Eli Roth hasn’t directed a feature since 2007’s “Hostel Part II.” But he’s been busy. He’s enough of a name to put his name on films (like “The Last Exorcism” and its sequel), and handle “Hemlock Grove,” the Netflix horror series that did even better than “House of Cards.” He co-wrote, co-produced and co-stars in “Aftershock,” directed by Chilean filmmaker Nicolas Lopez, which concerns the aftermath of a massive earthquake, not unlike the one that wreaked havoc upon Chile in 2010.

Was it always the plan to let Nicolas Lopez direct it?
I’m a big fan of Nicolas Lopez’s Spanish language movies. He made some terrific romantic comedies, one called “Que Pena Tu Vida,” which translates to “F— My Life.” There’s “Que Pena Tu Boda,” which is “F— My Wedding.” And then there’s “Que Pena Tu Familia,” which is “F— My Family.” We jokingly called this “F— My Hostel.”

What convinced you that a romantic comedy director could handle horror?
I know when someone’s a good director. Part of being a talented producer is knowing who would make a good director. And a good director can direct in any genre. But Nicolas has a dark side. There’s a dark side to his romantic comedies, too.

Why did he want to do horror?
He started describing for me what it was like living through the 2010 earthquake [in Chile]. It was so horrific. We thought instead of making the Oscar version of this, we’d make a realistic version. We’d use it as the basis for a thriller and fictionalize it. It’s all based on things that really happened. Society really unraveled in a matter of minutes. One of the things about shooting in Chile was that a lot of it was still destroyed by the earthquake. The set was already designed for us. They’re slowly repairing, but something things they’ll never be able to fix. They’re too damaged. There was one scene where I was pinned under a rock and I looked around and said, “Wow, the art department did an amazing job.” [Lopez] said, “Ha ha, gringo, art department. This is real!”

Beyond the earthquake itself, this has a pretty bleak worldview.
We talked about Hitchcock and “The Birds,” and about how “The Birds” is about the randomness of life and how terrible things happen to you for absolutely no reason, with no explanation before, during or after. For me that’s what life is. Life can be about dodging these horrible events that happen to us. And then you die. I think that’s the unfortunate reality of how it is. How we choose to live in between that is what makes up our lives.

Your films tend to have Ugly American roles in them. The character you play here is a bit different.
I don’t think there’s anything Ugly American about him. I just think this is a modern single dad. I just turned 41, and I have a lot of friends who are getting divorced. And they’ve been out of the game for awhile. They’ll say to me, “Oh I met this really cool girl, I got her number and I called her.” And I’m like, “What?! You didn’t text her?” They have no idea how much the game has changed. I wanted to write a character like that, who was a dad and nice and sympathetic. He has no idea what to say to girls.

Some people criticize your characters for being Ugly Americans. How do you feel about them?
Obviously I like the characters, because I wrote them. I think that my characters are honest characters. They’re not characters who try to please everybody. They don’t always say things that are politically correct. They behave like people. People in life aren’t always politically correct; they don’t always do the right thing. And I find so many movies boring because the characters are watered down. And that’s what I try to write. It’s not for me to judge.

This is being released on video-on-demand in addition to select theaters. How do you choose how many theaters and on how many home system platforms to release a film like this?
The question is what’s the right amount? Two years ago people we’re asking me why I was doing a show with Netflix. Now everyone is going crazy trying to get their show on Netflix, because you get incredible creative control. You can make a show that really captures the cultural zeitgeist. With “Aftershock”, which is the first Chile-wood movie, do you want to go up against “Iron Man 3″? Or do you want to go right to the target audiences, and have it available on Thursday night at midnight?

There might be a lot of people who don’t live near a cinema, who have a great home theater setup and would rather watch it at home. I saw the piracy numbers on “The Man With the Iron Fist.” It was staggering. That movie made $15 million in the box office. But it was like No. 2 on the torrent sites — the most downloaded movie after “The Dark Knight Rises.” Clearly the desire to see the movie was there, but they just didn’t want to pay for it. But if there was the option to watch a copy in their house, would they have? If a third of those people had watched the movie on VOD, would it have done a lot better? If you can get it on VOD, it’s a very viable way to make a profit. If they can’t make a profit, then people are going to stop making films.

