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At this point, you've all probably seen at least a couple of examples of
a growing sub-genre known as the backyard epic - low-fi, shot-on-vid
cheapies from horror's burgeoning underground. They seem to arrive at
our offices by the dozen every week, and let's not mince words - most of
them are shitty. Once in a while I see a pretty good one. Two years
ago, I actually saw one that blew me away: Mark Savage's MASKED AVENGER
VERSUS ULTRA-VILLAIN IN THE LAIR OF THE NAKED BIKINI. I've just now
seen another - and this is no exaggeration - I'm almost too tongue-tied
to adequately describe how good it is.
SCRAPBOOK unflinchingly details the abduction, rape, and torture of
Clara (Emily Haack) by a sadistic serial killer, Leonard (Tommy
Biondo). After several days of near-unspeakable degradation, Clara
hatches a plan: she can't hope to overpower her tormentor physically,
but she just might be able to use his own pathology to manipulate him
into letting his guard down.
Both Haack and Biondo turn in performances of astounding intensity and
authenticity that will leave even the most jaded viewer feeling battered
and exhausted. The accompanying short documentary (which regrettably
doesn't feature any interviews) asserts that THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW
MASSACRE was influential on SCRAPBOOK, and that's a bit of an
understatement. The grubby primitivism that fuels CHAIN SAW is in ample
supply here, although director Eric Stanze occasionally shifts gears
into a wild, hallucinatory fugue state that's worlds away from Tobe
Hooper but works marvelously nonetheless.
The fact that I find such an excruciatingly ugly and unpleasant film so
exhilarating is testimony to the incredible skill with which it was
made. If SCRAPBOOK achieves the cult classic status it so richly
deserves, its impact on micro-budget horror filmmaking could be
staggering. Normally, the most anyone can reasonably expect from one of
these films is competence, and anything beyond that is gravy. But
Stanze, Biondo, and Haack have raised the bar significantly with a
single film, and I rather doubt that most of their peers could even hope
to compete.
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