August Underground’s Penance – 2007
By now we all know the premise of the August Underground film series. There isn’t much plot, handheld camera work, and lots of death and torture, a faux snuff movie. August Underground’s Penance is the last(?) installment in the series. I would like to say August Underground’s Penance is by far the best of the three movies but it was too long ago that I saw the first film so I have a hard time comparing them. But at least it’s a lot better than the previous August Underground’s Mordum! That’s my opinion anyway.
It’s not as extreme as its 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” behavior of the perpetrators and the contrast makes the extreme parts more shocking.
Authentic looking gore
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, but most people don’t. To me, it’s just about disturbed individuals who do just as they feel without regret or remorse. It has some kind of anarchistic feel to it. Or perhaps an elitist point of view.
Not for everyone
As its predecessors, this is not a flick for everyone, but as soon as you read “extreme” on the top of the page you know 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!
