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Amid darkness, we hear Clara crying and begging to know what is going
on. After minutes of crying, light shines in through opened van doors.
Lying next to Clara is a woman who has been butchered. A man, Leonard,
pulls the butchered body out of the van and closes the doors, consuming
Clara in darkness once again. We are then subjected to a five-minute
flashback of a little boy being seduced by his older sister, then raped
by his older brother. Back to the present; Clara is held hostage in a
secluded house littered with rotting body parts and trash, with walls
decorated with Polaroid pictures of Leonard's past female victims. Over
a long period of time, Clara is brutally raped, tortured, starved, and
severely beaten by Leonard.
During the brief moments of peace while living this hell, Clara is
forced to immortalize her anguish and agony by writing in Leonard's
scrapbook, which already jam-packed with other victim's writing,
possessions, and newspaper clippings. Although she is doing as told,
the brutality worsens. After a failed escape attempt, Clara realizes
she must use her written words to turn Leonard's scrapbook into a mental
weapon.
Christ! This is one powerful, tough, and raw movie. The movie is shot
in such a way it made me think I was right there with Clara and
Leonard. I actually had to fast forward by one of the rape scenes
because it was way too disturbing to watch. Emily Haack (Clara) does a
masterful job with this difficult role, especially with the way she
expresses so much pain and fear with her eyes.
Tommy Biondo (Leonard), who also wrote this movie, does a great job as
the rambling madman and comes across as truly frightening. Just to warn
you, the rape scenes are pretty graphic and very disturbing. There is a
close up of Clara being forced lick Leonard's flaccid penis, but the
scene is not the least bit sexual due to it's extremely disturbing
nature. Tommy Biondo researched actual serial killers for years and
used true-life events to write SCRAPBOOK. Director Eric Stanze's (ICE
FROM THE SUN) masterful camera work exploits and heightens the terror
felt in this movie. There is also a very informative 15-minute "making
of" featurette included after the movie.
SCRAPBOOK combines all the terror found in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE,
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and KISS THE GIRLS and is one of the most
horrifying movies I've seen in ten years.
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