MovieChat Forums > August Underground's Penance (2007) Discussion > In a way these are the film equivalent t...

In a way these are the film equivalent to punk rock

posted 15 years ago by akuma634
4 replies | jump to latest

I'm not talking that sissy crap on MTV that plays between The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus. I'm talking punk like GG Allin, back when punk was something that most people hated and didn't get. These movies sort of do have a certain GG Allin mentality to them like there are no limits and no holding back. It's like there's nothing with any main stream appeal and it's not pretty at all. 85% of the people who see it won't get it and they'll hate it but that's what it's there for, to appeal to a small hardcore fan base. The people who don't get it can watch Saw and Hostel but what makes AU unique is that it doesn't feel like a movie, it feels like you're seeing what a serial killer wants you to see.

It does get very over the top but then look at some of the most brutal serial killers in history, Albert Fish would kidnap children, beat them for days, hack them up, and cook them. Jeffery Dahmer tried to create human zombies and when that failed he would eat the organs and keep their skulls. There was even a guy a few years ago who would kidnap women and rape and torture them for weeks on end after playing a cassette tape to explain their situation and when he was done with them they were killed. Or what about Pedro Lopez who raped and murdered over 300 women in his life time and most of the bodies have yet to be found. Is August Underground's violence so crazy and over the top? My point is that AU is true underground cinema that doesn't hold back and doesn't comprise. It's like the punk rock of cinema but hopefully it doesn't die and end get brought back as everything it was created to fight against just like what happened to punk rock.

[–] griff66 14 years ago

Nah, I don't see it.

The whole gorehound scene, while pretty niche, is a well-known and vocal market, and the AU stuff is clearly just low-rent pandering to that. There's nothing confrontational about these movies when they're clearly and exclusively aimed at an audience who are expecting exactly what they deliver.

To borrow your analogy, they're actually more like the Jonas Brothers - cynical, pandering crap with no artistic merit and an inexplicably large following.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jabberttp 12 years ago

but what makes AU unique is that it doesn't feel like a movie,

Actually, before i watched the trilogy, that's what I hoped for. But that wasn't the reality. It felt like a movie. A very unprofessional unpolished movie (all of 'em), but a movie, nonetheless.

I found movies like "The Fourth Kind" and "The Last Broadcast" felt much more like something real and not a movie.

Of course, complete gorehounds probably never saw those - but who knows? I saw AU.

[–] soapdodgerz 11 years ago

i totally agree. since hostel and other mainstream gore films everyone from paris hilton to the new 3d chainsaw massacre have cashed in on what was once an underground phenonema.lets keep these films that outrage rather than diluted *beep* thats toting itself as horror/gore.real life murder and torture are much more horrific than any filmaker could come up with. and thats the way it should be. these films try and come close to the fear and degradation of real life horrors. but in the end there just films .you can choose to watch or not .