Piggy DVD Review: A Dark Descent into London’s Concrete Jungle of Revenge!
The UK has created a few street horror urban chillers lately. Devil’s Bridge, Cherry Tree Lane and the incredible Tony have all brought home to the viewer just how dirty and run down England is, and how the streets are creating a lot of twisted characters. Gone is the eccentric British personality and along have come the depressed and the violent. The films reflect the recession and the boredom that grinds up a lot of people in the cities (and the Welsh countryside as shown in Devil’s Bridge).
Piggy is one of those films; an intense in your face movie set in London. It’s a sort of concrete jungle version of Dead Man’s Shoes. It follows Joe, who is a loner that wanders through his job and apartment day by day, just in a dream. One day his older brother John shows up, he and his girlfriend have moved nearby, and the two brothers spend a fair bit of time together. Joe is happy and comes out of his shell a bit. Even getting mugged at knifepoint only shakes him up for a short while.
They are at a pub with their friend one night and Joe accidently knocks some big bloke as he gets up. The bloke is mad and won’t let it go so Joe’s brother steps in. A fight occurs and is quickly broke up. The bloke has a gang with him who stand at the bar glaring whilst the brothers and their mate play pool. Joe’s had enough and he goes home early. John leaves much later and walks home munching a tray of chips. Suddenly he’s jumped, stabbed twice and booted all over by the bloke and four of his gang. One shouts at John, “Pussy” because they’re so hardcore. They leave him bleeding to death.
Time passes after John dies in hospital and Joe is hanging by a thread. He talks to John’s widow Clare and they share their loss in long conversations. One evening there’s a knock at the door. Joe struggles to recognise the man who introduces himself as one of John’s friends. He says that Joe would know him from his childhood. He produces a photo of himself and John together. His name is Piggy, “Everyone calls me that.” As weird music is playing in the background of the scene, Joe shrugs and kind of remembers the man. It turns out Piggy is there to avenge John’s death and can see that deep down that’s what Joe is craving as well. The gang of five were never caught and Joe is sickened that his brother is dead for nothing.
“Nothing gets done about it unless you do it yourself,” amongst long staring scenes, Piggy shares quotes for life with Joe. They hang together day and night. Their walks through London makes the city look vile, streets of darkness and peeling paint with empty buildings and rubbish all over. Piggy talks about the evil ones and monsters. He buys Joe a nice big knife. Over time he’s training Joe to think like him, to hunger for the revenge he seeks. By chance they find the home of the mugger and follow him. Then suddenly Piggy corners the man, “Do you know him? Look closer!” then Piggy punches him to the ground and slices his face open. Joe is mortified as Piggy crushes the man’s hand slowly. “He won’t rob no one again, Joe.”
“This is London, Joe. Take it in!” Piggy still shares little moments with him night after night. Then takes him to a derelict factory yard where there are empty toilets. With him he carries a bag which he sets down and shows Joe the contents; a hammer, handcuffs, a chain, and two rubber pig noses on elastic. He says that the more stupid the disguise the better. “If this pig nose is the last thing they see they arrive in hell humiliated.”
They wait outside a pub and Joe recognises one of the gang. They put on their pig noses and stalk him. Soon the guy is beaten down and bundled into Piggy’s car. Piggy cuffs him to the pipes in the toilets and brutally tortures him for information. Joe leaves the toilets in shock.
The next day Joe and Clare are shopping around a market and Joe sees another member of the gang so follows him. Later in the night the bloke is jumped, put in the car and thrown to the floor of the yard tied up. Piggy once again does all of the torture until the names are given out. Piggy then finishes the job by kicking him in the head over and over for a few minutes (complete with blood splattering in the air and melon smashing sounds) until he’s dead a few times over.
As Joe and Piggy go on Joe finds it hard to recognise his own thoughts and ideas anymore. Piggy certainly doesn’t like Clare at all. Things start to speed up as they hunt the others and return to the toilets now and then to torture their original captive. Joe starts to change and actually enjoy it all. Piggy insists they go faster and faster, and not just the gang but go after others and help people…
You feel you can guess the ending for most of the film and find yourself surprised that you were wrong. The final act is partly unsatisfying because you’re left a little empty and wonder what could have been done with more care. The more human side with Clare isn’t taken as far as it should have been and John was really quite a fast raced by character which you don’t feel anything for, which is a shame since he’s played by Neil Maskell, an actor who’s made a name for himself in TV for years plus horror films like Kill List, Tony, “Paintball, and gangster flicks like Bonded By Blood, Jack Falls, and The Rise of a Footsoldier.
However, as the credits rolled, my Horror Soulmate and myself found ourselves talking quite deeply about a lot of it and how Joe’s character developed. That’s a good thing. Also, Paul (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Firm) Anderson who plays Piggy is a striking actor who carrys a quiet menace about himself throughout the film. Every scene he is in hums with the eerie background music I mentioned earlier.
Piggy certainly delivers the gore when required. Stabbings, a deep prolonged throat slashing, head stomping, general beatings, all dark blood and sickening sound effects. Most of these new wave UK realism films are guilty of using handheld D.T. shaky cameras and over the top speech, “Whatcha sayin blood? Braap! Braap!” You know the sort. Piggy is a traditionally filmed movie and even the gang talk is less annoying.
We’d had a bad run of UK films recently. Two especially, The Grind, and Terry, made me want to open the DVD cases and shit inside them whilst my Horror Soulmate filmed me on HD wobblecam. Thankfully this film came next and prevented me from trying to make my own movie.
Piggy isn’t a classic so don’t expect a gasping epic. It does have its faults, but it’s watchable and keeps you thinking to the very end.
The DVD extras from Metrodome Distribution are a short Making of Piggy film, and interviews with the director and two main actors, so a bit bland really.
Directed by: Kieron Hawkes
Written by: Kieron Hawkes
Produced by: Patrick Fischer, Leo Pearman, Danny Potts
Cinematography by: James Friend
Editing by: Ben Turner
Music by: Bill Ryder-Jones
Special Effects by: Ivan Cipriani, Danny Evans
Cast: Martin Compston, Paul Anderson, Neil Maskell, Louise Dylan, Josh Herdman, Ed Skrein
Year: 2012
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 42min
Distributor: Metrodome Distribution
DVD Specs:
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 16:9
Region: R2
Audio: Dolby Digital
Supplemental Material:
– Making of Piggy
– Interview with director Kieron Hawkes, Martin Compston (Joe) and Paul Anderson (Piggy)