Tag Archives: 2007

EVIL Has Now Been Digitized. “August Underground’s Penance” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“August Underground’s Penance” on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Set. Purchase Here!

Armed with a digital camcorder and a dark desire to kidnap and brutally torture, rape, and murder random people, deranged serial killers Peter Mountain and his girlfriend Crusty are now a gruesome twosome after the demise of Crusty’s brother Maggot.  The couple’s documentarized carnage continues forward near Pittsburgh where fooling around in metal clubs and on the isolated outskirts of city is balanced out with a healthy dose of basement snuff as body after body after body begins to strain their warped relationship.  What unveils is a descent of their paired destruction as Peter’s rage and undying fascination with female flesh, and internal organs, gaslights Crusty’s simmering and unhinged toxicity.  During the stretch of the Christmas holiday season, the gift of gory packages will be unwrapped and sexualized cookies will be enjoyed before the festive filleting of body parts and December dismemberments trail off into a tale of grim totality. 

Fred Vogel’s third and final film to shut the book on the story around the atrocious Peter Mountain and his extreme exploitation and degrading of people is back on limited-edition physical media for snuff salivating audiences as “August Underground’s Penance.”  Nothing short of gratuitous ultraviolence, the final chapter of “August Underground” marks another successful viscerally visual installment in a clearly digitized effort, elevating the graphic nature with ooey-gooey detail in a vividly discernible image resolution.  A reuniting four years later between Fred Vogel and his cowriter/costar Cristie Whiles after their collaboration on “August Underground’s Mordum,” the second sequel provides a level of continuity, a very low level at that, not seen between the 2001 series starter and “Mordum.”  Under Vogel’s Toe Tag Pictures banner, the company behind the trilogy, the shock realism filmmaker co-produces the film with wife, Shelby Lyn, and Cristie “Crusty” Whiles and special effects artist Jerami Cruise servce as associate producers. 

Aforementioned, Peter Vogel and Cristie Whiles lace up yet again for the Peter Mountain and Crusty show of sadism.  Vogel returns as the mania screaming and overall brute Peter Mountain, a juggernauting maverick amongst murderers with no moral principles, a cynical constitution, and a weak-ish stomach that can’t handle his own gutting of bodies as Mountain, like in the first two features, wretches and coughs and nearly loses his lunch in most graphically intense scenes of spilled blood and guts and other appalling perversities.  Whiles’s Crusty is a carbon copy counterpart, a demented love interest under a loveless veneer, but the Crusty character certainly has evolved between “Mordum” and “Penance” as the coquettish amoralities at the beginning devolve shown in an unconventional narrative way with rough-hewn rough cuts that avoid structuring time and guiding in segues.  It also doesn’t help that the two often have screaming matches or are yelling at their lifeless victims to get a better understanding of melting down mutual relationship based on common callousness and, probably, rough sex, just the way they individually like it.  This is how Peter Vogel circumvents a “Mordum” repeat; not that “Mordum” was terrible as it did convey a Mountain, Crusty, and Crusty’s on the suicidal brink brother Maggot breaking down whatever threadbare bond that kept them for killing each other, but “Mordum” departs with uncertainties surrounding the characters in that memorably haunting final sequence.  “Penance” then takes the two remaining nihilists out in the backyard to basically shoots them, figuratively speaking, to put them out of their misery in an artistic way, as if to say, “that’s it.  I’m done.”  Like previous “August Underground” films, killers are centrically focused with not a lot of repeat characters popping in and out (because they’re all being snuffed out by the killers)  but those played victims round with Selby Lyn Vogel, Jeremi Cruise, Anthony Matthews, Rob Steinbruegge, Ed Laughlin, Matt Rizzutto, Autumn Smith, and Trevor Collins.

