August Underground’s Penance

Peter and Crusty kill a man who breaks free of his restraints and tries to escape. The act establishes their gleeful brutality and sets the film's grim tone. It shows their preference for controlled, intimate violence as a mode of power.

After the initial killing, the couple wanders around town visiting various locations. They enjoy a local fireworks display, showing a festive surface to the day while they remain utterly desensitized to suffering. The juxtaposition highlights their anonymous place within a community.

Back in their basement, Peter taunts a semi-conscious man who has nails hammered into his body. The scene focuses on their cold, procedural cruelty and the spectatorship of Crusty. This marks the start of their long session of captivity and torture.

The duo goes for a hike and then ambushes a sleeping vagrant beneath a bridge. They beat him and leave him incapacitated, adding another random victim to their catalog of violence. The moment shows how easily they move from private space to public locations.

They cut a man open and pull out his gurgling intestines. The act is graphic and methodical, underscoring their unflinching commitment to mutilation. It expands the scope of their brutality beyond single killings.

Peter and Crusty attend a party where Peter uses drugs and Crusty flirts with others. A live rat is fed to a pet alligator, mixing sexual tension with animal cruelty. The sequence blends social interaction with shocking violence.

Around Christmas, they break into a family's home. Peter bludgeons the father and suffocates the mother, and Crusty strangles the young daughter. The act leaves Crusty increasingly distressed by the scope of their crimes.

Crusty enters an empty room with a man for rough anal sex, illustrating how sexual violence is used as a tool of control. The encounter sits beside the ongoing basement torture and murder. It underscores the couple's pattern of combining sex with domination.

Peter and Crusty torture and murder several more captives in the basement. Crusty drinks some of the spilled blood as the violence escalates, and Peter delivers a merciless beating to a man with a hammer. The sequence culminates in the dismemberment of a female body.

They take apart a dead deer and, with a friend's help, feed pieces to a lion. The act blends ritualistic cruelty with a sense of casual collaboration. It reflects their willingness to normalize violence in ordinary settings.

Peter cuts the fetus from a pregnant woman, provoking Crusty to break down. He rapes her in the aftermath, and his own hysteria becomes more extreme. Crusty struggles to cope with the horror and expresses a desire to escape.

Crusty retreats from their shared violence and descends into despair, ultimately deciding she wants out. She goes to the bathroom and commits suicide via self-asphyxiation, bringing the film to a bleak close.