Pig Hunt 2008

John Hickman(Travis Aaron Wade), his girlfriend Brooks(Tina Huang)and friends, Ben(Howard Johnson Jr), Quincy(Trevor Bullock), and Wayne(Rajiv Shah)decide to go huntin' into the California wilderness. John's uncle is killed by something fierce at the beginning of the movie which turns out to be a gigantic monstrous pig known as "the ripper".

John is using his uncle's land to camp on and old pals(he'd soon have avoided like the plague)from his childhood, dirty, foul hick brothers Jake(Jason Foster)and Ricky(Nick Tagas)impose themselves on the group. Tagging along(despite John and company's desire for them not to), Jake and Ricky go on and on about killing hogs, in particular, the ripper.



Well, an incident involving the dirty duo's insistence on bagging up dope for profit(marijuana fields are being illegally cultivated on John's uncle's land), turns violent resulting in accidental murder, which spirals out of control as Jake warns them of the wrath to come as he heads for his family's residence to round up his redneck troops for a showdown. John and his friends also have to contend with a hippie cult who sort of worship the ripper, led by the intimidating machete-wielding Cimi(Cimi Ahluwalia).

I have to say it takes a while to get to the goods, but director James Isaac(JASON X)does, to his credit, eventually deliver. Most of the gore and action happens between John and his friends contending with Jake and his family of gun-toting hillbillies. Isaac provides some stunningly photographed stunt sequences such as when Quincy is caught in Ben's SUV as Jake drives his huge truck into him, and the director shoots the hillbillies cruising in their various off-road vehicles at rapid speeds, hooping and hollering in anticipation.

Isaac, to his credit, doesn't use computer generated effects when the ripper's presence is finally revealed, carefully shooting the pig's massive face(mostly mouth, husks, and eyes at close-up)without long shots which would disrupt the intensity of the situation exposing the beast as a special effects fraud. I imagine it could've resulted in chuckles instead of thrills, but Issac, before the finale, decides to shoot with point-of-view and end results(the scene with the horse's head a highlight). The more gruesome scenes involve Ricky gutting a pig, pulling out it's innards in graphic detail.



And, yes, we get plenty of nudity as the hippie commune has uninhibited pot smoking honeys with nothing better to do than lay around, getting high and such. Maybe, many viewers will not like the fact that it takes until the end before the giant pig is introduced, but Isaac tries to make up for this with the mayhem which erupts between the groups of John and Jake.