While Vogel and Whiles psychopathic performances will make your skin crawl, the real star of “Penance” spurts onto the floor, oozes from the entrails, and has a nasty crunch sound when being sawed into.  I’m speaking of none other than Jerami Cruise’s nauseating blood, guts, and all the colorful viscera in between practical effects that extinguish any kind of comfortability you might have had going into the scene.  Animal intestines are once again used to for seamless builds.  The lines between what’s real and what’s not has no definition, is smoothed over well into the folds, or is vaguely blurry at worst that when the cutting, gouging, severing, perforating, slicing, or whatever other harmfully human puncturing wound words come into the scene, your mind is your greatest enemy unable to tell the differences in the gruesomeness acts all of which are accentuated by Vogel’s dry heaves.  While the story itself begins to shutdown “August Underground’s” pseudo snuff run, the third entry is as much as a regurgitation of the previous two installments peppered with noticeable yet minor differences that less often than more separate themselves from each other.  One of the biggest, advantageous differences in “Penance” is the move away from the fuzzy standard definition analog tape and into the digital world with a widescreen ratio camcorder that details more of the ghastly dissections and without any modifications to the camera, a cleaner sense of raw realism is better conveyed. 

I remember a time, not too long ago, when the “August Underground” films were nothing more than rumor, urban legends of the physical media world, lost archetypes of extreme horror seemingly nonexistent to the everyday joe, like me, and only those who are close to Vogel and his Toe Tag family or willing to fork over large amount of money for a long out of print and rate copy were the lucky ones to ever experience the trilogy. Yet, now, we’re living in the golden age of physical media, paradoxically smackdab at the height of new age and ever-growing streaming platforms, and Unearthed Films has released all three films onto a 2-disc Blu-ray and DVD limited collector’s set. The Blu-ray is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, 2K scan on a BD50 while the DVD is a MPEG2 encoded, dual-layered, DVD9. Obviously, switch from tape to digital video makes is a tremendous step for image processing and clarity as “Penance” tops the trilogy with a better pixel resolution, a wider angle (1.78:1 aspect ratio), and much less quality degradation than analog. All the nasty bits and pieces are visual described in great realistic detail in what is an ungraded showing of a full-on display not for the weak of stomach. The raw image, even with all it segued pauses in between scenes, punctuates practicality over the conceptual nihilistic serial killer construct. Unearthed Films preserves that through the looking glass, unfiltered video with more than sufficient capacity. The English language uncompressed PCM 2.0 stereo mirrors the same caliber with a home video disharmony of an onboard camera mic that manages well to create distance where needed also while capturing every innate surrounding sound element, such as the whooshing of passing cars, Mountain’s echoed screams in a confined basement, or the overburdening decibels of daunting death metal. There’s a steady amount of low-level interference too that doesn’t hurt the variable levels of dialogue depending on where the principals are and what they’re doing. Between the Blu-ray and DVD, the hi-def format has more capacity for bonus features with most of the new bonus material on the Blu-ray. What’s on both formats are a new audio commentary by special effects artist Jerami Cruise, producer Shelby Lyn Vogel, director Fred Vogel, and Ultra Violent Magazine editor Art Ettinger, a second commentary with Vogel and editor Logan Tallman, a third commentary with the Toe Tag Team, and a fourth commentary with just Fred Vogel. Also included of both formats are a behind-the-scenes documentary Disemboweled and the feature’s very own commentary track, deleted and extended scenes, music video Poppa Pill – “The Murderer is Back,” music video Rue – “The Locust,” original trailer, and new extended photo gallery and teaser outtakes. Exclusively to the Blu-ray is a conversational interview with editor Logan Tallman, going through the nuts and bolts of the most disturbing scene with Peter Vogel, superfan Rob Steinbruegge’s experience and bit role in “Penance,” a new Zoë Rose Smith, creator of “Zobo with a Shotgun” and editor-in-chief of Ghouls Magazine, interview with Peter Vogel, a second new interview with Peter Vogel Voyage to Perdition with Severed Cinema’s Chris Mayo, a discussion roundtable with Peter Vogel, wife Shelby, Logan Tallman, and Ryan Logsdon moderated by Dave Parker, and Unearthed Films’ Stephen Biro’s new interview with Peter Vogel to wrap it up. The physical presence of the release clearly states its homicidal intentions with the thin cardboard O-slipover of Peter Mountain caressing power of his bound and bloodied victim. The clear Blu-ray Amary case displays new, religious art spoofed cover illustration by San Diego artist Paul Naylor; the religious art also continues on the reverse side of the cover with a marred icon of the Virgin Mary being engulfed by the darkness. With the DVD punch-locked at the right and Blu-ray at the left, there’s really no room for an insert to be crammed in but the silver lining there is the pseudo data-cast captures of notable scenes that are the disc pressed art. Unearthed Films’ release is region A locked (region for the DVD is not listed but assumed to be region 1), is not rated, and has a runtime of 81 minutes.

