Pigman is a horror movie from 2024. At the beginning it’s pretty clear that this is a British film since the kitchen sink realism is very present. If we were to judge this film from the opening teaser alone it would have been a very dry and realistic (and scary) film I think. It would have had a voyeuristic feel to it that would make us feel we were involved in the story somehow. But after this first scene, the tone shifts altogether and becomes something completely different.
Instead of a slasher-esque kind of movie we get to follow some American YouTuber who is there to investigate the strange case of the Pigman killer or something like that. Ok, that’s fine, but they don’t even stick to that idea. It doesn’t take too long before the theme is something completely different altogether. Now, it seems like the YouTuber is more interested in shooting games and the more bizarre the better as it will boost his likes and hits on the channel.
What follows are some absolutely disgusting games where the participants are dressed like pigs and must follow his every whim to win the “contest”. Of course, it’s all for views and he’s even making this clear time and time again. I wouldn’t call any of the characters likable in any way shape or form, but the YouTuber himself is absolutely dislikable for sure. He behaves like an asshole and there are no redeeming qualities in his personality whatsoever. I started to wish for his death quite early on actually, he’s so annoying.
And It’s pretty obvious where the story is going to take us too. Of course, the real Pigman killer is going to show up sooner or later and that everyone will get what’s coming to them. I don’t really think that there are any innocents along the way either. Of course there are things that softens the “guilt” of some of them but as a whole I just don’t care about any of them.
I also don’t care about the story, how it will unfold and how it will connect what’s happening in real time in front of the YouTubers camera, the people who go missing or what truth’s really behind the legend of the Pigman.
I do think Ben Silver, who portrays the YouTuber does a magnificent job though. He’s just as sleazy and disgusting as he needs to be. You can almost see the dollar signs in his eyes like you would in an old cartoon or comic book. He’s really that greedy and doesn’t care what he has to do to get what he wants. Which is likes and views of course. The other characters aren’t really that important. They don’t get the space to explore their characters and they are indeed not important. They’re just there to fill upå space. Which of course strengthens the main character’s assholeism.
The main problem with Pigman though, is that there’s no clear direction in which the story is going. When it starts nearing the end, it seems like every possible plotline needs to be included. In this case, the philosophy of less is more is very true. You don’t need to mess things up with different storylines just for the heck of it, and you don’t need to explore every one of them. Most are actually totally unnecessary.
The bottomline, if you cut away everything else, is that we can all be monsters. Some hide behind a mask (in this case a pig) and some just create a mask of their own. They just hide behind a persona but nothing they do makes them less of a monster just because they have learned to act “normal” and hide theír true identity behind something acted.
At the very end I’m just confused. What was the true story they wanted to tell?
