August Underground is a special film to a lot of people that either stems from a deep feeling of disgust of the overall content or an incredibly deep infatuation with the series overall. You could consider these films many things (some don’t even consider them actual movies) from exploitation cinema to faux-snuff films to shock value slop. My overall goal with this review of the entire franchise is to provide a different and detailed look into what the series means to me as a fan of horror overall since I was a small child, after finding the movies in my early 20s. I’m going to do my absolute best to cover all facets of the content included in this trilogy, besides the cut of August Underground Mordum that Michael T. Schneider produced and released through his own accord, the coveted maggot cut that is named after his character, Maggot. These movies are available on specific streaming services for purchase, that you can view here or on Blu-ray thanks to the renowned extreme horror distribution company, Unearthed Films. This review will be broken down into parts, each serving the purpose of one of the films, while also discussing other things I have found in research over the past year of being intrigued with these films that I think add to the overall image and story for these movies.
August Underground is a found footage film, made as if you had stumbled across the raw video footage from a serial killer, documenting their endeavors throughout the runtime of 70 minutes. The footage encompassed inside is a gritty, degraded string of video clips that appear to be recorded on an old VHS based camera you could find at your nearest pawn shop. Within the first few minutes of the movie, you get your first real vision of the true colors of the main characters that remain unnamed for the entirety of the (first) film. Writer/Director Fred Vogel’s character is later revealed in other films to be named Peter Mountain, so for the sake of simplicity here, I will refer to him as Peter and the cameraman as simply that. Fred plays the main serial killer walking outside of his house smoking a cigarette while approaching the cameraman, played by the other writer Allen Peters (more on this later) exclaiming that he has something to show him that the cameraman “will love.” Once inside the house, the duo proceeds into the basement to reveal a depraved dungeon with a tied up woman, named Laura, that he has been keeping captive while humiliating and torturing her for his own amusement. He uses various methods of sickening and vile torture such as making her eat her own feces, cutting her nipples off her breast, and sexually abusing her. There are more various forms of the torture, not only on Laura but other victims as well but for the sake of not writing about it for hours, I’ll keep it at that. Inside the film, when the duo isn’t murdering and performing vile forms of various violence on their victims, there are sections that are the real horror to this series. Sections of the two out in public, doing normal activities that people like you and me would do without batting an eye. You might think that overall that isn’t as horrifying as watching the pair force a woman to choke on her own vomit and eat her own shit while being sexually assaulted; however, it begins the formation for the real thought process that I believe Fred really had in mind when creating the film. If people as sick and disgusting overall as Peter and his cameraman buddy can innocently attend a concert, get tattoos (which ends in them bludgeoning the artist to death with his own leg, mind you) and interact with society in a normal fashion, who are you around everyday? People you pass on the street in real life, see in a restaurant, see in the crowds at concerts that you’ll never see again, are you ever truly safe from some of the maniacs in this world? It goes without saying that unfortunately for women, with the statistics of sexual violence and general violence/homicide against them by men, that this thought always has been around for them. Watching over their shoulder as they pass a man in public, the fear of brushing off a man hitting on them at the gas station because what if he follows you home and is a psychopath. It also goes without saying that overall, with the intense and graphic infatuation of violence against women in particular within this series, that the question of intense sexism from the writers and director could be questioned and it’s a valid concern. I want to make clear that the team at Toetag are and were some of the most genuine people in the world with a team full of both men and women behind the latter two films once the success for August Underground took off through word of mouth and interacting with the public at horror conventions. If anything, August Underground, to me, exists as a way to bridge the gap of fear in situations like this between men and women equally, noting the terrifying nature of never knowing the people next to you, regardless of any specific traits. August Underground is an accumulation of a series of senseless and violent actions that if anything serve the purpose of being the most raw and unfiltered character study of a serial killer in history and if for nothing else will go down in history for that.
August Underground became a cult classic that is more of an if you know, you know kind of film over time. It also became a film that has charted on almost every single “most disturbing” movie list on the internet that was written by someone who actually nailed that assignment. I just think overall, it’s jarring the lack of representation for anything the movie does besides its violence. Fred made this movie on a shockingly small budget of $5,000 while being a student at Tom Savini’s makeup and special effects school (yes, you read that right!!) which makes perfect sense given the immaculate and insane attention to detail to every single special effect this movie had produced for it. The effects look close to picture perfect in reality due to the degrading of the overall image and resolution of the footage to closely replicate the feel of a random video tape as possible. Later on, starting with August Underground Mordum, Toetag would bring on Jerami Cruise to the special effects team, which in turn elevated the effects even higher, providing a surreal realism to the horror showcased in the trilogy but I’ll delve more into that in the next review which is specifically dedicated to August Underground Mordum.
Overall, in conclusion, August Underground is a one of a kind, depraved character study thrown into the exploitation genre barrel that became iconic in its own right but also overlooked by masses writing it off as shock value slop (ie: A Serbian Film.) This is one of the films in this world that upon watching, despite your overall value of the footage itself in the movie, will stick with you for the rest of your life and make you view the entire world in a different lens forever.