Killer High: The Mascot Massacre

Usually, yearbooks do not suggest a “most likely to be the final girl” superlative, because that implies everybody else is going to die. Generally, that is a real bummer. In this case, it has been ten years since graduation, but the rules of slasher movie survival still apply in Jem Garrard’s Killer High, a Syfy original film, which releases today on DVD.

Sabrina Swanson was definitely most likely to succeed material, so it is a bit of a surprise that she didn’t. It was bad luck that kept her in their dying town, nursing her ailing mother, while the rest of her Wallingham High classmates left to get on with their lives. She has poured her heart and soul into the upcoming reunion, so she will have a chance to relive past glory and once again take center stage. Of course, she can’t do it alone, so she ropes her bestie Margo and Ronnie, the high school-geek-for-life into helping her.

Since all the other venues in town went out of business, she will hold the reunion back in dear-old shuttered Wallingham. Naturally, cell service is spotty out there. Plus, three brainless teens recently disappeared thereabouts. Yes, but we know from the prologue they were actually dispatched by the monster, a giant supernatural incarnation of the school’s mascot, the Wallingham Warthog. That’s right sweathogs, it’s time to warthog and die.

If you were tempted to check-out at “Syfy original film,” we understand where you are coming from. For what it’s worth, this if the third Syfy B-movie special we have covered on DVD and it is by far the most amusing—not exactly good, but amusing. Garrard and screenwriter Suzanne Keilly (who has real writing credits, like Light as a Feather and Ash vs. the Evil Dead) diligently mine the high school reunion under extreme stress for as many laughs as they can scratch out. Thanks to the attitude they instill in the film, we do not feel like complete idiots watching a film about monster warthog prowling the halls of the high school, preying on drunken victims.

Boar: The Year of the Pig on Shudder

It’s the Year of the Pig again, but horror movie producers are weirdly tardy on capitalizing. What, do they want us to watch Pig Hunt all year? At least Shudder finally stepped up to the plate. Logically, they acquired a new-ish killer pig movie from Australia, the country that proudly brought us Razorback. The pork will do all the feeding when Chris Sun’s Boar premieres today on Shudder.

There is a killer boar out there preying on travelers who stray too far into the Australian Outback. What’s not to get? In this case, some significant Australian genre specialists will pop up to serve as snacks. There is no missing huge Nathan Jones, who played the freakish Leatherface-esque slasher killer in Sun’s Charlie’s Farm, but this time around, he gets to be the hero: meathead farmer Bernie. He will be hosting his city slicker sister Debbie, her second husband Bruce, daughter Ellie and boring son Bart, as well as Ellie’s jerky boyfriend, who is keen to join the family. He will take the fam to see some of Oz’s wonderful natural sights, but at Debbie’s insistence, he only brings one gun. In retrospect, that was a mistake.

John Jarratt, best known as the vicious Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creek franchise, gets to play a decent feller this time around as old blokey Ken, who is simultaneously rattling around the big pig’s feeding grounds with his old crony Blue. Horror veteran Bill Moseley also effectively plays against type as the immensely likable Bruce. For his part, Jones shows he could have a credible future as muscle-laden genre protagonists. Chris Haywood, who appeared in the old school 80s Razorback, memorably drops in to portray the silly old codger who saw the big boar, but his warnings went in vain, due to his being a drunken bumkin. However, Melissa Tkautz steals multiple scenes as Ken’s sarcastic pub-keeper daughter.

Boar is far from a perfect film, but the pig attacks are surprisingly fast and brutal. Honestly, the bloodthirsty beast looks and sounds deadly in the extreme. You have to give Sun and the effects team credit, because the boar feeding sequences are shockingly intense. Unfortunately, the characterization is a little thin and much of the dialogue is flatter and more wooden than plywood panels. Of course, this is a horror movie about rampaging swine, so that is almost to be expected.

So, lets all eat a big plate of ham and bacon today, for the sake of public safety. Pig Hunt remains the gold standard of monster pig movies, but at least Boar is far superior to the manipulative and disingenuous Okja. It is straight-up exploitation throwback, but that is really the whole charm of it all. Recommended for retro animal horror fans, Boar starts streaming today (6/6) on Shudder.

Royal Flush ’09: Pig Hunt

Northern California can be a dangerous place. There are a lot of things to worry about in those great woods, including pot growers, violent hillbillies, freaky hippies, and wild boar. They all turn into a perfect storm for John and his loser buddies in Jim Isaac’s Pig Hunt (trailer here), which screens during the upcoming Royal Flush Festival.

It has been a longtime since John returned to his backwoods home and it’s not hard to see why he stayed away. Originally conceived as a weekend hunting trip with the guys, his girlfriend Brooks convinces him to let her tag along. Again, it is not hard to see why he agreed. Not only is she beautiful, she can shoot straight and is the only character on the excursion worth talking to.

