Arrow Video FrightFest 2022: "Piggy"

Piggy (2022)

Sometimes, a short film stretched to feature-length can just feel like padding, but there are always exceptions to the rule. Expanded from her 2018 short film of the same name, Carlota Pereda’s Spanish horror film "Piggy" is a knockout at any length. At 90 minutes rather than 13 and some change, the film rarely sags but actually evolves and keeps surprising. In no specific order, "Piggy" manages to be heartbreaking, ruthless, unexpectedly funny, and cathartic. 

Laura Galán (who also starred in the short) plays Sara, a butcher’s daughter who works the front of the shop in a small Spanish village. She’s bullied by the cool crowd, including spineless “friend” Claudia (Irene Ferreiro) and her cruel, body-shaming girlfriends who call her “Piggy.” Of course, all of the insults thrown Sara’s way are aimed at her body. At home, Sara’s mother (Carmen Machi) is overbearing but at least protective. One afternoon, Sara goes to the local pool after everyone is left. Another swimmer emerges from the water---a man (Richard Holmes) with whom Sara locks eyes---but her attention turns to Claudia and her two girlfriends, Maca (Claudia Salas) and Rock (Camille Aguilar), who begin taunting her from a bridge. This leads to Sara being physically accosted with a pool skimmer and having her towel and clothes stolen. After a walk in her bathing suit and another round of being bullied by three men on the road, Sara has had it. When Sara passes a white van and sees a distressed Claudia pleading for help from the back of the van, she does what Claudia did back at the pool: nothing. That’s right, Sara’s bullies are now in the hands of a brutish killer, the man from the pool.

In Pereda’s short, that’s where the story ends with the ambiguity packing a real punch. With this expansion, the story doesn't lose any of its power and carries on with a bit more complexity that viewers might even consider transgressive. Between Sara and her bullies’ murderous captor, there is an unspoken mutual understanding, and Carlota Pereda’s script nearly turns this relationship into a forbidden romance. Simple without being simplistic, Piggy is most certainly about revenge by proxy but also human empathy. It's a tough character portrait as much as it’s a down-and-dirty horror film. Read the full review at Horror Obsessive.

Grade: B +

Vertigo Releasing is releasing "Piggy" (90 min.) in US theaters October 14, 2022 and UK cinemas October 21st.