MOVIE • 1989

Empire of Madness

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Don’t be misled by the title and put your lube away: True Gore II (aka Empire of Madness) (1989)–M Dixon Causey’s follow-up to the eponymous first entry–has virtually no true gore in it at all. Instead, the first half is a compilation of faux-snuff vignettes akin to something you’d find in a SOV horror collection like Snuff Perversions 1 & 2, Snuff Files, The Dead Files, Violations I & II, or even more recent titles like Murder Collection Volume 1. The second half is in turn a send-up of satanic panic style videos like Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, Devil Worship: The Rise Of Satanism, and countless others shat out during the 80s/90s. The vignettes are hilariously inept to the point where it seems clear that Causey was parodying the shockumentary form. Even the credits are a joke, mocking the seriousness with which shocku producers take themselves, crediting a ‘researcher’ for a film that clearly had none, and a ‘visual archivist’ being listed in place of a cameraman.