Pig Hunt

Pig Hunt_720p(480P)

source: Pig Hunt

This movie certainly wasn't anything like I expected, yet I'm not quite sure whether that's a good thing or not. Based on the title and particularly the enticing DVD-cover, I was anticipating (or hoping…) to see a good old-fashioned creature feature and perhaps even a homage to that nostalgic childhood favorite of mine; "Razorback". Instead, "Pig Hunt" is a lot more ambitious than that (perhaps even too ambitious for its own good) and presents a miscellany of creature feature, hillbilly backwoods horror, slasher and even satanic cult horror. Oh, and there are naked lesbians! The film starts traditionally enough, with a bunch of enthusiast friends (read = stereotypical twenty-something idiots that certainly don't belong in the woods) heading out to the Californian wilderness to go a-hunting for wild hogs. They quickly get stuck with two obtrusive marijuana-addicted and aggressive local yokels, who tell them about the most notorious inhabitant of the woods: a humongous and ferocious 3.000lbs hog nicknamed "The Ripper". The group runs into conflict with a sect that worships the giant hog as some sort of deity, but their main issue lies with the hillbillies. Pretty soon, the teens find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty hicks and only then The Ripper. The variety of sub plots made it very difficult for me personally to like "Pig Hunt", but I acknowledge that James Isaac (director of "Jason X" and late 80's guilty pleasure "House III") wanted to try something innovative and daredevil. The film all too often feels overly hectic and incoherent, which is a shame because Isaac does create a decent macabre atmosphere and swears by traditional non-computer engineered special effects. There's also a lot of gore and shocking imagery, including a detailed pig-gutting process, so better make sure there aren't any kids around then. Overall, this is an admirable attempt at hardcore horror but nevertheless ends up in the dreaded category of mediocrity because it's too random and all over the place. I like foaming hillbillies and naked lesbian hog-worshipers as much as the next guy, but here I wanted to see a big fat monster eating idiots from the city. Call me naive, but I think a movie entitled "Pig Hunt" should largely stick to humans hunting pigs and vice versa.

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 ...

There aren't a whole lot of horror movies out there involving pigs. Or maybe there are, but not as many as there should be. Most of the time pigs in popular culture are cute, funny, a term of insult, to a majority the word pig brings up a dirty, snuffling and shuffling pack of beasts in a farmers yard, waiting to get turned into delicious food. So to use pigs as a force for horror, to have them preying on humans, it's a good role reversal. Plus, the basic form of a pig doesn't take too much distortion and increase in size to become a pretty menacing looking customer. It was with these thought in mind that I sat down to Pig Hunt, unknowing that the pig action is actually just one aspect of the film, it being more of a backwoods genre mash up. The film sets about its build up during the course of a hunt, friends out for macho bonding in the forest (though one girlfriend tags along), a soaking, chilly trek with a few hints and rumours to stir a sense of mystery. Monster pig action is conspicuously absent for quite some time as the film combusts somewhere around the halfway mark, blazes through exciting hick-sploit action and some more unexpected craziness before we finally get into monstrous territory. Fortunately, the beast is mighty impressive, no CGI in sight, a tightly shot ferocious tusked beast rather worth the wait. A downside of all of this is that such a set up somewhat requires decent, memorable or likable characters and performances and Pig Hunt is pretty meh on the characterisation and acting fronts. No one is especially bad, but equally I never felt much for anyone. Travis Aaron Wade is a competent enough hero figure, Tina Huang does a fair tough gal schtick as his girlfriend, Howard Johnson Jr. makes for a decent a-hole, slightly more of a punch is provided by Jason Foster and Nick Tagas as wild natured but initially friendly hicks, while most notable is Les Claypool as a bulky, mystical figure who becomes important later on in the game. Though generally competent, the film suffers from a drawn out first half in which presumably we are supposed to get to know the characters so we can suffer and thrill along with them, but as mentioned they just aren't especially interesting. Slick, wet and vivid cinematography from Adam Kane makes for a suitably arduous atmosphere and when things do get exciting director James Isaac keeps tight, stylish hold on things, making for one or two impressive, thrilling moments. There's more nudity than might be expected, which is rather pleasing to behold, and a few good grisly scenes, the film isn't too concerned with gore but uses it for some nifty jolts. Interestingly, the goriest scene involves a pig rather than a human. Comment on the savagery of man? I could have done with more general gore, a shorter first half and longer final block (the film needs more pig!) but generally I was pretty pleased by this one. No classic, but certainly a worthy modern day B picture.

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.

Not for the faint of heart. James Isaac directs this gory low budget flick from Fangoria. John Hickman(Travis Aaron Wade)puts together a hunting weekend for some of his San Francisco buddies that is suppose to be a guys-only thing; but somehow John's girlfriend Brooks(Tina Huang)is a tag-a-long. Fine; John hustles the group off to his late uncle's property in the boondocks to hunt wild pigs. This outing will not be a typical weekend trip...there will be hillbillies, hippies, massive marijuana fields, muddy wallows and the legend of a big ass 3,000 pound wild boar named "The Ripper". Things get violent, insane and bloody. Others in the cast: Howard Johnson Jr., Trevor Bullock, Jason Foster, Rajiv Shah and Christina McKay.

A bunch of multicultural guys and a girl go on a trip to the country. They go on a pig hunt as they are military and one of them is a hunter. Once in the country they run into the neighbors. They are the stereotypical movie hillbillies. Two of them go along for the pig hunt. These people don't go along with each other at all, making for a very obnoxious, long and tedious 1:15 of the movie. The beginning of the movie hints at a large hog that eats horses. And there are rumors of a 3000 pound one roaming the country. Earlier in the movie the gang also run into some weird black guru and a couple of his drugged out hippie devotees. The last part of the movie gets entertaining as the remaining guys from the gang escape the violent hillbillies and end up at the cult's house and meet the giant boar as well as some sexy girls. There is a troubling trend in horror movies to present our cast as nothing but bunch of annoying, bickering idiots, insulting and threatening each other for hours. I don't know who thinks that's entertaining. It's not. It's a pain. This movie for the most part follows that recipe but with an unattractive cast. There is a bit of violence and gore. But if you're into animal death, torture, and gore, then this movie is for you as the camera loves to linger on animal carcasses. I give this movie 3 stars for the 7 or so topless girls bathing. Nothing else is worth watching here.

I just watched Pig Hunt tonight and i thought that it was a great horror film. It is about a man called John who takes his friends in San Francisco to his deceased uncle's ranch to hunt wild pigs, a guys weekend with guns despite John's sexy girlfriend Brooks being there with them. But as John and his crew go deeper into the forest, they begin to find out the truth about his uncle's death and the legend of The Ripper a murderous 3000 pound black boar pig! They go on an adventure through fields of marijuana and into the muddy landscape of Big Wallow, they are loaded with weapons, they meet the violent Tibbs Brothers, and a group of throat-slitting Cult Girls who grow marijuana by day and worship the giant killer pig by night. there only chance of getting away alive is to stay together. I found there to be a lot a gore and strong bloody violence in this film, but i thought that it ended up being a great horror film. 6/10

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.