LOL!!
he movie begins with a man bound and gagged in a basement. His male and female off camera captors (Vogel and Whiles) torment him and then beat him and from there we tour the neighborhood with these two nuts. During these moments we're privy to all the amateurish goofing off that you'd expect to see from someone's home movies, which adds to the effect. The hit a junkyard then head into the city and after that they head home and play dress up. That night they take in some fireworks, and then it's back down to the basement where we see the still living man from the beginning, nails pounded into his flesh and blood seeping from his body across the concrete floor. They torture him some more, hosing him off and berating him, and then head outside for some more fun and taunt a homeless guy. They head home, and disembowel the man in the basement, all in graphic detail, Vogel's character puking from the stench.
They head to a party where people are doing lines and shoot some footage there, after which they do a home invasion a la Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer. A family is bludgeoned with a hammer and tortured, a woman raped, in front of their Christmas tree. From there, it just spirals even further out of control, mixing sex and violence in completely unnatural and truly disturbing fashion culminating in one of the most disturbing final set pieces this reviewer has ever seen.
The major difference you'll notice right off the bat between this movie and the first two is the aspect ratio. Vogel shot the first two movies fullframe, while Penance is 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen. This does take away a bit from the 'found snuff footage' feel in that very few home movies are shot widescreen, but once you get over that you'll find that it's business as usual here and by the time we wind up in the basement, we've forgotten all about the somewhat glossier sides of the production (glossy being very much a relative term here).
The other thing that you'll probably notice is that the effects in Penance are noticeably superior to those that came before it, which might be part of the reason that the cinematography is a little smoother. The camera doesn't move as quickly or with as much jitter here as it did in its predecessors and this time around it lingers on the gore effects just a little bit longer, allowing us to admire (or wallow in) the realistic on-screen depravity. The performances are still a little rugged but in a round about way that adds to the realism - anyone messed up enough to commit the acts we witness would obviously have a few screws loose and if the actors portray the characters that way, Vogel and Whiles in particular, that's not necessarily a bad thing nor is it really overacting in the context of this project.
That being said, this movie is very much in tune with what came before it. The aforementioned mix of sex and violence is disturbing in and of itself but when put into context alongside the more straight laced scene sof mutilation, they are certainly in keeping with the series' tradition of showing you the worst that humanity has to offer. A quick look at the screen caps provided here shows that nothing is left to the imagination, and everything is shown in realistic, harrowing detail. The film certainly won't be for all tastes - but for those who appreciate on whatever level the extreme side of underground cinema, the third and final chapter in the August Underground trilogy delivers exactly what you would expect it to, and whether or not you'll admit it, exactly what you'd want it to.
http://www.dvdmaniacs.net(...)rground_penance.html