| This review is for the VHS version. However, there is a
DVD version that includes commentary by Director Eric Stanze and actress
Emily Hack, a behind the scenes featurette, etc.
 SCRAPBOOK (b-movie.com)
(Wicked Pixel)
Horror/thriller. 95 minutes. NR, violence, nudity, rape. Directed by Eric
Stanze. 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 another 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
clipping. 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.
I am not going to get into specifics of this movie because if I do,
it will ruin the non-stop tension that fuels this baby. Emily Haak (Clara)
does a masterful job with this difficult role. Not so much with her body
acting, which is convincing as hell, but 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. I think the fact that Biondo has an erringly, uncanny
resemblance to an old high school friend of mine made Leonard seem all too
real and really freaked me out. 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 its extremely disturbing nature. Tommy Biondo researched
actual serial killers for two 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. Combining all the
terror found in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, and
Kiss the Girls, Scrapbook is one of the most horrifying movies I’ve seen
in ten years. – Denis Sheehan
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