I don't think "August Underground" is as deliberately amateurish as some scribes say. I think it is amateurish in lieu of the fact that it is shot badly on mini-DV and carelessly directed. The "acting", in fact, isn't bad, because the stars are very convincing as jerks, but, overall, the entire affair bored me.
There is some confronting material here (with impressive make-up effects) involving a naked girl tied to a chair who has had her left nipple sliced off. She is fed feces and humiliated. The guys verbally abuse her while playing with other corpses and talk endlessly amongst themselves. Eventually, she dies. And so does the video from this point.
We're then treated to a tour of a modern slaughterhouse with one of the actors delivering a "head cheese" quote from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", a home invasion scene stolen from "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", and a long and drawn out scene where our "heroes" take a beating at a nightclub. Unfortunately, all of these scenes are so appallingly photographed it's like watching the neighbors' home videos. If that's the point, it's misguided, because the result is eye strain and boredom.
The two ugly protagonists assault a couple of people in a convenience store next, humiliating them and stabbing an employee. It all looks and sounds like "Jackass" with blood and, again, due to the technical shortcomings, it's dull and drawn out.
In the vid's final sequence, the stars party with some local sluts, and I couldn't help thinking that guys this gross could only get into situations with girls like this if they were making a movie -- which they are. The sequence feels like a bad porno without the genital close-ups. As expected, the bored losers finally decide that they'd rather kill the girls than kiss them. A shot of one actor striking his victim's head with a hammer while he does her is convincingly chilling.
"August Underground" is not a wash-out, and with some editing it could be improved in its current state, but it is filled with too many irrelevant detours and its style, an attempt to create a "snuff movie" tone, assumes that real snuff movies are ultra-shaky, which is not necessarily so. The filmmakers also assume, to their detriment, that we'd like to spend over an hour with a couple of arrogant, cynical, spoiled a**holes.
There is some confronting material here (with impressive make-up effects) involving a naked girl tied to a chair who has had her left nipple sliced off. She is fed feces and humiliated. The guys verbally abuse her while playing with other corpses and talk endlessly amongst themselves. Eventually, she dies. And so does the video from this point.
We're then treated to a tour of a modern slaughterhouse with one of the actors delivering a "head cheese" quote from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", a home invasion scene stolen from "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", and a long and drawn out scene where our "heroes" take a beating at a nightclub. Unfortunately, all of these scenes are so appallingly photographed it's like watching the neighbors' home videos. If that's the point, it's misguided, because the result is eye strain and boredom.
The two ugly protagonists assault a couple of people in a convenience store next, humiliating them and stabbing an employee. It all looks and sounds like "Jackass" with blood and, again, due to the technical shortcomings, it's dull and drawn out.
In the vid's final sequence, the stars party with some local sluts, and I couldn't help thinking that guys this gross could only get into situations with girls like this if they were making a movie -- which they are. The sequence feels like a bad porno without the genital close-ups. As expected, the bored losers finally decide that they'd rather kill the girls than kiss them. A shot of one actor striking his victim's head with a hammer while he does her is convincingly chilling.
"August Underground" is not a wash-out, and with some editing it could be improved in its current state, but it is filled with too many irrelevant detours and its style, an attempt to create a "snuff movie" tone, assumes that real snuff movies are ultra-shaky, which is not necessarily so. The filmmakers also assume, to their detriment, that we'd like to spend over an hour with a couple of arrogant, cynical, spoiled a**holes.