Pig

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.

My quick rating - 2,4/10. All this is? 69 minutes of watching some supposed psychotic serial killer demoralize some captors in the middle of nowhere. Scenery is great if you want to stare at a mobile home for that long. So terrible acting, pissing on a woman for no reason, cooking with blood, a pregnant captor acting like a two year old....that about sums up this movie. Oh, that other one minute? (yes, the "movie" is only 70 minutes which is hardly categorized as a movie) That other one minute is the only reason this gets a single point since I never saw the ending coming. Beyond that, horrible in every way. They skipped the killing to make it about a serial killer. The one person killed just, died from headbutts. Oops (yeah, he actually says "I didn't mean to kill her") I'd mention poor script, but I doubt there was one.

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.

PIG is not a movie you're likely to put on for the family after a big Christmas lunch, but as an exercise in unrelenting brutality it's certainly worth checking out for any fan of extreme cinema.

Even at only a little longer than an hour PIG seems a bit too padded. If this was a 60-minute MASTERS OF HORROR episode it would have easily been the best one, but a certain numbness sets in to the viewer around 45-minutes in after such a protracted exhibition of frenzy, brutality and madness.

Technically the film's much-ballyhooed 'single take' technique is certainly daring. And the performances are committed, if not always entirely successful in some instances.

All-in-all this isn't a perfect film. But Adam Mason and his team have gone and done a left-of-field experiment in grueling extremity. And for a vast majority of its run time it most certainly succeeds.

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.