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Cast:
Travis Aaron Wade as John Hickman
Tina Huang as Brooks
Howard Johnson Jr. as Ben
Trevor Bullock as Quincy
Rajiv Shah as Wayne
Jason Foster as Jake
Directed by James Isaac
Review:
Jim Isaac’s (Jason X, Skinwalkers) fourth film may be the most disjointed horror film of the year. The parts that put the film together are not very original, since the film includes nods to Deliverance, Jaws, and even Alien and Predator. But the sum of its parts, mixing hillbilly maniacs, rampaging monster-hogs, and pot-loving hippies separate Pig Hunt from the everyday horror film, making it different, but not necessarily cohesive.
John is taking his good buddies pig hunting up in the woods near his dead uncle’s place, where he used to go as a kid. To the chagrin of his chums (an army-loving guy named Ben, a semi-normal guy named Wayne, a whiny fat guy named Quincy and his dog Wolfgang), John’s sexy Asian girlfriend Brooks wants to tag along on the boys’ weekend outing. The first act of this movie lives up to its name, so be ready for some hardcore pig hunting action. They arrive in the woods and John meets up with his old redneck buddies, Jake and his brother Ricky. The old guy at the convenience store (played by blues legend Charlie Musselwhite) tells them about the legend of the 3,000 pound hog known as “The Ripper” and this becomes their ultimate goal. The next twenty or so minutes are spent trudging through the mud of the Northern California forests looking for pigs of any size.
This “getting-to-know-you” segment slows the film down, but not by much. Eventually, we meet up with some pigs and one of the little piglets smashes Wayne’s knee to smithereens during a stampede. Quincy’s dog Wolfgang runs off during the stampede and afterwards Quincy decides to wander blindly through the thicket to find the dog. What he finds instead is an entire crop of marijuana and he rushes back to tell everyone. The group returns to the pot garden and Jake and Ricky want to harvest the crop for themselves. John just wants them to leave it alone while he calls the police. A struggle ensues and Ricky is killed by our friend Ben, who kept saying he wanted to shoot someone. Foreshadowing anyone?
Jake rushes back to tell his kinfolk what happened and now the film really ramps up as the hillbilly family take to their motorcycles and rusted trucks to hunt the city kids down. Here is where the film takes a wild turn from a monster-hog movie into Deliverance territory and I kind of wished they’d stayed with the Pigfoot movie that could have developed into a suspenseful man vs. nature adventure, but the crazy hicks story was definitely more visually exciting.
Eventually, John and Brooks run into a stranger, who looks like he stepped out of a Conan movie, and find out that he runs the local hippie hooker commune he is taking them to and that they are harvesting the wacky tabacky. Soon the remaining hicks, that haven’t been killed off during the chase, converge on the commune and we find out that Hogzilla is not only real, but real hungry. The film quickly does away with its crazies-in-the-woods story and becomes a full-blooded monster movie again as Brooks finds herself locked into a makeshift arena with the monster pig and only John and his crossbow can save her.
It’s hard to put into words how I feel about this movie. I did enjoy it, but it really left me wanting more in so many areas. The film begins with a heavy anti-war theme that, while topical, really doesn’t pay off and makes the first act come off preachy. Also, it makes no sense and gets the film off to a bad start! The opening credits sequence alone is a head-scratcher. The music by Les Claypool (who plays the Patriarch of the rednecks and played for Primus) is cool, but he should have written a few more cuts because they keep reusing the same damn theme every five minutes and it starts to get really annoying. Rob Zombie’s art director must have given this film’s art director a few pointers because the abode of the crazy rednecks is as ridiculously laden with doll heads just like House of a 1000 Corpses was. This is really just nitpicking, though.
The pig hunt part of the movie definitely got enough screen time, but I’m afraid nothing else did. The revenge-seeking psychos really only get one or two scenes to hand out bloody retribution, and the great-looking 3,000 pound Hogzilla gets one measly scene at the end to wrap up his plot line. They should have shown Pigfoot more often, but instead we get shots of scenery with wild pig noises, which means the pig is eating someone, interspersed throughout the movie. To top it off, the film ends rather awkwardly and sets itself up for a sequel. It’s this uneven, unfinished, unsatisfying balance that keeps me from giving this entertaining film a glowing review.
At the end of the screening, after the rowdy crowd had exited, I spotted Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) about to leave and walked over to him. I asked him what he thought of the movie, to which he immediately replied “I thought it was fun.” Ultimately, even though the film was all over the map, I couldn’t have put it better myself.
