassie hiding all of Lisa’s frumpy clothes so that she wears her cutest outfit to work, and dazzles the Brit composer (Timothy Renouf) neighbor she’s been crushing on, Cassie putting an LP on the Brit’s turntable that puts romantic ideas in his ears and then his head.

Director Stephen Herek, who went from “Critters” and the original “Bill & Ted” to directing Dolly Parton movies, Christmas TV movies, and Dolly Parton Christmas TV movies, doesn’t stand in the way of the schmaltz here. The picture works well enough when we hit the emotional peaks, but the film dawdles along, with only the tiniest of laughs and the limpest of one-liners.

“Somebody call Marie Kondo,” Cassie chirps at seeing her dad’s forlorn beachside house. “‘Joy’ is NOT sparking here!”

The best line spins out of Cassie’s crush for a singer she was just dying to meet before, you know. Val the angel isn’t letting the ghost Cassie score time with him.

“Way to ANGEL block me, Val!”

Justice, running through countless cute and sexy outfits and gobs of glittery makeup, plays a slightly more adult version of her teen TV guise here. Maybe she’s not “growing” as an actress, or broadening her image. No R-rated “Spring Breaks” for her.

But Justice carries off this tear-jerker, mainly because she has to. Francis is the one co-star in her league, charm and charisma-wise. Almost everybody else cast in it is “adequate,” and not much more.

If a lot of people Netflix it, maybe this will be her “afterlife” — light, family-friendly entertainments for the streaming service. Wonder if Dolly needs a Christmas sidekick this year?

Rating: TV-PG

Cast: Victoria Justice, Midori Francis, Robyn Scott, Adam Garcia, Gloria Garcia and Timothy Renouf

Credits: Directed by Stephen Herek, scripted by Carrie Freedle. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:49

The director of “Midway” and “Independence Day” envisions the Moon come crashing into Terra Firma in this Feb. 2022 release. Looks big and Ro Ro.

https://youtu.be/QRbsmbr4HFM