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The cast of “Aftershock” try to survive an earthquake in Chile.
Credit: Radius-TWC

‘Aftershock’
Director: Nicolas Lopez
Stars: Eli Roth, Andrea Osvart
Rating: R
2 (out of 5) globes

Recent events have shown that, sometimes, horrific events can bring out the best in people — that tragedy occasionally invokes in a bitterly divided country a united sense of selflessness, and a putting aside of differences to work towards the common good. The gory, nasty, somewhat comic thriller “Aftershock” goes the other way. It’s a portrait of humanity at if not at its most base, then close to it. There are a handful of decent people in its midst, but most are either overtly evil or simply concealing their evil till later.

Co-writer and co-producer Eli Roth co-stars as an American in Chile who, like the doomed collegiates in “Cabin Fever” and “Hostel,” is arrogant and entitled, treating the rest of the world as playground for hedonistic experiences. He’s less obviously terrible than past characters: a preppie dork who squeezes in time at a winery and, when hitting up the clubs, very badly hits on mystery cameo star Selena Gomez. When at an underground club with his two native friends, a massive earthquake hits, endangering him and the motley crew of grumbling stereotypes with tumbling debris. Escaping to the street proves no safer: Society has quickly collapsed along with many of its buildings, and gangs of violent rapists roam the street, hungry for scantily clad victims.

Roth and his fellow screenwriters don’t stop there. They keep hitting our cast with one unspeakable horror after another, slowly picking them off. Seeming protagonists perish earlier than expected, some more gruesomely than others, and it soon becomes apparent that no one is safe, possibly not even the virginal prude typically destined to survive. Before its initial wave of mutilation, “Aftershock” is a broad comedy. Once the carnage begins, it turns into a different, sicker kind of comedy, with extreme tonal shifts and a lack of humanity that becomes comedic in its nastiness.

That’s in keeping with Roth’s other work, whose satirical bent, especially toward entitled American spirits, tends to be undervalued. Even a film only co-written by him — he hasn’t directed a feature since 2007’s overhated “Hostel Part II,” although at least three others are allegedly in the works — shares this quality, as well as a bemused hopelessness when even nice characters fail to make it out alive. But the film, helmed by Nicolas Lopez, lacks his craft. It’s murky, technically slapdash and soon runs out of novel story twists. By the time one characters is revealed to be a secret psychopath — whoops! — the “hilarious” downer ending couldn’t come sooner.

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A strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit a remote, mostly rural and mountainous area of southwestern China’s Sichuan province on Saturday, killing at least 156 people and injuring about 5,500 close to where a big quake killed almost 70,000 people in 2008.

The earthquake, China’s worst in three years, occurred at 8.02 a.m. (0002 GMT) in Lushan county near Ya’an city and the epicenter had a depth of 12 km (7.5 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt by residents in neighboring provinces and in the provincial capital of Chengdu, causing many people to rush out of buildings, according to accounts on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service.

State media said 156 people had been confirmed dead with more than 5,500 injured.

President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang said all efforts must be put into rescuing victims to limit the death toll.

After arriving at the disaster zone by helicopter, Li directed earthquake relief efforts from a plaza in Longmen township in Lushan, Xinhua said.

Li asked that a road be opened to Baoxing county, one of the most affected by the earthquake, and that rescuers “act quickly” in their efforts, Xinhua quoted Li as saying.

“The current most urgent issue is grasping the first 24 hours since the quake’s occurrence, the golden time for saving lives,” Xinhua news agency quoted Li as saying earlier.

Xinhua said 6,000 troops were heading to the area to help with rescue efforts. State television CCTV said only emergency vehicles were being allowed into Ya’an, though Chengdu airport had reopened.

Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, where water and electricity were cut off. Pictures on Chinese news sites showed toppled buildings and people in bloodied bandages being treated in tents outside the hospital, which appeared only lightly damaged.