Last Rites: While ever so slightly different from the previous films, “Penance” is more of the same snuff but in its truest, purest form legally allowed on video. Unearthed Films are match made in a human abattoir, like the tacky peanut butter and bloodred jelly. Their collaborated, limited collector’s set release of “August Underground Penance” is nothing short of phenomenal and, if you’re lucky and quick enough, grab all three before they disappear back into obscurity.

“August Underground’s Penance” on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Set. Purchase Here!

EVIL Wants to Cut Out Your Unborn Child. “Inside” reviewed! (Second Sight / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Order The Limited Edition Copy of “Inside” From Second Sight!

Four months after deadly car crash that claimed the life of her husband, a disheartened and depressed Sarah is 24 hours away from being induced into labor on Christmas day.  Just wanting to be left alone, Sarah is eager to lower her head into her work as a photojournalist of capturing horrifying images that bear a resemblance to her own accident and inviting her editor over later to discuss the work ahead.  As the even lingers into night, an unexpected woman knocks at the door and menacingly tries to break into her house.  As the police arrive to investigate the incident, the woman is nowhere to be found and brush off the incident with little concern, but the woman returns, finds herself inside Sarah’s home, and is determined to cut the baby directly from Sarah’s womb to be her own child.  The tormenting violence becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the two women with an unborn child hanging in the balance. 

Extremely violent and soul biting, “Inside” is one of the more corrosively dehumanizing and destructive films under the French New Extremism, French New Wave Horror, flag.  The 2007 French feature cowritten-and-directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury broke the duo into the industry as formidable and fearless filmmakers, reaching global heights having helmed later in their careers a segment of the popular anthology “ABCs of Death 2” and tackling one of America’s more renowned and bred-and-buttered horror franchises with the chainsaw-wielding cannibal in “Leatherface.”  “Inside” comes after the tremendous success of Alexandre Aja’s “Haute Tension,” opening the flood gates to other extreme French horror films in early 2000s with also “Martyrs” and “Frontier(s).”  La Fabrique de Films and BR Films in association with Canal+ server as production companies with later “Frontier(s)’s” Teddy Percherancier, Frederic Ovcaric, Rodolphe Guglielmi, and “Witching and Bitching’s” Franck Ribière and Vérane Frédiani producing the film known as “À l’intérieur” in France.

Not your typical home invasion ultraviolence, Sarah and who we know as labeled only as The Woman are two vipers circling each other, ready to strike when the guards are let down.  Of course, both have distinct personalities and strategies in the measured way of attack and survival that will impress on viewers preconceived notions about them.  As Sarah, Alysson Paradis, younger sister of Johnny Depp’s wife Vanessa Paradis, is bathed in exposed light, literally and figuratively, as the pinpointed principal woman from the start, battered and bloodied in the opening two car accident, to the end, in the final harrowing moments with the relentless Woman but though Paradis performance reeks greatly of depression and perhaps hopelessness with the death of her husband with a baby soon to be brought into this world without a companion by her side, the momentum shifts towards proposed surface villain of the story, The Woman, in a frightening portrayal of stony guile and grim severity by the established, character provocateur French actress Béatrice Dalle (“The Witches’ Sabbath”) in comparison to Paradis relatively filmic beginnings.  Dalle’s role expresses more physically than vocally with motivation coursing through her eyes, facial expressions, and body language that strikes a transfixing chord, turning Dalle’s the Woman into not only an unpredictable killer but an on-screen killer with a lighted purpose without confounding arbitrary slaughter as the yearning for The Woman’s reason never breaks silence until the shocking end.  François-Régis Marchasson, Nathalie Roussel, Ludovic Berthillot, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Aymen Saïdi, Emmanuel Lanzi, and Dominique Frot (“Among the Living”) fill out “Inside’s” cast.

