Pig Hunt (2008)

I love this movie so much

Just perfect...

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Horror conventions like Frightfest are an ideal home for z- grade movies, because they will be lucky to find distribution anywhere else. At first glance, Pig Hunt may seem like one such movie, but once you see it you realize that labelling it as Z-grade may a tad degrading. Sure it's low budget, but the premise is something more legitimate than the kind of rip off of a rip off of a rip off that one might be anticipating. Indeed Pig Hunt's problem is not a lack of material. On the contrary, it has too much. The film is overambitious and uncertain of what it wants to be. It delivers a scenario where hunters go after pigs, pigs go after hunters, hillbillies go after hunters, and Eurasian brothel girls are after anyone. Pig Hunt is arguably enjoyable in that it doesn't feel predictable or familiar. It has a fun disgusting sense of humour, which is sustained for all most the entire running length, but is still not enough to keep the viewer blind to the movie's error. After a while, Pig Hunt starts to feel bloated and overlong. When it's all said and done, Pig Hunt could be called an amusing mess. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, I guess it's all a matter of how you approach it.

The best pig movie is, of course, Razorback. This one is a different pig movie. Think B-Movie expectations and you've got a winner. Crazy at times, opens up in weird directions and gets really loopy. It is entertainment for scary/horror/adventure folks. That's what a movie like this is supposed to do. It does it. Comes with laughs up front and hidden. A good time if your snoot isn't pointed upward. I appreciate it. There is a smear of styles blended in a cool and engaging way. The rednecky thing is stereotyped but works. The Fearsome Bugger is only on screen for the last five minutes of the film but the story is not about "Death Walks On Four Legs", it's about ... we'll, just watch it. If you're wallering around in this neighborhood this is probably the kind of movie you're looking for.

Pig Hunt is set in San Francisco where John Hickman (Travis Aaron Wade), his girlfriend Brooks (Tina Huang) & a couple of their friends have decided to go hunting in the great outdoors for the weekend, the four friends travel to John's dead uncle's cabin to prepare for the hunt. Two local Hillbilly brother's Jake (Jason Foster) & Ricky (Nick Tagas) show up & offer to act as guides on a Pig hunt, rumours of a huge 3000lb Hog nicknamed 'Ripper' & 'Hogzilla' are used to add interest. The hunters set out & venture deep into the forest where they find a marijuana crop, a group of lesbian hippies & discover that the rumours of a huge man eating Hog are in fact true...Co-produced & directed by James Isaac I must admit that I am not a fan of modern low budget horror & I really wasn't expecting much from Pig Hunt but I was surprised to find an oddball exploitation horror film that certainly has plenty going on even if it doesn't quite know how to juggle everything with total success. There are lesbians, cult's, a weird Hog worshipping cult leader, Rednecks, car & bike stunts, Pig hunt's, drugs, nudity, gore, moral dilemmas, a giant mutant Hog monster & lots of backwoods brutality in a really odd mix of Deliverance (1972), Razorback (1984) & Wrong Turn (2003) that has so many things going on but the script doesn't really know how to bring them all together & the climax basically features anyone left alive in the same place with a giant monster Pig as it is finally revealed. Pacing is a bit of a problem in Pig Hunt, at almost one hour & forty minutes it could have done with maybe a good ten minutes cut from it, it just takes a little bit too long to get going & certain sequences just go on for too long. The character's are alright but I can't quite work out the Iraq war symbolism on show, from teens who aren't soldiers dressing up & acting like soldiers to hunt Pigs to John's uncle having lots of anti-Bush newspaper clippings in his cabin for no apparent reason. I assume the intention was to make a film in which hunting, shooting & killing isn't glamorised & have the Pig hunt represent actual combat in Iraq but the whole war vibe is completely ditched about halfway through as either the script or director forgot about it.There is some decent gore here, a guy's knee cap is torn off, a Pig has it's head sawn off & is then gutted in a very gory sequence, a Deer is shot & killed, a Snake is shot & impaled with an arrow, more Pigs are shot, there's plenty of guts on show, a guy is shot in the head, someone is impaled to a wall, a guy has his head cut off, a severed hand is seen, there's an eye gouging, there's plenty of blood splatter & very little CGI which is nice. The giant Pig monster isn't seen until the last fifteen or so minutes & it's good old latex rather than CGI, even though the makers couldn't afford to make an entire giant mutant Pig monster since we only ever see close-up & tight shots of it's face & eye's. Set in the forest the film does have an isolated feel. There are a few car & motorbike stunts & your typical insulting horror film clichéd interpretation of Rednecks who are all inbred psychos with bad teeth. There's also a fair bit of nudity at the end as an entire cult of women walk around naked.The IMDb says Pig Hunt had a budget of about $6,000,000 which I find hard to believe, there's no way this cost that much. The production values are nice, it's well made & the lack of horrible CGI is a definite plus. The acting is fine, the cast do a good if not amazing job.Pig Hunt is an odd film, it's a Redneck backwoods brutality film, a giant killer Pig film, a slasher thriller film that has lots going on if nothing else. I liked it for it's mix of odd moments, styles & genres & the gore & nudity don't hurt either. Much better than I expected, not a masterpiece but an entertaining backwoods brutality exploitation monster flick. It could have been worse.

I will start with the one really good thing about the movie! It's the sound(track). I really loved it. It's a bit country mixed with other influences and it really worked for me. Not everyone at the Festvial I watched this at, was as hyped about it as me though, but that's how everyone receives certain things.Now onto the problems: There is not much happening in the movie. And while the direction it takes (concentrating on the characters) is not really a bad one, it doesn't have either the script/dialog nor the actors to carry something like that. Still a few (too little) action set pieces and some fine moments plus the music prevent this movie from falling completely down ...