Danielnogo
I'm new here, but I just watched the August Underground series back to back to back, and I had to tell someone about it that wouldn't think I was a total freak for watching them.
Here are my thoughts on the "films":
If you haven't watched the movies, basically they are simulated home videos of 3 serial killers, torturing, maiming, gutting, raping, and humiliating victim after victim. That's basically all there is to them, there is however quite a bit of "filler" thrown in the movies, which I will touch on later in the review.
I read ALOT about these movies before I watched them, the more I read the more I was curious about them, and the more my fear level grew about them. When I decided to watch these movies, I expected to be shocked out of my wits. Did the movies succeed in doing this? Partly, mostly not.
I've seen most of the "video nasties", so I'm definitely not a rookie to this type of stuff, what sets these videos apart is the depth of depravity they are willing to go to shock.
As far as the first movie and mordum go:
The first movie, surprisingly, is rather tame IMO, it really isn't as bad as people make it seem like it will be. There's not much to it as far as gore, and the opening scene is the worst out of the whole movie.
Whenever they hit someone with a hammer, or punch someone, it looks incredibly fake, so fake that you immediately remember you are not watching a real movie. Have you seen 3 guys 1 hammer? When someone is hit with a hammer, it does massive damage to them, but this movie all it makes them do is bleed, with no visible wound to speak of.
In fact, this whole movie is full of gore cop outs if you ask me, the horrible camera quality seems like an excuse to be able to hide things from the viewer, and a lot is hidden, that if it were a real snuff film would be shown in much more graphic detail. This movies shock value is based more on the whole "idea" of what these people are doing rather than being based on the actual visual content.
Mordum is the same way, they really amped up the depravity in this movie, as far as simulated rape, puking all over people, having sex with wounds, etc. But I mean how hard is it to decide to to those lengths if you are not going to show details. Most of the gore effects are done with such a shaky camera, such terrible lighting, that you really can't tell whats going on.
They usually cut out before any killing blows are delivered, primarily IMO, because they aren't skilled enough to simulate killing blows on actual people with enough gore to be convincing. The one killing blow that is mildly convincing is when they gut a fat chick and pull her guts out. The problem is that it seems like she gains 30 lbs in between shots, this is because they obviously strap a prosthetic stomach to her, stuffed with blood and guts.
After all the hyper about these two movies, I was left feeling disappointed in a very morbid way, like I had invested all this mental energy getting the balls to watch these movies, only to find out all that matsy wasn't needed.
Another thing is all the ridiculous filler they put in these movies, I don't care about them going to the mall, or close up views of them eating french fries. These overlong sequences where they do absolutely nothing, completely killed any tension the opening scenes built up. They literally say nothing interesting, are not funny, and they are not likable people at all, yet they are not despicable enough to hate them, except when they are killing people, which could literally be boiled down to twenty minutes if you cut all of the filler out. With all the filler in these movies you will find yourself fast forwarding, and saying to yourself, "do something already."
Another thing about mordum is the terrible acting, the first movies acting somewhat works, because the actors knew when to hold back a little bit, not the case with mordum. Mordum is full of screaming and the characters getting mad at each other for literally no reason. They scream at each other more than their victims scream, it's completely unrealistic and over the top. Sometime you can even see their victims cracking smiles and trying not to laugh. Pitiful, pitiful acting.
The first two movies were rather lame IMO, if you want movies that show the gore much better than these two movies, try Cannibal Holocaust, Irreversible, and High Tension. Those are far superior movies, with better gore effects, greater tension build up, and no useless filler. The worst thing Mordum could really throw at me was a fake headless baby with maggots crawling all over it, it doesn't even look real. High tension had a guy getting a blowjob from a severed head, and cannibal holocaust had a rape involving a large stone, which is then used to bash the victims head in. Those two scenes are far more disturbing than anything August Underground 1 & 2 could throw at me.
Now let's talk about penance.
Penance discards the crappy video quality, a move I was much in favor of. The lighting is very good in every scene, and you can tell they put much more work into the gore. This movie is honestly what 1 & 2 should have been. It is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
While it does have about as much filler as the first one does, when this movie delivers the gore, it REALLY delivers the gore, in completely unflinching, jaw dropping detail. One of the scenes involves a gutting, and they pull the guts out of his stomach, and it's literally making little farting sounds because of the gasses being released from the wound in the stomach. It looks completely convincing. The also completely dismember bodies in this movie, something that was done in the first movie but not really shown, it is shown in detail in this movie.
They also invade a house and kill the whole family, including the daughter who looks like she's twelve years old. This was a really hard scene to watch, while they are choking her to death, they are opening her gifts, and showing her what she would have gotten for Christmas. It's very heartbreaking, and wrong on so many levels.
All in all, I rate these movies 3 out of 10, partly because there's not much to rate, there's so much filler in these movies, it makes it extremely boring. Some of the gore is decent, but for the seasoned gore hound, it's not really anything new, and its all been done better.
I think what disturbs people most about these movies is the spirit they are done in. They are very cruel movies, and it's like the writer just sits around thinking of what type of depravity he can film, for lack of better ideas. It's easy to think up horrible things to film, if you have the balls, it's harder to execute them perfectly. Penance came close, but 3 guys 1 hammer manages to disturb 50 times more than the entire series, and it's only like seven minutes long. That just goes to show that these movies aren't even close to reality.