Arriving at his late uncle’s cabin, they discover it has been defaced with weird, menacing graffiti. Also adding to their anxiety is the sudden arrival of two of John’s former hick friends, who seem to harbor a lingering resentment against him. Still, they seem to have a knack for finding game, so everyone heads out into the woods together. After all, what could go wrong? Besides encountering the legendary Ripper, a three-thousand pound wild pig they were warned about in town, that is.

It is not giving away much to reveal the Ripper turns out to be quite real and very much worthy of his name. Needless to say things get very bad, very fast. Isaac builds the tension quite effectively, leaving unsettling clues that there may well be more threats out there than just the killer hog. As is usually the case in horror films, the less the audience actually sees of the Ripper, the scarier he is. Unfortunately, the periodic attempts to draw an analogy between the hunt for the Ripper and the War in Iraq are clumsy, ill-conceived distractions from the gory business at hand.

In general, Pig Hunt’s cast is at least adequate to the genre. However, Tina Huang is a charismatic standout as Brooks. Whether firing off rounds or needling John’s idiot friends, she is just what the doctor ordered for a bloody horror-actioner. She completely outshines the rest of the cast, including the bland Travis Aaron Wade as the characterless John. Also noteworthy is a small but memorable cameo by blues mouth-harpist Charlie Musselwhite as the general store owner who issues the fateful warning about the big pig in the woods.

Happily we also get to hear Musselwhite perform the all too brief “Booneville Crossroads.” The balance of Pig Hunt’s soundtrack, largely composed by Les Claypool of Primus (who also appears as Preacher, the head of the redneck clan and a dead-ringer for Richard Petty), featuring additional percussion by jazz drummer Eric Harland, really brings a down-home vitality to the picture.

For audiences receptive to the exploitation-horror genre, Pig Hunt is good, clean fun, with some cool sounds and a really appealing action performance by Huang. It is the sort of vigorously blood-splattered picture that would have been a good fit for the late lamented Two Boots Theater. It screens Saturday at Anthology Film Archives as part of the Royal Flush Festival.

BIFF ’09: Pig Hunt

Northern California can be a dangerous place. There are a lot of things to worry about in those woods, including pot growers, violent hillbillies, freaky hippies, and wild boar. It all turns into a perfect storm for John and his loser buddies in Jim Isaac’s Pig Hunt (trailer here), which screens as part of the twelfth annual Brooklyn International Film Festival.

It has been a longtime since John returned to his backwoods home and it’s not hard to see why he stayed away. Originally conceived as a weekend hunting trip with the guys, his girlfriend Brooks convinces him to let her tag along. Again, it is not hard to see why he agreed. Not only is she beautiful, she can shoot straight and is the only character on the excursion worth talking to.

Arriving at his late uncle’s cabin, they discover it has been defaced with weird, menacing graffiti. Also adding to their anxiety is the sudden arrival of two of John’s former hick friends, who seem to harbor a lingering resentment against him. Still, they seem to have a knack for finding game, so everyone heads out into the woods together. After all, what could go wrong? Besides encountering the legendary Ripper, a three-thousand pound wild pig they were warned about in town, that is.

It is not giving away much to reveal the Ripper turns out to be quite real and very much worthy of his name. Needless to say things go very bad, very fast. Isaac builds the tension quite effectively, leaving clues that there may well be more threats out there than just the killer hog. As is usually the case in horror films, the less the audience actually sees of the Ripper, the scarier he is. Unfortunately, the periodic attempts to draw an analogy between the hunt for the Ripper and the War in Iraq are clumsy, ill-conceived distractions from the gory business at hand.

In general, Pig Hunt’s cast is at least adequate to the genre. However, Tina Huang is a charismatic standout as Brooks. Whether firing off rounds or needling John’s idiot friends, she is just what the doctor ordered for a bloody horror-actioner. She completely outshines the rest of the cast, including the bland Travis Aaron Wade as the characterless John. Also noteworthy is a small but effective cameo by blues mouth-harpist Charlie Musselwhite as the general store owner who issues the fateful warning about the big pig in the woods.

Happily we also get to hear Musselwhite perform the all too brief “Booneville Crossroads.” The balance of Pig Hunt’s soundtrack, largely composed by Les Claypool of Primus (who also appears as Preacher, the head of the redneck clan and a dead-ringer for Richard Petty) and featuring additional percussion by jazz drummer Eric Harland, really brings a down-home vitality to the picture.

For audiences receptive to the exploitation-horror genre, Pig Hunt is an energetic film, with some cool sounds and a really appealing action performance by Huang. It is the sort of blood-splattered picture that would have been a good fit for the late lamented Two Boots Theater. Pig Hunt screens again during the BIFF this Friday (6/12) at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema.