Norman Rockwell Mashups Vol. 1

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.

Fred Vogel's AUGUST UNDERGROUND

By Jimmy Squarejaw

One of the most dividing genres in horror is the “found footage” and “caught on camera” flick.  You can polarize a group of people at the mere mention of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or V/H/S and then watch how everyone takes a side, draws a line in the sand, and starts bitching at one another worse than Fox News supporters arguing with liberals.  One film and film series you don’t hear a lot about on major horror sites and top 10 lists is Fred Vogel’s AUGUST UNDERGROUND trilogy, the first of which got released in 2001-ish. 

AUGUST UNDERGROUND is about the exploits of two nameless killers, one of which is director Fred Vogel, going on a killing spree.  The beginning sets the tone immediately when the two killers go down into the basement of “Fred’s” house.  Other than a ton of porn glued and taped all over the walls and strewn across the floor, we find that they have a naked hostage duct taped to a chair, and her nipple is cut off.  We get the impression that these two are pretty comfortable in the situation and allude that they’ve done this before.  After torturing and degrading her for a bit they head on out and film their day to day tom foolery that includes a lot of the word "dude" and a lot of giggling.  The killers are your average white males in their early twenties that don’t have shit to do on a daily basis except turn their hats backwards, masturbate to Tomb Raider and drink Rockstar Energy drinks, and that makes them a little more creepy to me than a steroid pumped killer in a hockey mask but not as creepy as a football player from Steubenville, Ohio .

Soon they pickup a hitchhiker that doesn’t have a problem being frumpy or doing sexual favors for money and beat her to death.  Throw in a clip of one of there dogs who took a crap then it’s back to the basement where Fred is sawing apart a body in a bathtub, gagging on the horrible smell of his viscera.  After he pukes a bit Fred brings over body parts to the tied up girl and makes fun of the fact that they killed her boyfriend and wave his severed hand and foot in front of his face laughing their asses off all the while.  If they think that's funny wait til' they watch WEDDING CRASHERS starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn!  

The next outing the duo go on is at a rec hall with live music by a terrible band that covers Korn.  Shows you that there is shit to do in their town because the hall is packed with pookah shell necklaces, backwards hats, spitfire shirts and girls wearing Gap and Old Navy clothing.  Looks like I should’ve covered Korn instead of Blink 182 in my late 90’s early 2000’s band because we never played to anyone, but I digress. 

The duo go on more outings and kill more people taking time out of their schedules to visit an Amish part of Pennsylvania with a gift shop that has a gigantic model town built in it, a slaughterhouse where they talk about putting fingers in pig butts, and a church garden where they do an obligatory “have you seen my keys” joke next to a statue of a biblical figure.  I love all of these scenes because when the carnage starts happening you have a little insight into the motiveless intentions of their killings and the inane lives they lead. It’s very real and in my opinion very feasible that bumps on the log like the two killers really exist out there. 

AUGUST UNDERGROUND finishes off with a trip to the tattoo parlor/comicbook store and then the duo hiring overweight ebony and ivory prostitutes.  Both of these situations end badly to say the least.  In these scenes I really appreciate Fred’s character because we see him really snap a few times contradicting his usual giggling and bro-isms.   From the beginning to the end he noticeably gets more and more unhinged during the killings. 

This is a great movie and anyone who likes extreme movies has probably seen at least one of the AUGUST UNDERGROUND trilogy.  The film is gritty, the special effects are disgusting looking and as a joke if you sent this to a country bumpkin sheriff department it would probably be taken pretty seriously as a snuff film.  There isn’t a fake feeling in this movie and I can’t really catch any moments in it that make me think I’m watching a movie not something real.  I highly recommend getting these to everyone!

Blake and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!

Violence:  I’d go 4 out of 5, it’s really violent, but the sequel MORDUM sets the bar one step higher!

Torture:  3 out of 5, not really a torture movie in my opinion because these guys like to kill.  But shit mashed into a cut open boob is pretty torturous.

Rape: 2 out of 5, some molesting and pushing faces into butts, but not full on rape…….sequels however.

Animal Death:  1 out of 5, no animal death but the one scene in the slaughterhouse is sad.
Overall Movie:  5 out of 5, classic!

August Underground's Mordum

AUGUST UNDERGROUND: MORDUM
Review by Blake Redding

WARNING

All movies reviewed for SUNDAY SNUFF contain graphic depictions that may include rape, live animals being murdered, and extreme gore.  None of the writers condone such acts we just watch this shit.

A trio of psychopaths goes on a violent crime spree and films the whole thing. The group consists of two guys and a girl, caught up in a fucked up love triangle. It’s fucked up because one of the guys is the girl’s brother. Apparently incest IS best! The plot is simple, because basically there is no plot. Just a lot of scenes of rape, torture, murder, and even a little necrophilia mixed in for added vomit inducing fun. Hold on to your dicks!!

The AUGUST UNDERGROUND movies are pretty notorious in the underground horror scene, usually costing a fortune to get your hands on a shitty bootleg. Well, I was finally able to obtain a copy of MORDUM for a decent price. This is a movie that was made for a sole purpose: to shock, offend, and disgust the viewer. There is no hidden message or artistic value, just smut for the sake of smut. So does it accomplish this goal?

Abso-fuckin’-lutely.

The whole film has the look of a shot-on-video home movie. The majority of the budget was obviously put into the special effects and props. It’s all very real looking and gives the whole film a real ‘snuff’ feel. The trio obviously has a fetish for chubby gals. Three pleasantly plump women are kidnapped and held captive in a basement. They are humiliated and subjected to all kinds of torture. The demented female of the bunch can make herself vomit on command (yes, it is real puke.) She covers her captives’ half naked bodies in her putrid bile. While this atrocity is going on, one of the dudes is cutting off the dick of an already dead guy laid out naked on the concrete floor. He then proceeds to rape one of the girls with the severed member. After the rape fest of both girls, one of them is killed with a hammer while the other is stabbed in the stomach. One of the guys decides it is probably a good idea to have sex with the knife wound after the girl is deceased. All this is shown in graphic detail mind you. Still keeping your lunch down? Great, let’s talk dead babies and more necrophilia. The camera is now exploring one of the killer’s homes. It pans across a decaying, headless corpse of a dead infant. Maggots are the only things occupying the severed stump where its little baby head used to be.  The camera then enters into the bathroom where one of our crazy fucks is having sex with an already dead body in the bathtub. It turns out to be a child’s rotting corpse. In what might be the most disturbing part of the whole movie, the crazy vomit chick is shown stroking the dead kids head stating, “don’t worry, now you never have to grow up.”

MORDUM is definitely not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. It even found this seasoned hardcore horror vet feeling nauseous a few times. This is not a flick you will want to watch with someone who considers SAW the most hardcore movie ever. They might think you are insane.

You might not want to eat for a day before watching this movie!

Blake and Jimmy's Extreme-O-Gauge!

Rape: 5 out of 5- Very graphic scenes of realistic rape are shown throughout.

Realistic Gore: 4 out of 5- The effects are very well done and things get messy. It will have you ‘one eying’ your screen a couple times.

Animal Death: 0 out of 5- Only homo sapiens die here folks.

Necrophilia: 4 out of 5 - Well, kinda gross!

Overall Movie:  3 out of 5, it's a hell of a lot better than AUGUST UNDERGROUND, but not the best.