August Underground

August Underground (2002)

The sickest film ever made.

Imagine walking down the street and finding an unmarked VHS tape. Curiosity piqued, you take it home and pop it in. What starts off as two men screwing around with a video camera quickly transforms into an ultra-realistic torture sequence where the unidentified psychopaths tape their exploits as they torment and violate a woman tied to a chair. The devastation of your morals continues throughout the entirety of the footage, while subtly revealing the killer's shattered pasts via the interaction with their victims and each other.

Date of release
2002-01-01
TMDB
4.0 / 10 (124)
Runtime
1h 10m
Genres
Horror
Director
Fred Vogel
Collection
The August Underground Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: New Jersey

August Underground is a 2001 American exploitation horror film directed by Fred Vogel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Allen Peters. The film stars Vogel as a serial killer named Peter who kidnaps and murders several people while his unnamed accomplice, portrayed by Peters, records the crimes.

Production

August Underground marked Fred Vogel’s directorial debut; he also co-wrote, produced, and starred in the film. Initially, Vogel had hoped to make a larger-budget zombie film but believed that his lack of feature-film experience would deter potential financiers. Instead, he chose a low-budget project that could demonstrate his abilities and attract attention.

The idea for the film stemmed from Vogel’s frustration with the serial killer genre, which he felt “didn’t show you what was really going on.” Drawing inspiration from John McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," Vogel aimed to create a film that was both “ugly” and realistic while also being unique and original.

Principal photography began in August 2000 under the working title "Peter." The film was shot on a Hi8 camera and later degraded in post-production to enhance the appearance of authentic found footage. The production operated on a very low budget, with friends, family, and local performers filling many roles.

Vogel initially hoped to conduct a guerrilla marketing campaign for the film, placing VHS tapes in random locations across the United States, such as parks and playgrounds, for passersby to discover. However, this plan was abandoned following the September 11 attacks and subsequent anthrax attacks.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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