Pig Hunt   Starring: Travis Aaron Wade, Tina Huang and Howard Johnson Jr. G2 Pictures RRP: £12.99 MP975D Certificate: 18 Available 05 October 2009

John is a city boy who as a youngster had spent time on his uncle's ranch, but he is certainly no stranger to hunting. Now his uncle is dead, and he returns with three friends with the idea of checking out the property and getting in some wild pig hunting. Unfortunately for his friends, John's girlfriend Brook tags along. When they stop at an isolated gas station store they are told the local legend about The Ripper, a huge three-thousand pound black boar which has killed many animals and a handful of people. Of course, John's friends consider this a tall tale at best - especially considering they are very soon met with a new problem. Confronted by the Tibb Brothers, local past compatriots turned violent enemies, who insist on accompanying the group, matters are made even worse when the group fall out over cannabis plants found growing on John's uncle's land. Pretty soon one of the brothers is dead, and all hell suddenly breaks loose as the surviving brother and his redneck family and friends seek bloody vengeance. A nearby hippy commune seems a possible place of refuge, but is it really the haven it promises to be...?

I had already seen trailers for this movie on previous DVDs for review, and I wasn't impressed. But prepared to be proved wrong in my preconceptions, I sat down with my impatient head on. It all seems so stereotypical at the beginning, with the cool and perfect hero, the Lara Croft-like girlfriend, and the immature teenage friend, very much in the vein of the characters in some of the Friday 13th films or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre boy in the wheelchair. Then there are the inevitable rednecks. So there is the expected nod to Deliverance and others of its ilk. On face value you would think Pig Hunt and Dying Breed to be virtually identical films, because they share so many ingredients.

However, Pig Hunt possesses significantly more depth than the aforementioned example. There's so much peril here that you don't get a chance to tire of any one danger. Whether by accident or design, the conflict is piled on in layers, exactly as it should be in any story of triumph over adversity. There is internal and external argument, the life or death threat of the locals, and of course The Ripper itself, which plays a much more prominent role than the Tasmanian Tiger in Dying Breed. I particularly liked the concept of the hippy commune and the origins of its members. A much better film than I expected, although I'm disappointed at the lack of extras; there's only a trailer here.

7

Ty Power