Rescuers in Lushan had pulled 32 survivors out of rubble, Xinhua said. In villages closest to the epicenter, almost all low rise houses and buildings had collapsed, according to footage broadcast on state television.

“We are very busy right now, there are about eight or nine injured people, the doctors are handling the cases,” said a doctor at a Ya’an hospital who gave her family name as Liu.

The hospital was seeing head and leg injuries, she added.

“SHAKES AND TREMORS”

The China Meteorological Association warned of a possibility of landslides occurring in Lushan county on Saturday and Sunday, the agency said in a statement on its website.

A resident in Chengdu, 140 km (85 miles) from Ya’an city, told Xinhua he was on the 13th floor of a building when he felt the quake. The building shook for about 20 seconds and he saw tiles fall from nearby buildings.

Ya’an is a city of 1.5 million people and is considered one of the birthplaces of Chinese tea culture. It is also the home to one of China’s main centers for protecting the giant panda.

“There are still shakes and tremors and our area is safe. The pandas are safe,” said a spokesman with Ya’an’s Bifengxia nature park, a tourism park that houses more than 100 pandas.

Shouts and screams were heard in the background while Reuters was on the telephone with the spokesman.

“There was just an aftershock, an aftershock, our office is safe,” he said.

Numerous aftershocks jolted the area, the largest of which was magnitude 5.1.

Sichuan is one of the four major natural-gas-producing provinces in China, and its output accounts for about 14 percent of the nation’s total.

Sinopec Group, Asia’s largest oil refiner, said its huge Puguang gas field was unaffected.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially put the magnitude at 7, but later revised it down.

The devastating May 2008 quake was 7.9 magnitude.

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The USGS located the epicenter of the quake at 15 miles east of Ometepec in Guerrero state at a depth of 10.9 miles.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the inland earthquake would not generate a destructive widespread tsunami, but there was the possibility of some local tsunami effects.

The quake was felt in Mexico City where buildings shook and office employees fled into the street, according to a Reuters witnesses. Cell phone lines were down and traffic snarled in the capital moments after the quake.

No damage was reported in Oaxaca, near where the quake hit, according to local television.

Earlier it had been reported at 7.9 magnitude and initially as 7.6 magnitude.

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As night fell, survivors and emergency workers battled to pull people out of the debris in the city of Van and town of Ercis, where a student dormitory collapsed.

Residents in Van joined in a frantic search, using hands and shovels and working under floodlights and flashlights, hearing voices of survivors crying for help under mounds of shattered concrete in pitch darkness and bitter cold.

“We heard cries and groaning from underneath the debris, we are waiting for the rescue teams to arrive,” Halil Celik told Reuters as he stood beside the ruins of building that had collapsed before his eyes.

“All of a sudden, a quake tore down the building in front of me. All the bystanders, we all ran to the building and rescued two injured people from the ruins.”

At another site, three teenagers may still be trapped under a collapsed building. People clambered over the masonry, shouting: “Is there anyone there?”

Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute said the magnitude 7.2 earthquake  was three miles deep. It was among the strongest in Turkish history and the worst since 1999.

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Yesterday’s 5.8 earthquake, which originated in Virginia, shook buildings from uptown to Wall Street, where the Trump Tower was evacuated and closed for the afternoon.

Within weeks of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the quake also brought back unpleasant reminders of a city in crisis — tied-up phone lines, a lack of information and worries that the shaking might have been from a bomb.

Stockbroker John-Paul Yezzo said he immediately thought it was a terror strike.

“I was like, holy crap, hopefully this isn’t an attack,” he told Metro. “The immediate thought was 9/11. You can’t not think about it.”

Under his desk, he said, the floor was shaking. “There was panic in my office. You could see some terrified faces.”

“I wasn’t scared but I heard people saying they thought it was something like 9/11, since we’re so close to the anniversary,” said Gavin Singh, 31, who works on Wall Street.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced only two reports of damage, both minimal and both in Brooklyn: a partial collapse of a chimney and the other a damaged building on Fourth Avenue.

