August Underground's PENANCE Review

Wow...just wow!  Here i go again looking for that movie that's going to truly disturb me.  After watching August Underground's Mordum (my review Here), I thought it wouldn't get any worse.  That is until I found out Mordum has a sequel that gos even farther.  Say hello to August Underground's Penance!

I wont go into too much detail about how this movie plays out (read my review for Mordum).  In short the movie is just basically random home movie snuff film with shaky camera and all.
Filmed on digital video (same as the previous 2 movies), but not visually altered to look like an old rough VHS tape like the other 2 movies where.  This means you get to see every gory detail much clearer.

Oh and what gory detail it is!  This movie will make even the most hardened of gore hounds feel uneasy.  We have in this one murder, rape, sodomy, necrophilia, child killing, gut pulling, animal violence, and tons more.  This is one sick fucking movie! Freddy V. and “Crusty” play the happy couple chronicling everything from the mundane to the horrific and everything in between. Their sick “love” takes them further and further into depravity and darkness until we start to see an unraveling of their emotions and the breakdown of their wills. All of this depreciation of mind, body and spirit turns them against one another. He begins to abuse her after she loses it and begins to sob uncontrollably and he has no idea how to console her. In turn, she begins to seethe hate for him.  You see more into the killers and realize who they are. They share things together like fireworks. He paints “I <3 U” on the ground in ketchup. You can see that there is a definite bond there but it is not healthy. When that bond deteriorates we begin to hear things like her screaming, “You’re just like your fucking dad!” as he abuses her off-camera. We also see her need for something that she is missing in her life as she fucks a random guy in the bathroom in one scene. And in another, she acts like a little girl opening Christmas presents.

I almost get pushed over the edge in Mordum where a guy screws the dead rotting body of a 10 year old girl while the girl behind the camera says "you don't have to worry about growing up anymore sweetie".  Penance takes it to another level.  One sequence which takes place during Christmas makes the home invasion scene in “Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer” appear laughable in comparison! We follow the murderers in a random household where they rape and murder the family members, in a sequence that stroked my inner misanthrope, and almost went too far. The viewer will be in amazement at the utter audacity of this sequence shot behind a Christmas backdrop complete with a tree and gifts. During this particular sequence, after the father and mother are out of the way, and while Whiles’ character strangles the young daughter, Vogel’s character (from behind the camera) taunts “Make her open some gifts.” What increases the viciousness of the situation is what the camera man says when the female killer strangles the little girl to death -- “I want to see the life go. I want to see the life go.” This will not be easily forgotten.

A second sequence contained a disembowelment more extreme than anything you have ever been witness to. This sequence will be the forerunner for any film making attempts at one-upping the “August Underground” series as this went far and beyond the gruesome reality that the previous films presented the viewer. Try not to cringe when some sort of organ gets ruptured during the procedure and gastric air bubbles spurt from beneath the viscera.

So then we come to the animal death.  First up is a scene where a pet caged baby alligator is fed a live rat and another scene where a deer is chopped up and fed to a lion.  Deep down none of this is really near as bad as the animal violence in movies like Cannibal Holocaust.

I was a little grossed out but doing fine until the home invasion scene came.  Right after that scene is over we get a nice close up of a guys dick.  That's where i stopped for the night.  Knowing I was going to do this review and the fact that a review doesn't mean shit unless you finish the movie I continued to pull on.  More torture and gore came before me and after the home invasion scene i thought Id seen the worse this movie has to offer, but i was wrong.  One scene shows a dead pregnant mother with her fetus torn from her stomach while the guy that did it screams "LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!". 

Overall: All I have to say is one thing. HOLY FUCKING SHIT! This is a journey threw hell if I ever saw one. It actually had to finish this in two sittings.  Even if someone claims to of seen the worse of the worse but hasn't seen this is full of shit.  This movie is it!  This is the one that made me feel uneasy and dirty and makes me question myself and why I'm watching this.  This is the last movie in the August Underground trilogy.  The effects are super realistic and the acting once again is way to well done.  Both make this seem even more realistic.  There was times where i forgot I was watching a movie and thought I was watching something real.

Now that i found something that truly disturbed me, I feel my quest will take me into a new direction.  Now its going to turn into "Can I find a movie that disturbed me more than Penance?"  Who knows if I will.  After this movie i need to take a break from this kinda madness.  Finding other movies that are disturbing like Snuff 102 and Philosophy of a Knife, I fear my quest isn't over.  This movie really hit me hard and I can't help but respect it for that.  My quest is over....for now.

If anyone knows anything that's weird or disturbing let me know and ill do a review for it.

