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A few months ago, I had the great pleasure of viewing Eric Stanze’s I
SPIT ON YOUR CORPSE, I PISS ON YOUR GRAVE and it was one of those movie
watching experiences where I was so blown away, I had to watch it with
the commentary track immediately after. This is how I came to learn
about SCRAPBOOK, an earlier film made by Stanze, which he says has had
major difficulty finding an audience that is willing to sit through the
95-minute feature due to to it being so repulsing. This sounded like a
challenge to me and I was eager to watch the film as kind of a dare. On
the other hand, I wasn’t really expecting the same kind of high caliber
filmmaking I found in I SPIT, but instead a goony gross-out flick that
was only worth having the first 30 minutes watched. What can I say? I’m
a pessimist. But I was also dead wrong.
So I’m sitting here writing this with my ass on fire because Eric
Stanze’s lightning struck twice, ‘cept this time the strike packed with
it an even harder and more brilliant wallop. I’m in awe and disgusted
at the same time, something I haven’t felt since I began watching really
sleazy horror films like LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET and I SPIT ON
YOUR GRAVE in my early teens. This is the kind of filmmaking that
underground horror has been dying for over the recent years, but no one
has seemed to be able to do it right…until now.
SCRAPBOOK has us endure the captivity of a young woman, Clara, as she’s
locked away in the house of a serial killer, Leonard, who documents all
of his victims by taking Polaroids of them in various stages of torture,
placing the pictures in a scrapbook. The scrapbook is nearly full and
Clara is to be Leonard’s last victim before he turns himself in to
become a serial killer icon, his scrapbook standing as proof of his
murderous legacy.
For nearly the entire 95-minute film, we get to watch Leonard brutalize
Clara in about every way imaginable. Scenes of torture and rape are
explicit, going far beyond what you would see in other exploitation
films. In one scene in particular, after raping Clara’s kicking and
screaming body, Leonard stands and pisses on her…all in plain view.
So it’s no wonder why Stanze has said that it’s rare for him to find
anyone to put up with SCRAPBOOK at its entire length. But, this isn’t
some mindless sleaze, cranked out by a bunch of assholes who just like
to see women brutalized on screen. The actors in this film bring a
tremendous depth to their roles. Tommy Biondo as Leonard is kinda hit
and miss, but for the most part he pulls off a fine, depraved psycho.
And then there’s Emily Haack as Clara, who seriously turns in the best
performance I’ve seen in any independent horror film this year. For the
first third of the film, there should be no doubt in your mind that
she's purely terrified, but as the film rolls on, she lets her character
get stronger and craftier, until she refuses to let herself be tortured
anymore.
SCRAPBOOK is well shot, eerily voyeuristic and caked with filth.
Dragging its tone deeper into despair is a soundtrack that often sounds
like something Throbbing Gristle would do with a lot of feedback and
clangy, industrial noises.
With all that I’ve just said, you don’t have to be a genius to figure
out that SCRAPBOOK definitely isn’t for everyone. There’s no light side
to the events in this film…no safety net. This is true terror.
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