August Underground's PENANCE

By Jimmy Squarejaw
The honeymoon is just beginning for these two lovebirds.  After the batshit insanity of MORDUM, the AUGUST UNDERGROUND trilogy rounds itself out with a touching look at the budding relationship between the main killer, Fred Vogel, and his new squeeze.  But just like in real life they start to drive each other insane and the love story told in PENANCE quickly gets a little wacky.

The beginning of PENANCE is a collage of the good times between these two lunatics.  Just like all idiots in love, they are walking around and showing signs adornment to one in other in the likes of squeezing ketchup on the street, trying on wigs, making silly faces, and providing illustrious comments as they walk around whatever town they happen to be in.  For me this shit is nauseating and I’m sure it would annoy anyone walking near them.  The occasional torturous murder is thrown into the early part of the movie just to let us know that yes they are still psychotic killers.  Eventually during the disembowelment of a poor soul we get our first hint that not everything is well in murderland when Fred gets a little pissed when his ol’ lady is poking a little fun at him.  It’s as if he took a note from my life when he quickly responds, “SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACE.”  Unlike my life however, the scenario doesn’t escalate to his girlfriend calling the police and her fuckin’ mother to cry about me.  Whatever. 

The killer duo end up at a party complete with drugs, booze, good friends, and a shit load of aquariums-one of which contains a lil’ alligator.  Taking a cue from real idiots in love that have no relationship future, the duo sneak off to get it on in a skuzzy looking bathroom but another clue that not all is well comes to light; all of the sudden big Mr. Killer is having a hard time getting it up and in.  They make pills for that and back out in the living room the group of partiers feed a gigantic rat to the alligator and that bummed me out quite a bit. 

My favorite scene of PENANCE, and possibly the whole series comes next.  It’s now Christmas time and the killers linger around a decorated house peeking in the windows and giggling. Soon Fred knocks on the door and flips quickly around to hide his masked face.  The paternal head of the household answers and gets promptly fucked in the skull by, the now trademark method of death in the AUGUST UNDERGROUND series, a hammer.  After he hits the ground like he just got smashed in the fucking face with a hammer the lovebirds get the wife and kill her too, leading to the male killer disrobing the now deceased wife and he rapes her.  An interesting plot point to me that his girlfriend is totally fine and gets turned on by watching her man kill and rape chicks, but alas Fred again cannot maintain an erection and flips out a little.  After the complete insanity and over-the-top scenes in MORDUM, this scene brings the series back to a grim reality setup in the first AUGUST UNDERGROUND that is truly dark!  To make it worse a damn kid comes running down the steps to see what all the commotion is only to be killed next to her dead, nude, and raped Mother.  She must have made the good girl list this year because she is on her way up to Jesus, but at least in heaven the kid doesn’t have to deal with re-runs of Rudolph and Jingle All the Way anymore.

The two killers start disintegrating as functional people that was alluded to earlier in the movie.  They both start looking beat to hell, screaming at each other and Fred turns to the bottle pretty hard in some scenes.  Finally the girlfriend gets pissed at the fact that her man was molesting a tied up chick and kills her out of jealousy.  Chicks are all the same aren’t they?!?  As always I don’t like to give away the ending or all of the scenes so people can still be surprised if they watch it.  But I will say, as with the other two movies in the AUGUST UNDERGROUND trilogy, PENACE is awesome.  It’s a great watch, interesting scenes that work well as a composition shot on video, and the story of the two killers trying to maintain a relationship is a great route for the series to take without fucking up the ingredients that made the previous two great.  I didn’t talk too much about the fucking brutality of this film nor do I want to go back and write anymore so I assure you it is intense and will not disappoint.

Blake and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!

Realistic Gore: 5 out of 5, nutso gore scenes!

Rape: 5 out of 5, they cover the dead, the living AND spousal rape. 

Animal Death: 3 out of 5, the rat bummed me out! 

Necrophilia: 3 out of 5, a few of the ladies were dead but at least not decomposed.

Torture: 5 out of 5, pretty intense scenes on this one.

Overall Movie: 5 out of 5, the trilogy is classic.  Please get it.