August Underground's Penance (2007)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Purely Joyful Movie!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Don't know why I'm just now getting around to giving my thoughts on AUGUST UNDERGROUND'S PENANCE - I watched it quite a while ago, and typically try to give my 2 cents shortly after viewing. I guess it didn't make that much of an impression on me, though honestly - I'm not surprised about that. I'm not a real big fan of this series (or the fake-snuff genre in general...) - but I like to keep up on the latest "shock" films out there, so of course I had to give this one a whirl too...If you've seen the other AU films - PENANCE is much of the same: Guy and girl "serial killers" graphically murder people and then do a whole bunch of boring sh!t - all captured on their cam-corder.Compared to the other two AU films, I liked (and I use the term "liked" quite loosely...) PENANCE more than the first AU film, and less than MORDUM. There were a few elements to PENANCE that were a bit stronger than AU (the "downward spiral" of the main characters in this entry particularly), but it lacked the gleeful and almost cartoonish violence of MORDUM which made that entry notable. If you're a fan of the other entries in the series, then I'm pretty sure you'll dig this one too. If not, then skip it - the material has been handled pretty much the same way in the other two films...5/10

To call this crap as a Horror or gore or even as a movie is an insult to those words it is a video recorded by amateurish avoidable actors the video has no plot or storyline we are subjected to watch two sadomasochistic serial killers on their achievements through their video recording of victim's torture i have watched many super bad psychopathic horror movies but none could conquer the number one super bad movie spot in my list as this one doespros:nothing to findcons:everything from camera,acting,background score and screenplayif u want to have a instant headache and nausea please do watch the first 10 minutes of this super duper over hyped horror crap,the camera keeps on rotating and changing its angle everywhere giving u what u wanted.Puleezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,don't believe the over hyped horror or in your face gore present in this video(i cant call this a film) spread out by some of the reviewers in netinstead watch movies like salo or ichi the killer if u desperately looking for some ultra violent movies avoid this at any cost

August Underground: Penance both sequentially and quality wise comes in third within the faux snuff video series (and I say series not trilogy simply because I know it in my gut that another one will follow in the future most likely out of necessity.) The digital video is clear this go around as opposed to the previous entries which sought to recreate the degraded bootleg VHS aesthetic. In all reality, the budget wasn't there for even average quality digital video hence the artistic reasoning behind the video's look. Reading previous reviews inspired my need to clarify some points. First, TTP has a loyal following who attempt to spread the sickness as it were, but the rest of the civilized world isn't buying the mantra or the videos for that matter. These non-conforming conformists worship at the altar of Vogel and his crew therefore the reviews are incredibly skewed as such.I bought the previous two videos and each one brought something new to the table. The first seven minutes of August Underground seemed interminable for all of the right reasons as any good horror video should feel. August Underground: Mordum brought the gory excess to a new level, but its major drawback was the excessive rantings and ravings of its participants. Participants rather than actors, because in the scenes that required emoting you can easily tell the limits of such were very small as opposed to the moral ones which were non existent, in all actuality. Penance suffers greatly from this huge shortcoming since it is essentially a two character study of derangement.Another glaring weakness of Penance is the insistence to continue the home video footage look rather than a cohesive narrative structure with steadicam shots. Penance gives the viewer headaches not only visually but also conceptually. You would think the depravities shown in the third and final video in a faux snuff series would be taken to Mephistophilian levels unseen before within the gorenography genre, but this is just not the case here. Real animal death and dismemberment? Done to incredibly superior effect in "Cannibal Holocuast." Child murder? This was done even better within its own series in Mordum. Fetal death? This centerpiece of shock was undermined by the utter lack imagination within the scene. There was no build up to the moment. The camera did not follow the mother around a store as she shopped for her baby. It didn't portray her absolute joy about this time in her life nor did it display her horror during her final moments as she realized the impending end to both her own and her unborn child's life. It seems Vogel and company simply ran out of ideas which is shocking considering the repugnant reputation we are dealing with.The whole supposed finale has the feel of a quick dash for cash rather than a true artistic conclusion about the faux snuff phenomena the series explored. Perhaps in this way it truly is a throwback to the exploitation films of yore.

The scariest and most disturbing thing about "August Underground's Penance" is that Fred Vogel and his team of no-talents deemed what they'd shot worthy of release. This is a tedious, protracted, poorly photographed piece of video age masturbation about two losers (a male and female) who waste their lives indulging in psychotic behavior. Unfortunately, that psychotic behavior is boring and not fit for the most amateurish of home movies. There is some gore and ugly nudity, and an alligator eats a live mouse, but none of this redeems the endless, directionless, vertigo-inducing scenes of pseudo-shock that make up this rotten failure. There are no characters, there is no story, the Killers' POV perspective is now clichéd and done to death, and the ultra-shaky camera-work just further illustrates the lack of intelligence and talent behind this abortion. If I ever have to watch another Fred Vogel piece of anti-cinema, I'll poke my eyes out and puncture my ear drums. As penance for making this crap, the filmmakers should refrain from touching a camera for the next one hundred years.