Pig (2010)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Andrew Howard, Molly Black, Lorry O’Toole, Juliet Quintin-Archard, Guy Burnet
Directed by Adam Mason
There are films that push boundaries, and then there are films that go so far that boundaries aren’t even an issue. Adam Mason’s Pig falls into the latter of those two categories. Given Mason’s “we haven’t gone far enough yet” attitude, his latest creation is one of the single most grueling movie watching experiences you are ever likely to have.
Mason shot Pig during the waiting period for his upcoming movie Luster completely off the grid and off the radar of the film industry and its various outlets, us included. The storyline is simple and familiar. A “family” of psychopaths capture a few poor souls and inflict unimaginable horrors upon them including (but not limited to) rape, cannibalism, necrophilia, etc., with some good old fashioned battery slathered on heavy to further the film’s constant high level of violent content and keep it steady throughout the flick’s run time.
Pig is really tough to sit through. Every time you think that it can’t possibly go any further down the road of depravity, it does, almost as if Mason and company are simply daring you to keep watching. It’s nearly impossible for even the most jaded of viewers to not become just a little bit squeamish here and there.
Aside from being one hell of a gruesome and at times despicable experience, Pig is also a sterling technical achievement. There’s a seventy-minute stretch of the film’s ninety minutes that is all shot in a single take. That means the actors had one shot at bringing all of this lunacy to life. Worthy of particular praise is the film’s lead, long-time Mason collaborator actor Andrew Howard, whom you may know from Mason’s The Devil’s Chair as well as the upcoming Blood River and aforementioned Luster. Howard is nothing short of menacing and more than capable of conveying to the audience pure evil on two legs. It’s his boundless performance, as well as the film’s fearless female leads, who really toughed out what had to be an incredibly difficult shoot, that sends this one over the top. Hats off to all those involved.
Pig is equal parts dark, disturbing, satirical, unsettling, and completely psycho. Because the flick is as off the wall as they come, it is a hard one to rate. Like Martyrs, it’s not exactly a movie you either like or dislike. It is more a film you simply experience. There are some who aren’t going to be able to stomach its overly graphic content and therefore will probably hate it and others who will appreciate it for the maniacal exercise in experimental filmmaking that it is. What side are you on?
3 1/2 out of 5
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