Affable war veteran John (Travis Aaron Wade) irks his three city-dwelling friends by bringing his girlfriend Brooks (Tina Huang) along on a boy’s weekend hunting wild pigs at his deceased uncle’s ranch in the rural South. Rumour has it John’s uncle was savaged by a three-thousand pound monster pig nicknamed “The Ripper.” Hot-headed Ben (Howard Johnson Jr.) brags he’ll bag this beast, but it is Brooks who turns out to be a crack sharpshooter. The friends receive two unwelcome visitors in the shape of John’s coke-snorting redneck neighbours Ricky (Nick Tagas) and Jake (Jason Foster) who seemingly bear him a grudge.
Shortly thereafter, Wayne (Rajiv Shah) is injured by a oversized piglet holding human remains in its stomach before the hunters stumble across a bumper crop of marijuana. An argument ensues over whether to steal a supply to sell back home, during which Ricky turns violent and is shot dead by Ben. A vengeful Jake leads his heavily-armed clan of redneck road warriors in pursuit of the city folks. On the run, John, Brooks and their surviving friends are trapped at a commune by sexy hippie girls led by a machete-wielding guru (Bryonn Bain) who worship the monster pig and intend to offer them as a blood sacrifice!
Most killer pig movies live in the shadow of the taut and terrifying Razorback (1984) but Pig Hunt ups the ante somewhat by recycling potent themes from Deliverance (1972) and cheekily lifting motifs from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) (notably when the bare-chested guru wipes his blood over the city folks’ van, marking them ripe for the kill) and even Apocalypse Now (1979). The ambitious script co-written by Zack Anderson and Robert Mailer Anderson touches on the psychological after-effects of the Iraq War and the wisdom of training men as homicidal maniacs then turning them loose on their home turf. It also contrasts dimwitted machismo with gutsy feminist good sense, city boys obsessed with violence with an equally scary pagan view of nature’s food chain, but does so in a brusque, lightweight manner so we can never be sure whether this has a serious social agenda or is merely dressing-up a no-nonsense monster movie. Its scattershot satire weaves a lot of confusing loose threads but if Pig Hunt’s reach exceeds its grasp, it remains an entertainingly offbeat romp. Unlike many more mainstream horror movies, one cannot easily guess the direction in which it is heading and the performances, particularly those of leads Travis Aaron Wade and Tina Huang, are admirably committed.
For the most part the film actually downplays the monster pig until the lively climax, but throws up so many diverse elements in its mad bid to thrill that viewers are unlikely to complain. Highlights range from the frantic escape from the road-rampaging rednecks to the nauseating moment where Ben discovers Wayne, still feebly alive being eaten one piece at a time, and an amusing scene wherein he stumbles delirious onto a hot spring full of naked hippie girls. He then awakens in their boudoir to the strains of James Brown singing “This is a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” as they indulge in massage, hashish and a girl-on-girl show. As comedian Rich Hall noted in his recent documentary, Hollywood has a long tradition of unjustly maligning the South, but alongside the expected hillbilly caricatures, Pig Hunt holds an inconsistent view of its primary black character: Ben, who wavers between misogynistic boor and militant antihero. Even John and Brooks appear unsettlingly drawn to bloodlust while quite why whiny fat guy Quincy (Trevor Bullock) came on this hunt remains a mystery.
Nevertheless, James Isaac does a fine job cranking up the tension between hillbilly action sequences and monster attacks. Eerie lighting lends the animatronic monster pig a potent aura of menace, but the rote ending is capped by a confusing quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm (?) that could use some clarity. The disorientating score comes from Les Claypool of rock band Primus who together with blues mouth harpist Charlie Musselwhite contribute murderous cameos.
