August Underground's Penance (2007)

The unhappy finish…

The murderous pair returns for what is, as of yet, their final outing. As usual they leave a long trail of human suffering behind them. Oh glory!

I’m really running out of words for the August Underground films. Against my expectations the first one proved to be a grim, but interesting exercise in sadism. Mordum took things even further and remains the sickest film that has violated my retinas. So where could Vogel and company take it after that? Where could viewers possibly want the filmmakers to take them? Some place where the sun doesn’t shine, that’s for sure!

One thing they have done this time around is using a better camera to showcase the excellent looking gore. Yes, we sure are making progress! The atrocities are as usual highly upsetting for most people and should be so for everyone. We get a fairly unpleasant home invasion scene that felt like an echo from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The father is hit in the head with a hammer and is left bleeding helpless while the wife is abused. You wish that the couple don’t have any children, but that small hope is soon extinguished pushing the limits even further. Another scene earlier in the film has a man the killers have hit in the head in the head lying bloody on the floor. He isn’t able to move. Our male killer (Vogel) drags the hammer back and forth behind the victims head and then knocks it in the ground right behind him a couple of times. Helplessly his eyes wink at the sound of the hammer hitting the pavement. So are my eyes. It’s a very efficient scene and that blunt sound terrifying. There really wasn’t any need to make more out of that particular scene, but with August Underground the option for less is more doesn’t exist. I could go on about all the sick shit that any viewer will have to endure, but you get the general idea. That is until you see this picture:

There are two things, apart from the violence, that have really stuck with me. One thing is the killers’ maniacal laughter. It adds and unpleasant dimension of joy to the overall atmosphere. Not only do they torture, rape and kill, but they are having a great time while doing it, for the most part anyway. There is one instance where Vogel stops and breathes heavily not to vomit while cutting out the guts of one of his victims. He then continues. I was fascinated by his conviction to go on when the stench was so overwhelming. The other thing is Vogel’s anger. Whenever he says something in anger, which is quite frequently, there is an intensity of pure hate that seems terrifyingly real. When he says something like: “Don’t you EVER fucking disrespect me again!”, you know he means it!

I know there isn’t a terrible lot of plot to talk about; however I found a lot of the scenes to drag out. The scenes that don’t involve cruelties that is. If you’ve seen any of the other in the series you should know what to expect. While you can rely on Penance to be reasonably upsetting I still had the feeling of diminished shock value this time around. That is definitely food for thought on my perception of it all. No, this isn’t a great film either, but if you like your scummy films to truly push the limits then go right ahead. I hope this will be the last of them.

7/10