Most will plainly see and interpret “Inside” as a regular home invasion thriller of a pregnant woman defending herself to survive a mad woman’s unborn baby obsession, and maybe that’s how Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury mostly intends the narrative to be as an overly graphic portrayal of hate and envy that makes us uncontrollable sinners at heart.  However, there’s something inside me to dig deeper below the face value of terrorizing prenatal torment of a young, expecting mother-to-be in what could be construed as a double-edged explanation.  The Woman doesn’t hold a name as she symbolizes all the worst qualities of a mother, such as anger, deceit, and she even smokes, in Sarah that could be considered a split persona or an archetype of duality.  Sarah is cladded in a bright white nightgown while The Woman is dressed all in black from head-to-toe, contrasting a good versus evil, and both want the same child.  The climax does rebuff the split duality theory to an extent but the way the script is written and how the film is shot very much suggest these two women are cleaved from the same whole with a patriarch-less presence and, to add as an interesting note to further examine and contemplate, all the male characters in the story are slain by the same women while the only other female character is brought down by the other in what is a powerful suggestion of split gender and how gender plays a role in their individual lives.

In what can be said to be the most definitive edition of one of the most brutal films ever produced, Second Sight Films’ Limited-Edition boxset of “Inside” is amply packed with goodies, in application and in a tangible sense. Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, double-layered BD50 from the UK label holds tremendous value with not only new special features and neat and attractive corporeal contents but also valued by retaining image fidelity with a gritty 35mm print. Natural grain and low-fi celluloid present the seedy grindhouse overlay that’ll take audiences from the comfy, cozy reality into a dark, anomalous atmosphere with warm muted coloring, lambency, and an overall light general haze suffused into the setting. The cinematography has been purposefully constructed with analog building blocks for a rough look for a rough story. Not technically applicable here but “Inside” is set around Christmas, Christmas eve into Christmas day to be exact, but the choice production dressing exhibits little holiday spirit with a far less ostentation presentation and in how the characters dress the season feels more fall like than winter. The lossless French 5.1 DTS-HD master audio offers plenty of spatial awareness during intense pocket skirmishes inside the quaint two-story home, which is the primary setting of the story. The range provides laceration slits and surgical squishes of blades and scissors while gunfire shocks with an innate immediacy. Even with a mostly prominent inconversable back-and-forth, the dialogue that does come up carries through with robust confidence without overbearing the action or feeling out of synch. Speaking of being in synch, English subtitles are available with the French audio track and are error-free and pace well. Special features include a new audio commentary by The Final Girls’ and film critic Anna Bogutskaya, new audio commentary by editor Elena Lazic of the online magazine outlet Animus, a newly produced interview with writer-directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury First Born as well as newly produced interviews with principal actress Alysson Paradis Labour Pains, producer Franck Ribière A New Extreme, cinematographer Laurent Barès Womb Raider, and stunt coordinator Emmanuel Lanzi Reel Action, with The Birth of a Mother, a Jenn Adams analytical essay focusing on a denied mother’s perspective and the opposite. The limited-edition physical elements of the release add additional magic to the whole package with a rigid, cardboard sleeve case with new artwork by Second Sight retainer artist James Neal. Inside the “Inside” sleeve is a 70-page book with color pictures and thematic essays from film historians and critics Chad Collins, Kat Ellinger, Annie Rose Mahamet, and Hannah Strong. There are also 6-5×7 collector art cards adjacent. The green Blu-ray Amary case houses the same Neal front cover from the rigid sleeve, likely will be the face of the standard release, with the interior disc art having a simple yet effective image of a blade open pair of scissors and psycho-split or -sliced title in red and while. UK certified 18 for strong bloody violence and very strong language, this Second Sight release is B region locked and has a runtime of 83-minutes.

Last Rites: Second Sight invests in “Inside” and its first-time French directors nearly two decades after initial release with a comprehensive package that not only elevates beyond what many labels sought to get out of the gore-laden entropy, quick cash, but this premier release also has depth and range into the film’s applied style and dives into demystifying the breadth of thought preluding random terror.

Order The Limited Edition Copy of “Inside” From Second Sight!

Knights, Murder, Zombies…It’s an EVIL Smorgasbord! “Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Buitrago, Spain in 1310, Templar priests set forth on a mission, wandering the countryside to root out evil witches for torture, flogging, and eradication, but what the priests kept secret from public eye is that the village women they were apprehending were actually innocent and used as a means for sacrifice. The sadistic, malevolent priests drank the blood of their innocent victims for eternal life. Fed up with the Templar priests authority, the village men tracked them down to a gruesome end as the vowed in the throes of death to return for revenge. Buitrago, Spain in 1976, the Templar Priest, decomposed to the bone inside their tattered and dirty ceremonial robes, arise from their shallow graves with a hunger for vengeance and feed upon the flesh and blood of unsuspecting outside partygoers under the moonlight night.

Baring a thin shred of anything approximating a resemblance to Joe D’Amato’s “Erotic Night of the Living Dead” and Amando de Ossorio’s “Tombs of the Blind Dead” from the 1970’s to early 1980’s is Vick Campbell’s “The Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead. Also known as “Graveyard of the Dead” or, in it’s original language, “El Retorno de los Templarios,” is the 2007 Spanish produced throwback to the gothic and erotic ghoulish horror genre that once widely flourished through Europe and parts of South America and has, more or less, been nearly forgotten admirably for decades. “Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead” marks Campbell’s feature and script debut that blends the gothic and the erotic for an entry into the soles (or souls, perhaps?) of considerable shoes to fill and the consensus is Campell’s a size 10 trying to fill out into a size 18 wide but leaving too much wiggle room for missteps.

Campbell, also known Vick Gomez, commissions mostly a Spanish cast of the unknown variety, starting off with Eloise McNought in her breakout performance as the troubled, young Miranda who has been sexually abused by her father and has, somehow, misplaced her husband. Miranda’s backstory has an equal amount of ambiguity as the rest of the cast with bits of family melodrama to piece together her obviously distraught mental state. McNought’s a budget actress at best as she sometimes looks right at the camera in the midst of intense scenes and Campbell has a knack for upskirt scenes with McNought which feels creepy and impertinent to the story. Miranda’s the searched figure for her brother Jorge, Albert Gammond. Gammond, who had a role in Campbell’s short “Violencia gore,” has less backstory as the estranged son of the family and when he arrives to 1976 Buitrago, out of nowhere, to search for his sister, the siblings tango the enigmatic dance of who, what, when, why, and how? Gammond’s few dialogue moments are eaten up by Jorge trying to convince a distressed Miranda he’s her brother and reminding them of the childhood songs they sang as kids. Thais Buforn, Rick Gomans, Anarka de Ossorio, Dani Moreno, Anthony Gummer, Julian Santos, and Jose Teruel co-star.

“Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead” flatters being as an economic version of an Amando de Ossorio “Blind Dead” film, which centers around the vile and wretched depravities of the ghastly Templar Knights ethos and while Campbell captures the essence of the Knights and their menacing macabre presence of soiled garbs and persistence, the attention to the rest of a, literally, non-story is hastily slapped together or stuffed with cinched time wasters. The first half hour involves nothing more than Templar Priests roaming the countryside, flogging with an endless crack of a whip those who they deem dissident. The Knights’ whip must be malfunctioning as it could not rip flesh or break the souls of man until well into the lashing that mercifully warrants an edit for some bloody, but still steadfast firm, scarring and sheered rags. I felt the floggers arm and shoulder pain with such extensive beatings. Next, the majority of the second act consists of Jorge pleading with his sister Miranda to listen to him and convince her about his brotherly love and bring her back home. At this point, flashbacks of her father’s lust for her are introduced to backstory Miranda’s despair; the smoking gun catalyst finally rears a father-daughter rape-incest ugly head in act three when the Templar Knights have resurrected for blood thirsty revenge and gives some context of Miranda’s blabbering incoherency in the middle of the dry Buitrago landscape; yet, Miranda’s daddy issues hardly explain why the Templar Knights have returned at this point in time and just want the undead Knights tend to accomplish with their revenge at hand. In fact, there’s no explanation given at all…they just return and rampage. Campbell extends upon the risible execution of an Amando de Ossorio film by inverting scenes that are the same shot just in reverse, utilizing a single ambient track over and over again on multiple scenes, and countering whatever shred of terror from the Knights with an easy way out of unexplained reasoning for their befuddling demise. Almost as if Campbell didn’t know how to end his film and gave up with a snap of his fingers. Who does he think he is, Thanos!?

“Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead” lands DVD home video distribution from MVDVisul and Wild Eye Releasing on their Raw and Extreme banner. More raw, then extreme, Vick Campbell’s gleaming debut homage offers no eroticism either on the region free, 70 mintue runtime title, but, rather, lingers over incest and whipped-bloodied breasts of slim illicit pickings and suggests the title was more a ploy against “Graveyard of the Dead” to gain buys. The picture is presented in a widescreen format, but suffers from horrible color banding and severe compression issues that nearly make this title indiscernible like an aged or scores of duplication VHS transfer. The Spanish language stereo track also has flaws with speckled quality and coarse feedback at times due to bad mic placement. As aforementioned with the repetitive ambient and score tracks, range and depth do not reside with these versions of the Templar Knights that are probably inundated in a violent anguish of the same loop of rattling chains and heavy breathing. To add salt to the audio wound, the English subtitles are riddled errors such as Obbey instead of Obey or Swete instead of Sweetie. Special features include a behind-the scenes segment of ho-hum production takes, deleted scene, and Wild Eye trailers. One thing I think might be interesting is actress and executive producer Anarka de Ossorio who, I can’t confirm, might have some relation to Amando de Ossorio; the idea would be neat if his legacy still lives on through his kin. A brooding atmosphere from beginning to end, “Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead” has little else to offer under a guise to link itself to legendary Euro-trash gold, but filmmaker Vick Campbell detrimental diegesis could tarnish the very jeweled films in which he attempts to honor.

Purchase Erotic Nights of the Blind Dead on DVD!

Half-Assed Evil Exorcists! “John Dies at the End” Book Review

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Jason Pargin, under the pseudonym name David wong, is a major success stories that inspire all of us hopeful writers. Pargin, a low on the totem poll data entry administrator, is the brains behind the insanely clever, notoriously witty, and devilishly deranged novel “John Dies at the End.” Without even an English degree to his name, Pargin wrote short stories that turned into a full fledged novel solely by word of mouth from total strangers. Eventually Pargin was contacted by Phantasm director Don Coscarelli and as soon as Pargin blinked, a movie was adapted from his story and the rest is hisory.

“John Dies at the End” revolves around David Wong, a video store clerk whose life isn’t exactly that excited, but when he discovers the “soy sauce” from a homeless Rastafarian Wong and his friend John are sucked into the massive plans of an alternative reality species that has their sights on enslaving humanity in the name of their leader “Korrok.” Only Wong and John can see the truth because of the “soy sauce” and while others live their daily lives, Wong and John prepare for battle the only way they know how – with boom boxes, flame thrower water guns, and Molly the bomb eating dog.

Pargin’s novel will be a treat that you’ll never ever in your life read something similar like it again. Somehow able to paint a perfect picture with his colorful use of dictionary, Pargin certainly knows how to make silly scary and fun. The pages just kept turning as if I was hooked on the “soy sauce” and was warped, like a “Star Trek” hyper drive, into an other world universe. The randomness of scenes with Wong’s first person version of events can only be described as batshit nuts with a hint of nihilism. Once you add his friend John into the mix, it’s a whole different story as John is a colorful character with classically hilarious one liners and a mind like a 13 year old boy ready to take on the world.

I’m one those people who watched the Don Coscarelli movie first before reading the book and I did this before with Stephen King’s novel The Mist and so far, I’m not disappointed with my ass-backwards way of doing things. Of course, the novel will always have more than a movie adaptation, but damn did Coscarelli bring Wong’s world to life and light and I do believe that the writings of Pargin are so vivid and clear that this made Coscarelli’s job easy.

“John Dies at the End” is a must read. It isn’t the latest best seller as the book’s been out since 2007, but this horror comedy will make you laugh and thrill you into thinking about the possibilities of our universe.

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