August Underground's Mordum Review

Cover Art

As many of you know I'm on my quest to find the most disturbing thing around and get so disturbed i cant watch it or play it (if its a game) anymore. People ask me if there is anything Ive seen that was too much for me and Ive said "so far....no". Trust me when i tell you Ive already seen things that make Eli Roth's Hostel look like Alice in Wonderland. I'm no stranger to the disturbing. When i heard about this "little gem" i thought to myself "could I have found the one?" The "movie" is basically a recreation of a snuff film. Also hearing that other reviewers could only take it in 15 minute chunks and the director had his box of DVDs taken from him by Canada customs to see if it was real. Will this be the THE ONE?

Theres really no story or plot other than an incestuous brother and sister team up with the killer from the first August Underground (which i haven't seen). The whole movie is filmed randomized home movie style (think Hogwash but vile). No fancy camera work. It's pretty much them holding the camera capturing every moment of their rage.


What we basically have here is a 77 minute assault on the senses. It seems nothing is held back. Here we have: murder, incest, rape, torture, sodomy, castration, cutting, gutting, necrophilia, and so much more. In one moment of utter nastiness, a woman and her boyfriend are dragged out of the makeshift coffins they have been bound and gagged in. The woman is raped, while the young man is forced to sever his own penis, (very slowly) with a very tiny pair of scissors. After his penis is detached, one of our killers picks it up, performs a bit of faux felatio on it and then proceeds to use the severed penis to masturbate the young man's girlfriend with. Another time they stumble onto a rotting babies torso and started to eat the maggots off of it. Also we have a long drawn out torture scene where the girl pukes her victims (sometimes in their mouth) and they start puking.


Lets not forget the scene where a woman is psychically abused, has her stomach cut open, gets her insides pulled out and then one of the guys viciously fucks her in her exposed open stomach. Lastly the scene where one of the characters is having sex with the dead rotting body of a young girl (looks like 10) all while the girl behind the camera says to the dead girl "Sweetie....you don't have to worry about growing up anymore".

Throughout the whole thing the group reacts with complete laughing, screaming, hysteria, and erupting in random outburst of rage. It's these acts that make it every bit as disturbing as the acts the group commits. These people are not a methodical or organized gang of killers, but a fragile mess whose only reaction to the world is violence. There is no method to their madness and you as the viewer will have no idea what they will inflict on you next. It's one unnerving experience.


Adding to this violently emotional gauntlet is the visual impact of the dizzying handheld camerawork. Combined with the nauseating subject matter this is sure to inspire a more severe visceral reaction than did The Blair Witch Project’s over hyped cinematography. The gritty videotape roves through the action wildly, closing in on all gruesome details with rabid attention, and scene cuts are often as swift and random as the acts themselves. The props and gore effects are disturbingly convincing, and the plethora of maggots and repeated scenes of necrophilia are sure to provoke some degree of gut-level response. (It should be noted that while genitalia and sex acts are caught on camera, there is no explicit penetration in a hardcore XXX sense.) And it has to be said that the bonus post-credits footage sums the entire feature up quite admirably in a single short scene.




Worth the controversy?: Almost a HELL YES! This came damn close to truly disturbing me. The scene with the dead 10 year old girl ALMOST got me. While other movies have tried to recreate the snuff film, nobody has done it this well. Last movie i saw like that was Devil's Experiment. While that movie was disturbing in its own right, the effects came off as phony and the whole thing had a slight stench of cheese. Everything here is gritty and realistic. This movie i heard only had a $300 budget.....WOW. The acting is shockingly well done (almost too well done) and the effects are amazingly realistic. I guess that's expected as the director instructed classes at Tom Savini's make up effects school.

Overall: So is it actually a good movie? I'd say yes. While it is truly disturbing, I say its good because it succeeds at what it set out to do...SHOCK. To say i actually enjoyed it would be kinda misleading. The kills aren't going to give you the HELL YEAH reaction like they would in a Friday the 13th movie. This isn't the type of movie that's going to get repeat viewings. This is more of a feed your curiosity and then move on. This is about as close as your going to get to watching a snuff film without watching the real thing. Would i recommend it? Only if your the type of person (like me) who has to see it all. To be honest....the most nauseating thing about this movie was the camera work. So on a final note id like to say that this movie came damn close to pushing me over the edge but not quite. Nice try. I'm still on my quest to find that movie or game that will truly disgust and repulse me. Sadly i feel I'm so numb to these things that it will be a lost cause. I guess the search gos on!


Anyone has ideas for something to watch or play thats disturbing or just plain wierd that they would like me to review......let me know and ill do it!

RapeLay Review

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