Review of August Underground (2001) by Andres V — 10 Aug 2007

This is my favourite film of all time, although after repeated viewings of the other two my mind could change... The film is basically a fake snuff film, which plays out like found footage of 2 killers exploits... Inherently on a tape like this it would be interspersed with bits of the two messing around and this film reflects this... Some would say the film is boring as it contains some scenes which are drawn out and seem completely irrelevant (the meat factory scene springs to mind) but that's the genius of the film, it is exactly like what you could imagine a tape like this to be... Another criticism which could be aimed at it is the lack of any story line, however it can hardly be a just criticism when the film is actually supposed to be like this... Instead you get more of a character study of the two killers and their relationship...

Admittedly Mordum (it's first sequel) is decidedly sicker, and if that is what you are after then you may prefer it, but I feel this seems to be a better example of how it should be done (not to take anything away from Mordum as I think it too is a fantastic film)... Penance, which I can't comment on too much due to only one viewing, I would also rank up there with this and contains a fantastic character study of a killer and his girlfriend and has the sickest scene out of all of the 3 films involving going to a family's house at christmas...

The DVD of this film has plenty of extras, with the snuff edition having a killer commentary which overlays the sound with the sound of the Fred Vogel as the killer watching it with a victim of his and is well worth hunting down the snuff edition for (plus it's signed and will hopefully be worth something in years to come when Fred and Toetag are famous : ) ).