August Underground’s Mordum 2003

Mordum is a harrowing, self-shot film that unfolds as a brutal home movie created by a trio of serial killers: Peter Mountain, Crusty, and Maggot. The movie dives into their uneasy dynamic as the trio spirals from volatile confrontation to a sequence of calculated acts of violence and domination, all captured through Crusty’s camera. The opening seconds set the tone: Peter stumbles upon Crusty and Maggot in a charged moment, and an argument erupts. Crusty attempts to defuse the tension with a shocking act of self-harm that still somehow seizes Peter’s attention, revealing a pattern of control and ritual that threads through the film.

The three then break into a crack house, where Peter strikes the owner with a hammer and the group begins to catalog the place for Crusty’s film. Crusty documents the decaying scene, including a dead addict, while Peter starts to strip the man’s body in a misguided bid to “simplify” disposal. A fresh fight erupts as Crusty questions why Peter is undressing the corpse, accusing him of taking things too far and challenging his motives.

Crusty’s relationship with self-harm becomes a recurring motif, demonstrated for Maggot and a close friend as she cuts herself to demonstrate devotion and a desire for beauty in a world that prizes brutality. The trio then alters their target, pulling a bound and masked woman from a hidden box. Maggot exerts his dominance in a brutal sequence that involves sexual assault, while Crusty taunts and encourages him. After this, a bound male captive is forced to participate in a dangerous, self-inflicted act, and Crusty imitates and participates in the disturbing moment that follows.

From there, the trio spirals into town life, tormenting a shopkeeper, grabbing fast food, and wandering through a night that repeatedly highlights their appetite for domination. Maggot and Peter watch Crusty subject two women to further abuse, as Crusty and Peter revel in the power they hold over their captives, punctuated by Crusty’s audible reactions and the grim presence of a dead body nearby. The trio’s acts of violence escalate toward lethal ends, with one woman killed and another meeting a fatal fate under the abuse and violence that surrounds them. The film’s disturbing energy continues as Maggot, newly intoxicated by their dark lifestyle, shaves and cuts himself to appear “beautiful” for Crusty.

Snow-covered landscapes, a concert, and casual meetups with friends punctuate the trio’s uneasy road show. They commit further sexual violence in a manner that underscores their depravity, and a trip to a piercing shop cements Maggot’s fascination with body modification and the bond they share through fear and control. The trio encounter another serial killer who unveils a shed filled with gruesome evidence of his own victims, and Maggot consumes a disturbing fragment of what he sees, underscoring his hunger for extreme experiences.

A stranger then borrows their camera and films a killer taunting and killing a captive, an event that amplifies the trio’s sense of inevitability about their own endgame. The violence reaches a devastating crescendo when they ambush a family: the father dies first, and the mother endures brutal abuse as the tension among the trio cracks wide open. A confrontation erupts as Maggot and Crusty watch Peter threaten to kill Maggot, and the trio’s internal loyalties are exposed in a moment that hints at Maggot’s possible self-destruction. The ending sequence leaves the final image of Maggot’s fate ambiguous, with the implication that he may have harmed himself, while Crusty’s scream from the background reinforces the collapse of their network.

In the post-credits scene, a cat is shown quietly eating a mouse, a stark, almost quiet coda to a film built on chaos and the breakdown of human bonds.