Questionably Content

Pig Hunt (2008)


Director: James Isaac

Starring: Travis Aaron Wade, Tina Huang, Howard Johnson Jr., Rajiv Shah, Trevor Bullock, Jason Foster, Nick Tagas, Bryonn Bain

Other Actors of Note: Les Claypool

Plot: When John takes his San Francisco friends to his deceased uncle's remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical guys weekend with guns - despite the presence of John's sexy girlfriend Brooks. 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! Taken from www.imdb.com.


"Pig Hunt" is not a good movie. Not at all.

To call "Pig Hunt" good would be to insult it in ways man cannot even fathom. "Pig Hunt" is maybe one of the best movies I've seen in ages.

So the story of "Pig Hunt" involves a guy and his buddies (enlisted men who have never seen combat) going out into the woods near one's late uncle's house to hunt wild pigs. Pretty soon the group meets up with two old hillbillies that used to be friends with the protagonist. The movie starts with a bunch of people wandering around in the woods finding mutilated animals until someone gets injured, the second act involves a murderous family of rednecks pursuing the group through the woods, and the third act is where shit gets really fucked up. If you're not looking for this movie on Amazon right now, then you're dead inside.


In a world of bland clean-cut protagonists, there's no reason why Travis Aaron Wade's John Hickman should be anything more. This is why it's so shocking and amazing that John really comes into his own by act two, and by act 3 he's easily a guy to root for even though he has no spectacular character traits to speak of, nor any sort of character arc. He's a grumpy country boy living in the city at the beginning and that's what he is at the end, but he remains one ofthe better reserved protagonists I've seen in movies of this type.

Tina Huang's Brooks is another example of a character I shouldn't care about. She starts out the movie as some sort of anti-war activist painter who tags along on he hunting trip seemingly just to annoy the audience by being the typical annoying anti-machismo strawman. But just like John, Brooks shows herself to be pretty awesome in act two, proving to be an expert marksman and a cool headed sensible horror heroine that's not going to just run into the woods screaming like an idiot with her tits bouncing. She's also really hot, so... bonus!

Howard Johnson Jr.'s character is a necessary evil in a movie like this. He's an enlisted soldier with no combat experience, he's a truly annoying rude shithead and a complete fucking idiot. Easily every single bad thing that happens in this movie is his fault. He comes into his own toward the end of act 2 but unfortunately doesn't get to do much in act 3. Still he plays a truly hate-able character that somehow becomes endearing partway through.

Jason Foster plays the closest thing to a villain in the movie (aside of course, from the giant pig.) Foster's Jake is your typical backwoods tough who's too obviously gotten high on his own ability to bully others around with intimidation and violence. He's a capable villain (of the 5 of 6 this movie has) and plays his part well enough to be menacing even before his character shows signs of becoming violent.

Bryonn Bain plays a tall black hippie in a tie-dyed toga that carries a Kurkri Machete and grows weed in the forest. I would delve further into this but I've told you all you need to know to realize his greatness. A part early on where he calls Howard Johnson Jr. a "negro" is one of the first big laughs the movie gets.


I know it may sound like I'm being sarcastic talking about this movie. It most likely sounds like pure kitsch and certainly the events that take place in this movie are absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn't mean they're not strong enough to stand on their own. Every time Rob Zombie makes a movie, this is the type of movie he's trying to make.

Sure the gore is well done and it's plentiful enough to satisfy most people watching for that alone. But the story is awesome and with each section that unfolds, it just gets better. Sure we know the moment we see the family of hyper-Christian rednecks that they're going to go after the main characters before the movie is over, we know machete hippie is up to no good, and we know that at some point a giant pig is going to show up and wreck some shit up. But each time it happens it happens in such a way that it seems fresh and damn near illegally entertaining.

James Issac, director of "Skinwalkers" and "Jason X", directed this movie and I had no idea that he had something this good in his system. Never once does the movie feel bogged down or boring and things unfold in the most amazing way channeling movies like "Razorback", "Deliverance", and "Apocalypse Now" in some sort of melting pot to make a movie that's as memorable as it is amazingly good.

This is a giant pig movie, yet we don't even get to see the pig until the end of Act 3 and it's completely missing from Act 2. Yet it never feels like the movie's dragging its feet, giving you plenty of suspense or action to chew on as you wait patiently for the pig to show up.

Clearly the movie is based more than a little bit on the legend of Hogzilla (the infamous pig even gets name-dropped at one point) and the writer easily could have made this another "monster systematically kills kids in the woods movie", but instead (just like in "Razorback" and the upcoming South Korean pig movie "Chaw") we're left to focus on the characters and villains far more evil and disturbing than the giant boar on the cover.

My only complaints are that the movie ends on a strange note, and one scene involves two characters being left for dead and we're just left to assume that they died without so much as even seeing their bodies later in the movie.

The soundtrack is also a big part of the "Pig Hunt" experience, mostly due to the score by Les Claypool (AKA, the reason that "Primus" sounds like "Primus") who also cameos as preacher collared leader of the hillbilly clan.


If you even have a mild love of horror then there's absolutely no reason why you should walk away from this movie displeased. It's a monster movie that dares to look beyond its own definition and be something fun and memorable. This movie is not a rent, it's a definite buy.

I give "Pig Hunt" a 5 out of 5.