August Underground's Mordum (2003)


REVIEWER RATING: 
6/10

DIRECTOR:

CAST:


After 2 decades since this debuted for the extreme cinema fans hiding in the bowels of every city across the United States, Unearthed Films gave it a reboot and released it to the AU followers who love their horror in bucket loads of filth and vermin.

“Mortem” as in Post Mortem, is the collection after death…clinically speaking. “Mordum” is simply that. More Dumb.  

Fred Vogel and his limited cast of actors/writers/directors have taken his exploitative found footage fetish to the next level in Human Centipede-style. In other words, let’s see how vile and sick we can get, without much attention to plot, script or acting chomps. Not that it’s truly necessary, but it would be nice…having a storyline beneath the sadism. Is that asking too much?  

By chasing each other around deplorable squalor in redneck country, the abandoned homes require little to no clean up for sequencing scenes of rape, torture, puke and additional debauchery for pure shock value. And yes, at times it works. But more often it just leads to an unappetizing and nauseating thrill ride of randomness and screaming - mostly from the main antagonist, Crusty (Cristie) who delivers an appalling opening scene - rough sex with her brother Maggot (Schneider) as her boyfriend Peter (Vogel) horrifically catches them. Yes, he has the audacity to act disturbed by this, especially considering what he’s done, and what’s to come.  

What ensues at this point is just irrelevant. There is no reasoning or scheming behind their chaotic world. There is no limit as to how far this threesome will go to instill excruciating hell on each victim and unfortunately, there is no end in sight as Crusty spits and upchucks on several girls, Peter disembowels one and Maggot discovers a new orifice for his atrocious sex drive. It’s disgustingly gross.  

The only crystal-clear motive of these lunatics is to get off, which is exactly what they do while watching one another humiliate, violate, and annihilate anyone they so choose, to have their twisted fun. There is nothing this trio won’t try for sexual gratification: vomiting, necrophilia, eating maggots and even pressuring a near-dead man to slice off his own penis in which Crusty uses the appendage to rape his already brutalized girlfriend.  

There’s no end to the depravity.
Unfortunately, there’s no sense for it either.

OVERALL: 
Kudos to Vogel for pushing the boundaries in extreme cinema back in 2003, when the taboo themes were less offensive because they were basically closeted. He brings these morbidly graphic images to the surface, testing your limit which is commendable. However, without any real substance and the frenzied low-budget footage that was used, this became a turbulent journey going nowhere. My desensitized side was not alarmed, but rather frustrated at the lack of cohesiveness in this on-going mess. Only one more AU film to revisit before the trilogy’s reboot has been completed. My expectations are nonexistent.


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