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Overall Rating : 3/10
Directed By : James Isaac
Travis Aaron Wade (Local Boys)
Tina Huang
Howard Johnson Jr.
Trevor Bullock
Supplied By : Phase 4 Films
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : July. 14, 2010
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| PLOT When John takes his friends to his deceased uncle's remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical guys weekend. But as John and his crew trek deeper into the forest, they begin tracking the awful truth about his uncle's demise and the legend of The Ripper - a murderous three-thousand-pound black boar! |
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| THE REVIEW In PIG HUNT, John Hickman decides to take a buddies, Ben, Quincy and Wayne out to his recently deceased uncle's land which he inherited. for a weekend of hunting. Despite his girlfriend Brooks tagging along the guys believe that it will be a perfect getaway from their usual San Fransisco life. Where they go of course is no San Francisco, but the heart of the country where things are just a little strange. Shortly after beginning their hunting excursion, they run into two brothers, Jake and Ricky, who happen to be childhood friends with John. Jake is quick to tell the wide-eyed hunters about the town legend, a legend of a 3,000 pound black boar, dubbed The ripper, that supposedly roams the land, destroying everything in it's path. Despite now knowing this fact, Johnny and crew continue on with their excursion anyway, as Jake and Ricky join them. It isn't long before they stumble upon something however it's not a pig or game of any sort, but instead a huge crop of Marijuana. Without hesitation, the two brothers immediately want to hijack the crop and make a profit, but Johnny wants no part of it. This causes a riff between John, his friends, and the backwoods brothers and an argument ensues, The altercation sees been shooting one of the brothers dead, which results in the other going back home to retrieve the rest of his family, a family, seemingly fixated on revenge. With them now becoming the hunted as opposed to the hunters; Johnny, Brooks, Ben, Quincy and Wayne run for their lives in panic. They head to a seemingly peaceful Hippie commune, lead by a friendly stranger that they met on the way in. Now in "Hippieland", they assume that everything is now safe, but they are wrong as they find that this stranger isn't the friendly giant that he appears to be, not to mention that they run into a cult of strange women whom grow pot and by night worship the pig that is a legend. No matter where they turn, they aren't safe, in this film that has a ton of things happening, for the, all indications point to the group big the giant hog's next supper. Another FANGORIA FRIGHTFEST title, next is James Isaac's colossal Creature Feature, PIG HUNT, a film that unfortunately fails to live up to the legend that is it's creature. James Isaac, a Director that has directed films such as JASON X and SKINWALKERS, is a filmmaker who seems to be in a slump, as each new release has put him further and further a decline. Although not great, i'd say that JASON X was a high point for Issac, who then went on to SKINWALKERS, which again wasn't terrible, but a little lesser in quality than JASON X. His latest, PIG HUNT was actually shot and released in 2008, it saw a UK release, but up until now, has not been released stateside. Now, i'm not certain about this, but i'd say it's a possibility that the studio behind it just did not believe that it was up to par. Because being quite blunt and honest, the film just is not that great. In my opinion, the big thing working against PIG HUNT is it's plot, the "man-eating creature in the woods"(or anywhere for that matter) is just played out and stale. I have seen a ton of these creature feature; from apes, to bears and tigers, almost every one of them follows the same format. They always start the same way, and end the same way. It starts with our characters being warned to stay away from an unknown beast, of course they don't heed the warning and go out anyway. They of course get trapped by whatever it is, and later the survivor or survivors, make it out alive, but barely. Such happens right here within the film PIG HUNT, except the writers decide to throw in pissed off red necks and occult hippies. The rednecks I can see as a plausible addition but what is up with having a hippie cult? It makes absolutely no since, and of course all of this nonsense results in just too much happening in the film, and overall, it's just not very interesting, excluding a few of the kills, but that's about it. Like the story and it's many characters, the film's acting is all over the place, with no character of characters to truly invest in. A film that has any character having to survive some kind of onslaught should have the viewer latched on to them at least by the film's conclusion, but in the case of PIG HUNT, there are no such characters unfortunately. Sadly, for the most part, it's as if the actors are sleepwalking during their roles, like they are just as bored as the viewer watch them. With characters that are dry and dull, all else relies on the film's gimmick, which of course is the 3,000 pound black boar. Admittedly, the boar is cool and is executed quite nicely, via practical effects rather than some lame digital CGI effects, but the problem is that we rarely so it, or any kills that the creature commits. When people pick up a DVD with a huge blood thirty pig on the cover, they probably expect to see about 90 minutes or so worth of a pig massacring just about anything, but if you're looking for that here, sadly you'll find very little of it. Although the film is promoted around the wild boar, in my opinion the film is more concerned about it's cult aspect more than anything else. |
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| GORE
METER 4/10 There's blood, gun shot wounds, an execution style killing, a decapitation, a few battered bodies, and a scene depicting the beheading of a pig. |
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MUSICAL
SCORE 3/10 As for the film's soundtrack, there is the typical suspense score. There is also a mix of some indie rock, and even some James Brown. | ||||
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM As with everything, I went in really wanting to like PIG HUNT after hearing so much about it over the last year or so. Although, like I said, i've seen a lot of these types of film's there are some good ones(I have always loved the cheesy 1876 film, GRIZZLY), but with PIG HUNT, I found more of the same old thing. With one dimensional characters, slow pacing and the fact that the film tries to do so much in so little time, I found myself, basically bored with it, despite how cool the film's killer boar might be. Be sure to check out FangoriaFrightfest.com you have until July 19th to vote for your favorite to win a theatrical run! Each FANGORIA FRIGHTFEST film will be available through Blockbuster stores and Blockbuster By Mail, as well as digitally via Blockbuster On Demand for a full 45 days before they are available for purchase or rental through other national home entertainment providers.They then will be released on DVD, September 28, 2010 |
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