Long Pig: The Movie [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Long Pig (Carlo Rodriguez, 2008)

In many ways Long Pig, the first film from director Carlos Rodriguez, is exactly the film you think it is--torture porn. And yet in so many other ways, most of them intriguing, it isn't. I'm not going to herald Long Pig as the next microbudget gem like Baby Blues or Lockout, but there's certainly more than enough here to warrant you seeing it.

Trying to give you a synopsis of this plot is reaching, naturally. It involves a twisted old TV preacher type guy (the late George H. Russell, the movie's executive producer) who has a thing for getting his dietary cholesterol from the freshest sources possible. He also commands a small army of balaclava-clad commandos from his church/home, isolated in the woods. There are also three different bunches of college students: the jocks who are only interested in alcohol and sex, headed up by Frank (Asad Durrani, who previously directed the film Cup of Joe, which features about half this movie's cast); the geeks, who are planning on crashing the big Halloween party; and the ladies. Featured in this last bunch is Kick (Jennifer Landenburg in her first screen role), whom Frank recently dumped, and her roommate. In any case, it all ends up with the whole bunch of them (those that survived the first assault, anyway) ending up in crazy TV preacher guy's compound, needing to escape, etc.

First off, I have to give kudos to anyone who's willing to make a horror film that stretches more than two hours in today's ninety-minutes-and-out horror culture. Long Pig (the body of the film itself; there's a piece tacked onto the end as a dedication) runs a little over 2:10, and that's surprising. Part of the reason it runs so long is the main thing about the movie I'm impressed with: the script. I grant you, it lacks a lot of the qualities I prefer to find in my scripts (most notably characterization), but Rodriguez and Russell, who co-wrote the screenplay, had some interesting questions to ask about human nature and the parallels between torture porn and modern American culture. (The fact that the answers Rodriguez gives to these questions are so muddled only adds to the appeal, at least for me.) This tends to slow the movie down, especially during its first half, but I had no problems with that at all. There's a lot to digest, and that's especially true when your stable of psycho food runs to fifteen characters, some of whom are more philosophical than others.

Two other things that may make you as happy as they made me, I don't know, but I'll throw them out there. First: while most of the actors in this movie range from very bad to so-awful-they-should-star-in-a-Night of the Lepus-remake, the women are astoundingly hot. All of them. (Which makes the movie's surprising lack of gratuitous nudity somewhat depressing, even if it's a refreshing change from most of the low-budget horror flicks I've seen; most of the ladies who find themselves on the operating table are still wearing their underclothes.) Also, and I think this may be my single favorite thing about the movie, one of the geeks has a T-shirt that says "Uwe Boll ate my dingo." If you get the humor in that sentence, I suspect you will be amused by this flick.

Now, the down sides. I've already mentioned the acting. Some folks will be turned off by the movie's pace; your mileage may vary. Similarly, the movie has some problems getting its environmental/anticapitalist point across. I actually consider this one of the movie's strong points; message media too often ends up being heavy-handed crap. The way I see it, Rodriguez kind of backed into genius with the way he handled all that. (The final scene is a bit overbearing, but given that it's the payoff for the whole movie, and it is still entirely in character, I'm willing to let that one slide.) Rodriguez is not a bad director, especially for his first time out, but there were a few shots that seemed like they could have been blocked a whole lot better, and some of the camerawork was just painful (there's one scene in particular--[censored for Amazon consumption]--that made me wonder if the guy holding the camera wasn't really, really drunk while shooting that scene). Still, for a first effort, and especially a first effort of this length, it's not a bad movie at all. If you're a horror fan, it's worth checking out. ** ½

This movie has to be one of the most disturbing, disgusting, ridiculously awesome pieces of independent cinema ever to come out of the bayou country. The dark fairytale begins depicting the broken lives of various college students. Some are desperately seeking acceptance, others are trying to find there way in life, and want nothing more than to fulfill their hedonistic desires via sex, alcohol, and drugs. Soon, however, despite all their differences, they find they have one thing in common...the fight to stay alive.

Sadistic cannibals descend upon the college kids and chaos ensues. The drama, the violence, the sex, the drugs, will to survive. All these are major components that create this fairytale turned nightmare. From the powerful opening to the climactic finish, the movie will have you disturbed. Not for the faint of heart.

LONG PIG (not to be confused w/ the shock-u-mentary, LONG PIGS) is a bleak, political / social satire wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket of horror. We follow several groups of college kids as they head toward a big costume party (aka: another drunken orgy!), unaware that they are also speeding toward their untimely, gruesome deaths. You see, a cult of cannibalistic, religious maniacs has some plans of its own! While clunky at times, I found the dialogue refreshingly genuine, even revealing, making the characters more than cardboard cut-outs. LP rises above its obvious budgetary constraints w/ a decent story, interesting characters, some humour, and a permeating sense of menace and dread. The mini-documentary after the credits explains a lot of the bitter anguish that fueled this movie. Highly recommended...

lots of weird scenes that just made no sense. Felt like they were just filling time. Sound quality very bad at times. Couple hot girls, and a couple had some acting ability.

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It makes Wrong Turn look like an academy award winner! With that said, it'll probably become some kind of cult classic.