- Directed by: Kevin Lewis
- Written by: Jarrod Burris
- Stars: Shane West, Rainey Qualley, Shiloh Fernandez
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVP9Xj3y8Q4
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
We were expecting another Piglet-Because-We-Can-Now movie, but it’s not part of that story line. This was well written and put together in an interesting way, with a good cast and realistic effects. We thought it was better than the preview led us to believe, and we both liked it a lot.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a huge radio tower as a car parks nearby. The couple inside park here to meet someone. She points out that this is “Pig Hill” where all those women went missing. And there are supposed to be pig-people out here as well. Sure enough, a pig-man kills them both as the credits roll.
Emily has gone missing and is all over the news. Carrie is her friend, and she wants to know what happened and is writing a book about the missing women. Reggie says it’s been ten people in the last decade.
A new guy, Andy, comes into Carrie’s bookshop to sell some books. He gets called away suddenly, but Carrie likes him. Carrie’s married to Ben, but she hates him. Her brother, Chris, has been talking and doing business with him behind her back. They joke about the “Pig Hill Rhyme.”
We cut to Emily, who’s in a cage somewhere.
Carrie volunteers at the shelter, and there are some weird people there. Paula wants an abortion; she’s supposedly been raped by the pig-man, but abortion is illegal here. Carrie sees pig-men around every corner; is she crazy?
Meanwhile, Paula gives herself an abortion with a coat hanger. Ew. The baby comes out, and it’s definitely a pig-baby. Paula dies from blood loss after stabbing the baby and then slitting her own throat. Just to make the evening more perfect, Chris is back on drugs.
The next day, Andy comes back to pick up his check and offers to take Carrie out. Carrie admits that she’s on the outs with her husband, who left her thirteen months ago for unknown reasons. Andy tells her that he was wealthy and successful, and then lost it all.
Carrie’s husband finds out about Andy and shoots himself. At the funeral, Andy shows up, and Chris takes offense at that. On the bright side, Ben was rich, so Carrie’s set for life now. Carrie dreams about having a litter of pig-babies. She thinks writing her book will change the world for her.
Andy goes to visit his parents, and they aren’t doing too well. That goes badly, so he reconnects with Carrie. He tells the story about how his young son got run over by a tractor and died.
Andy volunteers to help Carrie track down Red, Paula’s abusive meth-head father, for information for her book. They run into Giovanni, the “Pig King of Pig Hill,” a creepy pig farmer who invites them home. He comes from a long line of pig farmers. Giovanni tells about his ancestor whose daughter kept having sex with a well-endowed pig. Their love affair carried on over generations, creating the legends of Pig Hill. We see that Red is there on the farm, hiding.
Andy and Carrie park under the radio tower, which figures into the legends about the “Alien version” of the pig-men legend.
Later that night, someone drags Carrie out of her house. She soon wakes up in a cage next to Emily, who has been here for months. There really is a pig-man, and Emily calls him “Swill.” The pig-man also abducted the guy who was with Emily, who he sodomizes and kills.
The police question Andy, who tells them about Giovanni’s pig farm. Andy enlists the help of Reggie, a homeless man who seems to know a lot about the area, to track down Carrie. Reggie explains that Carrie has been obsessed with the pig-men since she was a child. Reggie doesn’t think Red is the one killing women, since this has been going on for thousands of years. Reggie talks about the Nephilim, who resemble pigs and do terrible things to appease their demonic fathers.
Carrie watches as Swill rapes Emily for about the hundredth time. This time, he kills her, leaving Carrie alone.
Andy and his friends run into Red, who denies hurting anyone, even Paula. They kill Red, and Giovanni shows up and calls the police.
As Andy sits in jail, Carrie gets to know Swill. Reggie finds Carrie laying out in a field near the radio tower and takes her to the police. Andy gets released, and the newspapers call him a hero for killing the Pig Hill murderer. Andy and Carrie’s doctor talk about getting her away from Chris, who is far more overbearing than he should be.
Carrie insists that Swill was a pig-man, not Red, but everyone tells her otherwise. The police take her to Red’s farm, but she doesn’t remember much.
The doctor then hypnotizes Carrie to help with her memory, and she remembers that Swill was just her brother Chris wearing a mask. The doctor then tells the police everything but in the middle of the call, the pig attacks the doctor. After finishing her off, the pig attacks Carrie, and she pulls Chris’s mask off.
Andy sees on the security video that Chris broke into his parents house and poisoned them. The police know about Chris now, and they all start searching for him. Chris confesses that he’s a huge drug dealer and killed Ben, who knew too much. Chris has been abusing and drugging Carrie since she was a small child.
Chris explains about his uncle Jack, who was a cultist. Jack abused Chris, who protected Carrie from him. The cultists “programmed” Chris and other children, including Ben, to do whatever they ordered. Chris is in love with his sister, and he starts kissing her.
Carrie stabs Chris and runs upstairs. She then beats him to death with a hammer, like a pig. Then she puts on the mask.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s a dank, claustrophobic little town, with fog and lots of creepy homeless people and, apparently, alien pig mutants. It’s well acted, filmed and edited in an interesting way, and it’s very weird and mysterious as we learn about what’s really going on.
It’s a little hard not to compare this to 2025’s “Piglet,” but other than the look of the main villain, there’s no real connection. This is a far better film than the earlier one.
It’s a much more interesting story than the trailers would have you believe I liked this one a lot.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was bracing myself for another “Piglet” themed horror, thanks to the fairly recent copyright expiration, but this was much more than that. It was a good mix of supernatural, cryptids, and bad people doing bad things. I thought it was great.