Spook du jour

Well I’m back to review to the second installment in the August Underground trilogy. I can say that it wasn’t an easy film to find. I knew I wanted a hard copy and I was only going to stream it if I absolutely had to, but after searching the internet for days and two failed attempts at purchasing the elusive movie, I finally found a copy for only twenty dollars on a used books website. Not only that but to my surprise it turned out to be the “Snuff Edition” which is signed by the cast and crew, this copy was going for about $187 on ebay, so I’d say I struck gold.
Repulsive is the only word I can use to describe the reputation that AU’s Mordum has, it’s said to be one of the most disgusting movies ever made, it ranks on almost everyone’s most disturbing movies list and in my opinion is one of the most infamous extreme horror movies to come out of the United States. As far as the plot goes not much has changed, but there are some new cast additions with the main characters girlfriend being added to the bunch, along with the reveal of who has been working the camera the whole time. The video quality is still poor and like before it is a found footage film.
The director Fred Vogel and the rest of his crew really upped the ante in Mordum. There’s way more depraved acts of violence in this one then there is its predecessor, and the movie is only seven minutes longer than the original. The thing that changed the most as far as disturbing content is the addition of sexual torture, it was present in the first film but not as invasive onscreen, what I mean by that is in Mordum there is more penetration, for example we see the stomach wounds of one woman being raped, and the dead body of a young girl (maybe 10 years old) violated, and much, much more. Why is this you ask? Well I think it’s the addition of the girlfriend, we know she is just as insane as the two men, being that we see her having a sex with her brother and cutting herself in the opening sequence. But throughout the film she is calling the shots, and antagonizing a lot of sexual deviancy, not to mention since both main characters are emotionally and physically involved with her, their testosterone starts running wild as they fight over her.
Now is Mordum as terrifying as the original? It depends on the viewer really, like I stated in my initial review it’s the lack of gore that makes each scene so scary, in Mordum there is plenty of bloodshed, and I love seeing the practical special effects and slicing and dicing of the victims, and because of that the fear is taken away (slightly) and I start actually looking forward to seeing the next scene, waiting for the money shot and all it’s bloody glory. Don’t get me wrong it’s still hard to watch, the killers do terrible things to innocent people, and the camera work and VHS quality video makes it seem very realistic, that’s why for other viewers it may be even more frightening than the original. The special effect work is so well done that if you showed it to a random person they would surely think it was real, and that’s the whole point of these movies, to make them as brutally honest and realistic as possible.
I really like Mordum, it does what it sets out to do and that’s disgust the viewer by using shock tactics like rape, vomit, and obviously torture. The direction is great, the film is realistic and gruesome, and just like the original it shows that real life psychopaths aren’t the people we should be rooting for.
With that being said I think Mordum lacks in a few areas when compared to the first one, the set design isn’t as established, it didn’t stick with me like August Underground did, and lastly by the end of the film you are more disgusted than disturbed. The true rating with this one is with the viewer and what they prefer, to me it’s not as scary, but I’ll watch it more often because I enjoy the gore. This was a tough one for me to rate, a movie I enjoyed but didn’t find as effective as the original.
The words “extreme” and “disturbing” could mean completely different things for viewers, some might see the slit throats, pulled out entrails, and rotting baby corpses as offensive or scary, as for me I’m more impressed than anything else, but I’m not disturbed, and with that I give August Underground’s Mordum a 6.5/10.