Safer in a high-rise?

Whether they were on the eighth floor or the 58th, many New Yorkers were terrified to be trapped inside high-rises during yesterday’s tremble.

But a modern high-rise may actually be safer than a smaller building, says Jerry Hajjar, chair of the engineering department at Northeastern University.

“High-rises are built to sway more on a regular basis due to wind,” said Hajjar. “Compared to an old two- or four-story masonry walk-up … those are much stiffer,” and more susceptible to damage from a quake, he said.

For example, a new 30-story building is designed to sway back and forth about 9 inches. It’s not uncommon for buildings taller than 50 stories to sway a few feet, he said. 

What to do if you’re in a high-rise

What to do if you’re in a high-rise and an earthquake hits?

“I would get under a desk so things don’t fall on you,” said Larry Brown, a Cornell University seismology professor. “Book cases, falling lamps, get away from those things.”

As far as fleeing the building itself, in a serious quake you likely won’t have time to get outside, said Brown, especially if you’re high up.

“You obviously don’t want to get in the elevator but it may not be a bad idea to go down the stairwell because stairwells are reinforced,” he said. “In an urban environment, you are actually safer inside than out because of falling glass.”

Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter @AlisonatMetro.

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After the magnitude 5.9 earthquake, Dominion Resources shut its North Anna Station nuclear power plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The company said there was no “major” damage but it wasn’t yet clear when it would be safe to restart the North Anna plant in Mineral, a town north of Richmond and about 83 miles from Washington.

Two reactors at the Mineral plant were stopped after a power outage, the NRC said. Diesel generators kicked in after the plant lost off-site power, a Dominion spokesman said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the town of Mineral was at the quake’s epicenter.

The plant shut down automatically and safely after the quake, and represents no danger to the public, the NRC said.

“The plants were designed for this kind of seismic event,” Dominion official David Heacock told CNN.

North Anna is an 1,806-megawatt power plant.

Dominion’s two-unit Surry plant in Gravel, Virginia, continued to operate normally.

Tuesday’s quake was felt along the East Coast as far north as Canada.

Nine other plants in the region between Virginia and New Jersey declared an “unusual event”, the lowest of the NRC’s emergency classification ratings, but all continued to operate at full power, including Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear plant located north of New York city.

There are 60 nuclear reactors operating along the Eastern Seaboard from Florida to New England.

Concerns have risen about nuclear plant preparedness since a massive March quake and tsunami in Japan crippled reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant and led to a meltdown.

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Seriously, when did our first instinct in the face of an emergency shift from “flee” to “tweet?” Luckily, this earthquake hasn’t proven to be too damaging so now we can laugh at all the amusing social networking updates for the rest of the day. Here are some of your first (and best) tweets after the earthquake.

@awkwrdlywrded: Earthquake? huh.. damn. thought the meds had finally kicked in..

@dorothyatmetro: Will Tweet later. Off looting!

@robdelaney: Did anyone I have a crush on’s husband or boyfriend die in the earthquake? DM me.

@maryps: This earthquake never would’ve happened if the president weren’t on vacation.

@Sn00ki: Waahhhhhhh

@sween: Either Toronto just had an earthquake or God set his phone to vibrate.

@pareene: I think Chris Christie just jumped into the race

@ziuqrd: Don’t buy into that East coast vs West coast earthquake stuff, unless you’re ready to rumble.

@YUCKYBOT: Text “You spilled your chai latte” to 90999 to donate $1 to the victims of the U.S. East Coast earthquake.

@Ledgr_Yankees: For future reference, Easterners, when the ground starts shaking. Put down the Twitter and get under a desk. Or find a doorway. Then tweet.

@pattonoswalt: Not to panic anyone in NYC, but a screaming John Cusack just drove by in a limo that was missing a door.

@giromide: Hurricane Irene has a posse.

@bazecraze: Weird. I don’t remember being *this* bad at Jenga.