All in all I felt like I wasted 3 hours of my life on something that wasn't really that shocking.
Here are my thoughts on the "films":
If you haven't watched the movies, basically they are simulated home videos of 3 serial killers, torturing, maiming, gutting, raping, and humiliating victim after victim. That's basically all there is to them, there is however quite a bit of "filler" thrown in the movies, which I will touch on later in the review.
I read ALOT about these movies before I watched them, the more I read the more I was curious about them, and the more my fear level grew about them. When I decided to watch these movies, I expected to be shocked out of my wits. Did the movies succeed in doing this? Partly, mostly not.
I've seen most of the "video nasties", so I'm definitely not a rookie to this type of stuff, what sets these videos apart is the depth of depravity they are willing to go to shock.
As far as the first movie and mordum go:
The first movie, surprisingly, is rather tame IMO, it really isn't as bad as people make it seem like it will be. There's not much to it as far as gore, and the opening scene is the worst out of the whole movie.
Whenever they hit someone with a hammer, or punch someone, it looks incredibly fake, so fake that you immediately remember you are not watching a real movie. Have you seen 3 guys 1 hammer? When someone is hit with a hammer, it does massive damage to them, but this movie all it makes them do is bleed, with no visible wound to speak of.
In fact, this whole movie is full of gore cop outs if you ask me, the horrible camera quality seems like an excuse to be able to hide things from the viewer, and a lot is hidden, that if it were a real snuff film would be shown in much more graphic detail. This movies shock value is based more on the whole "idea" of what these people are doing rather than being based on the actual visual content.
Mordum is the same way, they really amped up the depravity in this movie, as far as simulated rape, puking all over people, having sex with wounds, etc. But I mean how hard is it to decide to to those lengths if you are not going to show details. Most of the gore effects are done with such a shaky camera, such terrible lighting, that you really can't tell whats going on.
They usually cut out before any killing blows are delivered, primarily IMO, because they aren't skilled enough to simulate killing blows on actual people with enough gore to be convincing. The one killing blow that is mildly convincing is when they gut a fat chick and pull her guts out. The problem is that it seems like she gains 30 lbs in between shots, this is because they obviously strap a prosthetic stomach to her, stuffed with blood and guts.
After all the hyper about these two movies, I was left feeling disappointed in a very morbid way, like I had invested all this mental energy getting the balls to watch these movies, only to find out all that matsy wasn't needed.
Another thing is all the ridiculous filler they put in these movies, I don't care about them going to the mall, or close up views of them eating french fries. These overlong sequences where they do absolutely nothing, completely killed any tension the opening scenes built up. They literally say nothing interesting, are not funny, and they are not likable people at all, yet they are not despicable enough to hate them, except when they are killing people, which could literally be boiled down to twenty minutes if you cut all of the filler out. With all the filler in these movies you will find yourself fast forwarding, and saying to yourself, "do something already."
Another thing about mordum is the terrible acting, the first movies acting somewhat works, because the actors knew when to hold back a little bit, not the case with mordum. Mordum is full of screaming and the characters getting mad at each other for literally no reason. They scream at each other more than their victims scream, it's completely unrealistic and over the top. Sometime you can even see their victims cracking smiles and trying not to laugh. Pitiful, pitiful acting.
The first two movies were rather lame IMO, if you want movies that show the gore much better than these two movies, try Cannibal Holocaust, Irreversible, and High Tension. Those are far superior movies, with better gore effects, greater tension build up, and no useless filler. The worst thing Mordum could really throw at me was a fake headless baby with maggots crawling all over it, it doesn't even look real. High tension had a guy getting a blowjob from a severed head, and cannibal holocaust had a rape involving a large stone, which is then used to bash the victims head in. Those two scenes are far more disturbing than anything August Underground 1 & 2 could throw at me.
Now let's talk about penance.
Penance discards the crappy video quality, a move I was much in favor of. The lighting is very good in every scene, and you can tell they put much more work into the gore. This movie is honestly what 1 & 2 should have been. It is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
While it does have about as much filler as the first one does, when this movie delivers the gore, it REALLY delivers the gore, in completely unflinching, jaw dropping detail. One of the scenes involves a gutting, and they pull the guts out of his stomach, and it's literally making little farting sounds because of the gasses being released from the wound in the stomach. It looks completely convincing. The also completely dismember bodies in this movie, something that was done in the first movie but not really shown, it is shown in detail in this movie.
They also invade a house and kill the whole family, including the daughter who looks like she's twelve years old. This was a really hard scene to watch, while they are choking her to death, they are opening her gifts, and showing her what she would have gotten for Christmas. It's very heartbreaking, and wrong on so many levels.
All in all, I rate these movies 3 out of 10, partly because there's not much to rate, there's so much filler in these movies, it makes it extremely boring. Some of the gore is decent, but for the seasoned gore hound, it's not really anything new, and its all been done better.
I think what disturbs people most about these movies is the spirit they are done in. They are very cruel movies, and it's like the writer just sits around thinking of what type of depravity he can film, for lack of better ideas. It's easy to think up horrible things to film, if you have the balls, it's harder to execute them perfectly. Penance came close, but 3 guys 1 hammer manages to disturb 50 times more than the entire series, and it's only like seven minutes long. That just goes to show that these movies aren't even close to reality.
All in all I felt like I wasted 3 hours of my life on something that wasn't really that shocking.