Extreme Flick Week: August Underground’s Penance - 2007

August Underground’s Penance

Director: Fred Vogel

2007

Extreme

By now we all know the premise of this film series. There are not much plot, handheld camera work and lots of death and torture, a faux snuff movie. I would like to say that this is by far the best of the three movies but it was too long ago that I saw the first film that I a hard time comparing them. But at least it’s a lot better than the previous August Underground’s Mordum!

It’s not as extreme as it’s predecessor but that’s really not a bad thing. It has a lot much dynamics which means that the gore scenes become more shocking since they’re not there all the time. The film also shows “normal” behaviour of the perpetrators and the contrast makes the extreme parts more shocking.

There is also a lot better picture quality here than before. Gone are the crappy VHS look and is replaced with a new more digitalized look. This means that you actually have a chance to see what’s going on. But since the camera work still is all over the place I guess you don’t see much anyway. But the gore you do see is very well made and looks as authentic as it could! You could say that instead of a crappy video camera we get a crappy digital camcorder.

I reckon that the fans of August Underground’s Mordum might find this a little bit stale as it’s nowhere near as extreme. But on the other hand, we who don’t think that Mordum is such a great flick might prefer this one. I know I do! I could never figure out what it’s all about though. Is this a trilogy designed to just shock and disgust or does it have some deeper meaning? We could debate about this forever I guess. Some people see it, most people don’t. To me it’s just about disturbed individuals who does just as they feel like without regret or remorse. It has some kind of anarchistic feel to it. Or perhaps a elitist point of view.

As it’s predecessors this is not a flick for everyone, but as soon as you read “extreme” on the top of the page you knew that right? It’s not necessarily a flick for me either but my curiosity is so great that I just had to give it a go. Not my kind of movie but still a decent one in its own genre!

6/10

Extreme Flick Week: August Underground’s Mordum - 2003

August Underground’s Mordum

Director(s):              

Jerami Cruise, Killjoy,

Michael Todd Schneider,

Fred Vogel, Cristie Whiles

2003

Extreme

As with the first part in this trilogy the plot is very shallow and concerns a couple of individuals’ killing- and rape spree. They stop at nothing to for fill their sexual desires including masturbating with a chopped off penis and raping a dead child! One would think that these things would be shocking beyond belief but that’s not entirely the case. Of course it’s disturbing but the whole movie is so hard to watch due to shaky handheld cameras anyway so when we come to the most disturbing part we’re already so tired of watching that we don’t have the energy to get revolted anyway.

Frankly, I had a difficult time staying awake and all the other times I’ve tried to watch it I had the same problem! It’s not disturbing in the right manner that’s for sure! If it were to shock me and make me feel sick (as I think the intention are) I wouldn’t have any problems keeping myself awake but this is just SO boring!

Comparing it to the first movie I would say that this is more extreme. But what’s the use if it doesn’t shock you? It’s hard seeing what’s happening and I doubt that a blu-ray edition would make anything any clearer. The whole point is to create an illusion of a crappy hand held camera and that illusion works great! That makes the picture quality one of the main problems and part of the reason why it’s so boring to watch.

From what I can work out the make-up effects are excellent though! That’s one of the better aspects of the movie. They were great in the first one and they are equally realistic here! So are the acting as well! The feeling of realism is the one true asset of the film and it’s nice to see such a low budget movie without crappy camera angels and lousy acting non realistic acting. How many times haven’t you seen great plots getting ruined by actors that couldn’t deliver a line if their life depended on it?

The bottom line is not very positive though. There are far more negative things to say than positive and the fact that I can’t stay awake for the 77 minutes speaks for itself. I don’t like this at all but I hope that the final part of the trilogy can make up for this!

2/10

Extreme Flick Week: August Underground - 2001

This review is based on one I wrote in Swedish 2005.

August Underground

Director: Fred Vogel

2001

Extreme

What would you do if you found a videotape with two men executing the most hideous crimes? Crimes that you imagination never even could come up with? If you found a tape with severe sexual assaults and torture, would that shock you? What if it contained Coprophagia and cannibalism? This is the journal of two men, their way of documenting their everyday life and the violent killings they do just for fun…

There’s only a handful flick more infamous than this one! I can’t really say if that’s because it’s kind of difficult to get by, at least on a legitimate DVD. I would imagine it’s a lot easier to find a downloadable version as this seems to be the way things are done these days, but what fun is it to own an illegal copy anyway? I think part of the truth is that this film is somewhat unique. It’s filmed in subjective mode and is really extreme! The rumor has it that Fred Vogel got the film taken away from him in the Canadian customs and that is cause him to spend ten hours of his life behind bars. And that he didn’t even get to take the film with him once he was released.

If I were to compare it with anything else I would use the Guinea Pig film The Devils Experiment. There is a lot better documentary feeling in this one though. There are very few things to give away that it’s actually fake and not for real! The picture quality is bad just as it would be if it were the real deal filmed by a mediocre video camera. The victims act like the really are about to die and the perpetrators seems to be totally mental fucked up! They are truly sadistic and get aroused by their innocent victims’ pleas for mercy and laughs in the victims’ faces. They are in total control and won’t let anything get in their way!

But even it’s a unique film we can still debate on how strong it really is. For an experienced film critic such as myself it’s really not that much of a big deal. I have seen too much violent and bizarre film to be totally shocked by this. In fact, it gets quite boring at times. There are too many scenes which don’t contribute to any uncomforting feelings at all that make it all lose pace. But that’s a paradox of sorts too! It’s just those scenes that make the illusion of reality so good! We get to follow the bad guys both when they kill sadistically and when they to the most trivial things. I think that a mainstream viewer would be really shocked of this and it’s an extreme movie; there is no doubt about that! The films tagline describes it pretty well too by the way – The Sickest Film Ever Made. It might not be completely true but it’ll still give you a hint on what you are about to see!

6/10