Scrapbook
4 stars
Tagline: True horror is simply what one human being can do to another.
A young woman named Clara is captured by a serial killer named Leonard who records his "life story" by keeping a scrapbook of his many victims. In addition to adhering Polaroid photos, scraps of clothing, and other small trophies to the pages, Leonard has forced his victims to personally write in the scrapbook about their individual ordeals. Clara is beaten, raped, starved, and locked up like an animal, filthy and naked. She is forced to write in the scrapbook, adding her agony to the pages. She soon realizes that her only hope for survival is to manipulate Leonard through her writings in his cherished scrapbook.
Scrapbook is a relentlessly bitter serial killer video directed by Eric Stanze (Ice From the Sun). It was shot on video with a look that makes it look painfully like it is Leonard's home video. I viewed this wicked flick with three of my best viewing buddies, the four of us all veterans of years of man's-inhumanity-to-man cinema were still stunned by the unbridled depravity we witnessed. From start to finish this very grim portrayal of a serial killer toying with his victim is unrelenting. The acts that unfold over the grueling 95 minute running time are almost unimaginable, running the gauntlet of several brutal unforgivingly graphic bloody rapes, an hot afternoon trapped with in a garbage can covered in spoiled milk, beatings, golden showers, and a toe dismemberment by farm implement. The never ending cruelty left the room silent and me numb and in the need of a shower. Unlike similar genre efforts such as The Untold Story and The Ebola Virus, which were also both brutal looks at man's-inhumanity-to-man they both had a dark twisted humor, Scrapbook on the other hand, is painfully serious with no levity to speak of, making it much more of a brutal film.
Despite what I think of its subject matter I have to commend the cast and crew on an amazing job. Emily Haack and Tommy Biondoas, as Clara and Leonard respectively, are spectacular. They did an incredible bit of acting in what were probably the hardest most demanding roles of their-or anyone else's-careers. Almost all the scenes were improvised on set from plot ideas worked out beforehand. For added realism, rotten food was left on the set to add to the actors' discomfort. Also, all the physical aspects of the film were acted out no holds bared with both cast members getting bruised and battered. The results are two amazing performances. Tommy was chilling as Leonard; very cold and inhuman yet at the same time he could be the guy in the hardware store selling you power tools. Sadly, Tommy Biondoas died from a tragic accident days after the shot for Scrapbook and never saw the finished print. The beautiful Emily Haack, having the thankless job as the victim, endured every torture short of actual sexual penetration handed to her, creating one of the most painfully realistic characters ever. Holding it all together was the director Eric Stanze who pushed his cast to the limit and beyond and had the balls to make such a potent unapologetic look at pain and suffering. For me this film marks a new benchmark of cruelty and wrongness in film that I will be comparing future films against from now on.
