Penance (2009)

Absolutely Fantastic

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Amelia (Marieh Delfino) reluctantly becomes a stripper when her daughter Asher gets a disease. She is in defiance of numerous laws by not having insurance and doesn't even apply for CHIP...okay it's fictional. She is not comfortable as a stripper and subs for Sassy/Suzie (Eve Mauro) for big money. IT'S A TRAP!!!! The place is run by a guy crazy about purity. He reminded me of an evil General Jack. D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden Dr. Strangelove) who denied women his "essence." They worked really hard trying to figure out out to get strippers into a found footage film. Thanks for the boobies, but overall the film wasn't that entertaining. The torture scenes were either off camera or blocked. Girls dancing without music doesn't make it. And what was with the Nazi Nurse Ratchet? F-word and nudity ( Marieh Delfino, Eve Mauro, Morann Peri, Katherine Randolph, Sita Young )

The movie is off to a bad start with the new wave horror cliché of being shot on hand-held camera, this is by no means a bad thing if it is done correctly such as the infamous "Blair witch project" and "Cloverfield", however in the case of penance it feels like this was done to save money and not add atmosphere or a sense of realism to the movie (if it did it was lost on me). But the cliché doesn't stop there, everything in the movie seems to have some overused explanation or have a means of tribute to other horror movies; This begins with the main character (Marieh Delfino) taking up stripping as for providing for her young child (as seen in striptease and a subplot in independence day), this tries crudely to justify the need to show her topless from the first five minutes of the movie (the justification for why some guy has to film her on his camera has an even worse explanation), quite honestly the sex appeal was pretty much the reason for me continuing to watch this movie. Secondly comes the cameos of both Tony Todd and Michael Rooker, Todd established himself as a respectable horror movie actor with his performance in the cult (if you like) classic "Candyman" and making further cameos in other horror movies such as in final destination 1&2, Michael Rooker who appears as semi-main characters or occasional villains had an unnecessary and wasted role as a character who does nothing but shoot prostitutes. Finally comes Graham McTavish who if the hobbit boosts his carer he will no doubt regret doing this movie and possibly the most disturbing scene in any movie ever where the word castration falls only too short. Next is the justification Graham McTavish's character has for kidnapping, holding and torturing prostitutes, the ever famous and over used justification of being in some extreme Christian cult (seen in devil rides out, blood on Satan's claw and witch finder general, not bad movies) of which his means is redemption, the justification of his three helpers are never fully explained and are seemingly just along for the ride, the torture methods used include; whipping (topless of course), beatings, verbal abuse and genital mutilation, admittedly McTavish plays a sinister religious zealot and is the sole reason for the movie not being a complete failure. Another feature which could be pointed out to give the movie some credibility is that you get what you see "torture porn" and doesn't seem like the kind of movie which takes itself seriously. Finally in the cliché agenda is the typical sub-tag-line of "based on true events", whether this case was (if it was I assume it was over- exaggerated, at least I hope so) or wasn't it just seemed like a good way to get a horror movie with a LOT of sex appeal and justify lack of story with this sub-tag-line, it is also suggested that Graham McTavish's character was based on a real person who performed many female genital mutilations (I'm unclear to whether this is true or who it is. Either way the whole movie seems too far-fetched to be based on true events especially the religious undertone. The conclusion of this movie is that it seems like a chance to explore excessive amounts of nudity and torture, what saves this movie from being among the worst is that the acting is mediocre and not horrible, the scripting is nothing special but there is far worse, finally there is no one in this movie who could be classed as a "bad actor or actress" and to be fair you lose concentration on such matters with such high sex appeal of which previously stated is the only thing which keeps interest there is not much else that can be said for this movie if your into torture porn this is a must-see but otherwise not a movie to go out of your way to watch, and definitely not for the squeamish.

Filling in for a friend on a stripping job, a young woman finds she's captured by a deranged madman intended to purify similar women for their sins and is tortured to achieve those results.Yet another utterly retarded Torture Film here, only this one made all the more infuriated with the inclusion of the "Found Footage" moniker, so it's pretty much what would happen if "Paranormal Activity" did the "Saw" series, and that only spells disaster for all involved due to the inability to see anything going on because the camera's shaking too much. The tactic makes the usual point of such films, watching the torture methods and the abundant nudity nearly impossible to determine because of the inane manner of narrating over everything, twisting it to odd angles or positions in order to avoid being caught in such a precarious moment, which only highlights the film's biggest blunder of all in the fact that no one in their right mind would be filming during such activities and their decided inability to remove it from them to begin with and you have a pretty egregious set of flaws just from the set-up. Plus, this is yet another effort that must be downgraded for the inclusion of twisted religious reasoning since this makes no sense why the tactics must be undertaken and you have absolutely no interest beyond the nudity to watch this, which isn't that great since none of the ones who should are the ones that do. Granted, some of the torture methods are quite gruesome and bloody, overall this is a pure waste of time.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and Graphic Language.

I'm as sick and tired of predictable torture flicks and found footage films as the next horror fan, and so Penance—which 'cleverly' combines these two tired sub-genres to create the 'found torture footage' sub-sub-genre—hardly sounded like it was going to deliver much of interest to this particular jaded viewer.Indeed, after just a few minutes of wobbly Blair Witch-style nonsense, during which attractive young mother Amelia Wallis (Marieh Delfino) prattles in front of a video camera about her love of Topanga Canyon, her job at a centre for battered women, and her daughter, I was itching to switch off. But what I had forgotten about was the power of a fit bird in the raw to make almost anything worthwhile...As part of her audition tape for a TV game-show, the usually reserved Amelia agrees to help her stripper pal Suzie (Eve Mauro) entertain a group of stags at a party; let's just say that this girl was built to strip! From that moment on, Penance becomes pure trash entertainment: after Suzie is given a black eye by a customer, Amelia reluctantly stands in for her friend on a highly paid job for a special client, a decision that results in the poor girl's incarceration at a disused asylum where she is subjected to torture by Geeves, a religious zealot who has dedicated his life to purifying the souls of strippers. Cue lots of gratuitous nudity, pointless cameos from horror icons, dumb plot development, vaginal mutilation, self-castration, and more nudity.Penance's use of the found footage gimmick is totally implausible, the story painfully dumb, the supposedly tense action absolutely laughable, and the violence disappointing (although nasty in concept, the gore is not that graphic), but Marieh Delfino kept me entertained throughout, albeit on the most basic of levels. In fact, it makes me wonder if I would have enjoyed The Blair Witch Project more if Heather Donahue had only thrown caution to the wind and flipped out her norks....