{"id":21302,"date":"2016-07-05T20:55:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T00:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=21302"},"modified":"2016-07-05T23:57:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T03:57:04","slug":"pig-pen-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/05\/pig-pen-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Pig Pen (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pig<\/a>Thirteen year old Rick lives in less than ideal conditions but social services don\u2019t seem all that worried.\u00a0 After things go from bad to worse, he runs away and becomes one of many street kids.\u00a0 When he witnesses a brutal murder, Rick ends up going back home where a gruesome scene awaits him.<\/p>\n

Pig Pen is directed by Jason M. Koch who co-wrote it with Mark Leake.\u00a0 The film is unrelentingly dark and creates an oppressive atmosphere that should put viewers in an uncomfortable place.\u00a0 The entire film is built on negativity and what little light or positivity there is gets snuffed very quickly every time.\u00a0 The feeling and atmosphere created are oppressive and depressing.\u00a0 The whole film is very very effective at this.\u00a0 The characters that live in this environment are sad, desperate, or evil.\u00a0 These people are almost all negative people, human beings anyone wouldn\u2019t necessarily want to be around ever.\u00a0 They are damaged souls who do damage onto others.<\/p>\n

The dialogue is basic but fits the characters and advances the story without cluttering the film with long conversations or monologues.\u00a0 The people involved are unhappy and living hard lives, so their language and conversations reflect that. The cast here is fairly small, most scenes involving Rick (Pig Pen), his mother Sandy, her boyfriend Wayne, or a combination of them.\u00a0 Rick is played by much older than 13 years old actor Josh Davidson who plays the early teen part very well, especially considering his age (born in 1975 per IMDB), his interpretation is sad and desperate, and making the viewer feel for him.\u00a0 Sandy is played by actress Nicolette le Faye who also gives a sad turn as her character, adding sheer fear which makes the viewer worry for her, her safety, and well-being.<\/p>\n

As her boyfriend Wayne is Vito Trigo who brings menace and violence with all his being.\u00a0 His character comes off as flat out nasty and scary as the abusive asshole who makes Rick lose it.\u00a0 He brings out a visceral reaction to his character, enough to make the viewer hate him as he is just evil.\u00a0 The characters all do come off as unhappy people with little to live for. Pig Pen being a very independent film made with the help of an Indie Go Go campaign, the few effects there are have to be expected to be on the inexpensive side but they also look great.\u00a0 The central piece of effect, which will not be spoiled here to keep its surprise as big as can be, is very well done, looking real and painful, hitting a nerve as soon as it\u2019s revealed.<\/p>\n

Kaleigh Brown did fantastic work with that scene and the others where her special effects talents were needed.\u00a0 She shows that she can work in little time, with a small budget to deliver big budget shock and horror.Pig Pen is not only an independent film made on a tight budget, it was also made with a small crew with a lot of that crew having worked with Jason M. Koch on his previous film 7th<\/sup> Day.\u00a0 Having not seen that film, it cannot be compared here.\u00a0 Solely based on Pig Pen however, let\u2019s hope Koch keeps making films as he has a style that works and is a talented story teller.\u00a0 Pig Pen is depressing and dark, a slice of desperation from one kid\u2019s life, almost completely devoid of any light or hope.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very violent in spots, with its violence not all being physical.\u00a0 Thankfully it has some moments to breathe or it would have become too much or completely lost its impact.\u00a0 This is not a feel good film and it should and probably will, make most viewers uncomfortable, a sign of a successful dark film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirteen year old Rick lives in less than ideal conditions but social services don\u2019t seem all that worried.\u00a0 After things go from bad to worse, he runs away and becomes one of many street kids.\u00a0 When he witnesses a brutal murder, Rick ends up going back home where a gruesome scene awaits him. Pig Pen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[302,752,840,1087],"class_list":["post-21302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-drama","tag-p","tag-revenge","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21304,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21302\/revisions\/21304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}