Penance — Penance (Blu Ray & DVD)
Penance is the third and final film in the serial killer found footage/ pseudo snuff film series August Underground. It appeared four years after the second film Mordum, and while it didn’t amp up the intensity of this film (what could/ does?!). It’s a decidedly grim/ nihilistic picture- which shows the unfolding/ decline of the film’s two killers…along with torture, taunting, bubbling guts gore, and brutal limb sawing. Here from Unearthed Films- is a double disk Blu-Ray & DVD release of the film- bringing together a new commentary track, a host of new extras, and some archive extras.
Penance appeared in the year 2007. It was directed, co-written and co-started by Fred Vogel. He has eight other credits to his name- these go from gory supernatural slasher The Red Skin Tower (2004), to most recently The Final Interview (2018) an intense & hard-hitting thriller set in a prison. Been co-written by co-star Cristie Whiles.
The one hour and twenty-four-minute film is captured with cleaner digital camera equipment, than the grainy/ damaged VHS quality of the first two films- this of course has it’s pros & cons, on the less positive side of things the atmosphere/ unease created by the bad film quality is gone, but on the positive side we can see the largely cellar-dwelling depravity & torture of the film in a more defined/ at points extreme gross manner.
For this film, we have just two killers- Peter Mountain( Vogel) and his girlfriend Crusty( Whiles). He is as towering/ imposing as ever- with his mood often rapidly shifting between cruelly playful, raging, and emotionally unhinged. She is pale, with grey bags under her eyes- switching between being tired, brutal playful, and mentally broken.
We open with a brief flash of a shirt & tied man being tortured in a chair. As we move on we get snippets of the pair stealing from a car, taunting a homeless guy on a grim & grey Pittsburgh day, and Crusty pretending to be an old woman. Around this, in the first half of the film, we get snippets of footage from the pair's messy & depraved basement- where victims are taunted, beaten, and cut open- with truly gross bubbling & foaming guts pulled-out scenes.
As we move through the film we come to its longest/ infamous scene- where the pair in white facemasks break into a family home on Christmas Eve. The father is first attacked with a hammer, then his wife is bashed on the head before Peter attempts/ fails to anal rape the woman. As a toy train is going around the colour-lit tree. In time the family's teenage daughter appears- she is strangled with a ribbon- with later Crusty opening up her presents and trying on her smaller clothes- as Peter rages about not being able to get it up. It’s still a highly unsettling & troubling scene, which even after seeing the film several times still has me flitching/ looking away.
The remainder of the film charts the pair's fairly rapid decline- Peter shifts between being in a ragging/angered mood, perversely mocking, and passed out. Crusty attempts to be a ‘housewife’, looks more & more unwell, and has an emotional break down-to which Peter instead of comforting attempts to rape her.
On the gore side of things, we have the already mentioned guts-pulling/ removing scenes. Added to these we have tourniquet-tied limb sawing & decapitation. Bludgeoning followed by blood drinking from a smashed nose, and general torture/ belittlement of both female & male victims
Both Vogel & Whiles certainly give their all to the roles, and I’d say the Peter character here is at its most intense/unpredictable- with some scenes having you wondering if he has lost it for real. The supporting cast/ victims sell well enough their parts- be it passed out with fake nails hammered into them as they are taunted, drugged and pulled about naked/ meant to be dead, or tied naked to a chair - throttled and sexually tormented. At points, you can almost smell the rotting bodies, stale sweat, and body fluids of the basement.
For the most part, Penance is successful in both its highly troubling extremity & charting of the pair's grim decline. There are a few pacing issues in the first part of the film and a few awkwardly cut moments. Also, I didn’t appreciate/ see the need for the animal-involved moments – we have a panicking rat being fed to a small alligator in a tank as people cheer on, and a prolonged short of Crusty hacking/ sawing off the legs of a strung-up cow to be fed to a lion. The film certainly manages to continue/ resolve(?!) the storyline of the first two films, as well as adding its own distinctive grim/ nihilistic air to proceedings.
Like the other Unearthed reissues of the two other August Underground films, we get a bulging selection of both of new and archive extras. On the new side, we get two commentary tracks- the first is with Jerami Cruise, Shelby Vogel, Fred Vogel, and Ultra Violent Magazine's Art Ettinger. And the second is with Vogel and Editor Logan Tallman. I played the first of these, and it’s a most informative/interesting track. They start by talking about the opening kill which featured one of the film's superfans, and discuss why they went for a less damaged/ warped look to the film for this picture. They talk about how this film was more fun & creative compared with Mordum. They touch on how the film at one point was going to a much larger affair- blending properly filmed sections with found footage elements with Gunnar Hansen playing Peter's father in the film- but they decided to keep to the spirit of the other films. We find out the film was edited by superfan Logan Tollman- who when he was eighteen tried to bootleg Mordum, but fairly soon he became a key player in Teotag. They talk about how at some point after its filming the basement set flooded- with set pieces lost, including the superstar T Vogel wears in the film. They point out/discuss locations, and how the city is quite popular now for a filming location. Later on, they discuss the lion feeding scene- we find the deer was road-killing, and the lion belongs to a friend of Toetage- who supplied the animals to the likes of Mike Tyson. They comment on the newborn scene- which was the first time Cruise worked with silicone, and how easy it’s working with/ feels like real flesh.
The other new stuff comes in the form of : Editing "August Underground’s Penance" (14.38) which is an interview with co-editor Logan Tallman- he goes from talking about the first contact with Teotag, to editing the film- which took ten days to do. The Most Disturbing Scene( 13.52) which finds Vogel discussing the house invasion scene. Superfan Rob’s Underground Experience(2.22) interview with the guy in the films first scene. Zoë Rose Smith Interviews Fred Vogel(25.58) Voyage to Perdition: An Interview With Fred Vogel(37.33). Dave Parker’s Roundtable With Fred Vogel, Jerami Cruise, Shelby Vogel, Logan Tallman, Ryan Logsdon( 1 hour 27), and Unearthed’s Stephen Biro Interviews Jerami Cruise(17.02).
On the archive side, we get the following: Audio Commentary by Toetag, Audio Commentary by director Fred Vogel. Disemboweled: Behind the Bile Documentary. Audio Commentary on Disemboweled: Behind the Bile Documentary. Extended & Deleted Scenes. 'Poppa Pill - The Murderer Is Back' Music Video. 'Rue - The Locust' Music Video. still gallery, and trailers.
It’s great to now have the full set of these ultimate editions of the August Underground films. And this release for Penance certainly does live up to the standard of extras of the other two sets. Once again this is most certainly not for everyone- but if you enjoy true & wholly unsettling underground horror- this and the other two sets are a must!