Pig

So...usually, before I get into what I liked and didn't like about a movie when I review it, I usually give a plot summary to show others what it's about. But, in this case, I cant give one because, frankly, there IS no plot

Now, I have good news and bad news about this film. The good news is that this film goes above and beyond the normal setting for films going "too far". The bad news? There's not much else to this film.

A thing that I have to praise this film for is it's one on-going shot that's used for almost the entire film. If you want to become a director, cinematographer, or pretty much anything else to do with film, you should see this film purely on that.

But, the major down-side to this film is that it's just plain boring at times. I'm not one of these conservative people who will hate this film because "It's too terrible" or "It will corrupt the kids" or anything like that. I mainly don't like it that much because it's just plain boring at times. Your waiting for the film to move on at points, but it never really does.

Maybe that was the director's intentions or the actors intentions (because you can tell that this film is mainly improv), but whatever it is, it's not something that you should really see OTHER than the technical stand-point.

I knew what I was getting myself into before I started to watch this movie and so should anyone else, so I'm not going to even mention the violent content. It's a movie about a crazed killer, what do you think is going to happen!? In fact, I think Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a lot more graphic gore than Pig does. Perhaps what a lot of people have a problem with is that the main character is almost likable. Sure he's a sick twisted maniac, but thanks to Andrew Howard's fine acting he gradually becomes a 3 dimensional character that you begin to see is much more than just a brainless psycho. Every now and then there are glimpses of an almost regular guy here. A regular guy that just happens to be a blood thirsty animal. I should also say that ALL the acting is first class considering the subject matter and the fact that there's not much actual dialogue.

The single shot technique works extremely well. It gives us a sense of time and a good layout of his home and surroundings. This in itself is very impressive and should be applauded. The music is sometimes annoying and unnecessary, but it's not a major flaw. I also love the talk radio in the background, almost like a commentary on what we are witnessing.

All in all, a fantastic effort. Adam Mason is a director to be taken seriously. He is pushing the boundaries without relying on excess gore and expensive effects. He obviously has an excellent sense of nail biting tension without forgetting to deliver us interesting characters that force us to react to them.

I'll finish off by saying, the ending of Pig is genius!!

Adam Mason, I salute you.

A hypnotic headmashing experiment in single camera nastiness, PIG certainly lived up to and also confounded my expectations. I was expecting a standard redneck slasher film, which in essence it is, but the totally unhinged performances and the atmosphere of inescapable dread really hooked me in, and made me feel I needed a shower after it was over. Extremely technically impressive, almost completely improvised, and bringing to mind other experimental fare like the August Underground series, PIG is practically a video diary of murder, degradation, and crack-smoking madness. As unsettlingly brilliant as Andrew Howard's performance is, a few moments of pitch-black humour dot the proceedings, adding an interesting edge to an otherwise fairly archetypal character. The music can get slightly tiresome, I'd have liked to see it with no score at all except the radio excerpts. It's certainly a slog, but an admirable and affecting one.

I'm not going to go into elaborate detail about the quality or goings-on of the story, because Adam Mason's press release warned/boasted that the film contained no plot...only brutality, gore & degradation. And it certainly lived up to that. As far as as a review is concerned, I agree completely with pretty much everything Shawn Savage said in his review.

I was pretty bored throughout the proceedings, especially after I noticed the first edit in the supposedly uninterrupted, single-take film. It occurred approx 20 min. into the film...the camera moves in on the truck-bed girl's dress, there's a dissolve (read: cut), and the camera pulls back to continue capturing the goings-on. Not that what Adam Mason & co. pulled off in long takes wasn't sometimes impressive, but if you're going to boast a 70+ minute, uninterrupted take, don't cheat. My opinion is if they decided to allow themselves "hidden" cuts (a la Hitchock's ROPE), they might as well have put some effort into some semblance of a storyline to make the whole thing a bit less monotonous.

I probably would have only given this 2 stars, but the film's score was really quite engaging and well-done throughout, and that's primarily what kept me watching.

I really, really did try to like this movie. I really wanted to enjoy this as sheer brutality, something that simply tried to be as vulgar as rating systems would allow. There's just. No. Plot. It's just a bad movie, plain and simple. Sure, it's got all the earmarks of a pretty, technically well-made film, but if you don't have that kind of film school background, it's nothing but torture porn, and within the first 5 minutes, you realize that it's not even torture porn: just sexist, reprehensible and filth. I'm fine with a good bit of Saw or Devil's Rejects fun, but when you're just beating the sh*t out of women for a good hour and a half, it's not fun anymore.

What a damn shame.