@BlackCanseco: BREAKING: Republicans issue statement blaming the Virginia earthquake on Obama’s shaky leadership

More on the earthquake:

How New York reacted

How Boston reacted

How Philadelphia reacted

Experts in February predicted the east coast was past due for a major quake

The post Your best earthquake tweets appeared first on Metro.us.

No damage from Thursday’s quake was detected at the plant and NHK said workers had been evacuated without reports of any injuries.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage elsewhere but people in areas covered by the tsunami warning should evacuate to higher ground, Japan’s NHK public television said.

Japan is struggling to bring the Fukushima Daiichi plant under control after the March 11 quake and tsnumai, which killed, or left missing, about 28,000 people.

Japan’s neighbors have sounded increasingly alarmed over the risk of radiation from the plant, while tourists are staying away in what should be the peak season, and the country seeks ways to cut power use.

The world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years is also raising concern over safety in the United States, which has more atomic reactors than any other country, especially at one plant which is similar to the one in Fukushima wrecked by last month’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami.

Engineers, who sealed a leak this week that had allowed highly radioactive water into the sea, are pumping nitrogen into one reactor to prevent the risk of a hydrogen gas explosion, and want to start the process in another two reactors.

Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said late on Thursday it did not expect it would have to dump any more contaminated water into the ocean after Saturday.

Earlier, TEPCO said the chance of a repeat of the gas explosions that damaged two reactors in the first days of the disaster was "extremely small."

But as engineers battle multiple crises — some the result of efforts to try to cool reactors — officials admit it could take months to bring the reactors under control and years to clear up the toxic mess left behind at the plant 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

"Data shows the reactors are in a stable condition, but we are not out of the woods yet," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

The government has already set up a 20 km (12 miles) exclusion zone around the plant, banned fishing along much of the northeast coast and set up evacuation centers for the tens of thousands forced to leave their homes following the crisis.

Trace levels of radioactive material have been detected in the air in 22 Chinese provinces but the amounts did not pose a threat to health or the environment, China’s state news agency Xinhua said.

Earlier, China’s Health Ministry said traces of radioactivity in spinach had been found in three provinces.

In South Korea, some schools closed because parents were worried that rain could be toxic.

"We’ve sent out an official communication today that schools should try to refrain from outdoor activities," an education official in South Korea said.

South Korea’s nuclear safety agency reported a small level of radioactive iodine and cesium particles in rain but said it was not enough to be a health concern. The few schools that closed were expected to reopen on Friday if the rain stopped.

UPDATE: Tsunami warnings for the northeast coast of Japan issued after a strong earthquake late on Thursday have been lifted, NHK public television reported on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Mayumi Negishi and Chizu Nomiyama in Tokyo, Sui-lee Wee in Beijing, Roberta Rampton and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington, Scott DiSavino in New York, Jack Kim in Seoul and Fredrick Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Jonathan Thatcher and Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Japan’s NHK public television repeatedly said those in areas where the tsunami warnings were issued should evacuate to higher ground.

The post Japan hit by another earthquake appeared first on Metro.us.

The Red Cross: As in the wake of previous disasters, you can donate $10 to the Red Cross’ disaster relief by simply texting "REDCROSS" to 90999. (You will be prompted to send a second text confirming your donation.) You can also go to RedCross.org to donate additional amounts.

GlobalGiving: Charity network GlobalGiving has launched an earthquake relief fund. You can donate increments of $25 by going to GlobalGiving.org.

ShelterBox: British charity Shelterbox provides shelter and supplies to displaced or homeless victims. You can donate on the front page of their website.

AmeriCares: You can donate to international humanitarian aid organization AmeriCares’ Japan relief efforts on their website.

International Medical Corps: This international aid group offers not only medical care, but also food, water and sanitation to those who need it. On their website you can donate in $50 increments, and specify whether you want a one-time or a recurring donation.

Convoy of Hope: This nonprofit provides food and supplies to disaster areas. Donate on their website, or text "TSUNAMI" to 50555 to donate $10.

(via NewsFeed and NowPublic)

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