Review of Pig Hunt (1970) by Benjamin J — 21 Sep 2010

This has a Les "Primus" Claypool soundtrack. So now I've got the plus points out of the way, let's look at the bad bits.

It's not tricky to make a relatively entertaining movie about hillbillies. Take some naive and disrespectful city folk, drive them into the middle of the forest (despite warnings), introduce them to the locals, then bum and kill them. How difficult is it? Surely the introduction of a giant pig could only make the film even better? No, no it doesn't.

Some annoying people go out into the forest and meet some old hillbilly friends who take them hunting. On the way, the meet some hippies. "I wonder if they'll become important later", you think. After what seems like forever of boring build up of various dead things being found, someone gets killed and the yokels fight back. Then there's a giant pig. And that's it really.

Oh no, I forgot. It's got a message. Yeah, that's right- a political message. It's like a satire, yeah? Because every so often they make references to people being soldiers and they show photos of the Iraq war and talk about the War on Terror. Not that it's particularly clear what the point is, and after my attempt to explain it to myself I realised that it was just a bit of a sad attempt to make a bog standard horror movie into a political gesture. How about you just make a political gesture, lazy boys?

The pig wasn't even that good. Better than the rug draped over a wheelbarrow in Razorback, but not as good as a slightly bigger rug draped over a slightly bigger wheelbarrow. Somewhere in between.