The Pigman Murders

Director - Stephen Patrick Kenny (Captive)
Starring - Gerard Fallon (Zombies are People Too), Mark Hutchinson (Curse of the Banshee), and Ollie Keogh (Undead)
Release Date - 2015
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Seven friends.  No witnesses"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Found footage is not my bag.  I've tried to like it, and I like a few of them, but most of them are just bad.  I do like The Blair Witch Project though it has been almost ten years since I last seen it along with a few others that has popped up here and there but most of them are a painful viewing experience.  One of my favorite indie distribution companies, Wild Eye Releasing, has been known to release found footage flicks over the years.  A few have been enjoyable with Play Hooky coming to mind.  Not long ago they released the film The Pigman Murders on DVD.  I had no idea the film was a found footage flick but the DVD artwork put me in mind of my favorite West Virginia slasher Porkchop.  I reached out to them and they were kind enough to send a review copy my way.  Once again, thanks guys!

     The film follows a group of guys who set out to go hiking and camping in an area that their late friend loved to visit.  They hire a videographer to follow them as they film their trip for their late friend's family.  Along the way they drink it up and argue among themselves resulting in one leaving the group as they travel to their destination.  They try to hold themselves together for the sake of the film but soon find themselves at the hands of a murderous man wearing a pig mask.

     Found footage is easily the rawest horror sub-genre there is and has the most potential out of all of them.  Found footage is the only sub-genre with the potential to convince the viewer that what they are seeing is real.  There is tremendous potential that sadly goes to waste when a film crew attempts to convince the viewer that what they are seeing in in fact real.  The Pigman Murders is one of those films that goes too far trying to make the film feel authentic by feeling the film full of pointless dialogue and human daily activities.  The acting in this one is pretty rough even for an indie horror flick.  The cast tries to feel natural as if they are not playing characters but themselves.  This is like almost every other found footage flick which makes the film awkward to watch. The story for this one is one we have seen countless times before rather it was a slasher flick or found footage.  In fact, this story is almost identical to three other slashers where a group of people is butchered by a sicko in a pig mask while in the woods.  The first and obvious film that comes to mind is Porkchop followed by the two imitation films, Hogmaul and Madison County.  The story is extremely slow to watch and almost impossible to follow due to the viewer falling asleep from listening to a group of former frat boys talking about themselves.  Finally, the film has a few on screen kills after waiting almost an hour.  The kills are very boring and and nothing we haven't seen before.  In fact, all the kills were done in other films and were actually better in the original films.  The practical effects are very limited.  They are decent but wasted on the boring kills we do get.  Overall, The Pigman Murders is not the film I was expecting.  The story was horrible, the kills are lackluster, and the acting is rough.  I would recommend avoiding this one and grabbing another Wild Eye release.