Based on the Pickton true crime case, that of a man who may or may not have killed multiple women and disposed of the bodies on his pig far, Pig Killer follows this killer, named Robert “Willy” Pickton here, as he looks for victims, kills them, deals with his family issues, and eventually gets caught. At the same time, the film follows one of his victims before she gets taken and after.
Written and directed by Chad Ferrin, Pig Killer takes the same case as the very recent Squealer and forgoes the police procedural approach, going straight for a more exploitive approach that is all about sex, killing, incest, and abuse in general. The film as a whole feels like an excuse to show a few ladies naked, let Jake Busey go nuts, and have some gore scenes with a lot of nonsense that doesn’t really add to the story in any way. While the story isn’t boring, it feels like there is a much better way to tell this story, one that doesn’t feel so much like it’s just there for the boobs and the blood. Of course, the fact that the film is produced by Girls and Gore, this had to be expected, but perhaps this case was not the ideal one for this production company and filmmaker. Will some folks love it? Of course. Will some folks hate it? Of course. The film. From this viewer’s standpoint, is not good, not bad, it just feels like an excuse to create something bloody and exploitive without much thought put behind it.
When it comes to the cast, their performances are on par with the material they are working with. Jake Busey gets the lead role here, the killer and he does crazy decently well, but it feels quite one-note throughout the film, so it goes from an ok performance to one that someone becomes bland while remaining crazy. One of the top-billed ladies is Bai Ling and it’s nice to see her, but that is nothing like she is capable of. Best of Bai Ling is something like The Crow, this is nothing like that. Her performance here is to be a drugged-up prostitute and, well, she does that mostly. She’s not given much to work with here, so it’s hard to really say much. Lew Temple shows up as Pickman’s brother and gives probably the best performance of the whole film. Temple is a solid actor, and it feels like he can save any scene he is in. Another actress hired to play victim, one who has a bit more fight in her, is Kate Patel whose performance is puzzling at times. Some scenes she does well, some scenes it’s a wonder if she had a script or directions at all. The cast as whole feels this way most of the time.
The film does, however, move pretty fast and has a decent look in terms of the cinematography, The gore is decent as well, so it’s not all bad. The music by G Tom Mac is also more than decent, giving the film a few points.
As a whole, Pig Killer is not good, it’s not terrible, but it has enough issues to be a film to avoid unless you absolutely must watch all the films based on true crime cases or on this exact case. Pig Killer comes off exploitive and wanting to shock which it fails at throughout. It’s not an appealing film or one that would have stayed on in this house had it not been agreed on as a review title.