Pig Hill (2025) | Film Review

Carrie has been fascinated by the local legend of the pig people of Pig Hill, revolting creatures who breed and cause havoc in the area. As the tenth woman goes missing, Carrie can't stop thinking that there could be more to these stories.

I'm glad someone (Carrie (Rainey Qualley)) was interested in the pig people of Pig Hill, because I sure as Hell wasn't.

Pig Hill (2025); directed by Kevin Lewis (Willy's Wonderland (2021)) and written by Jarrod Burris, is an incredibly disappointing affair. Expectations of silliness, akin to Willy's Wonderland, or a return to slasher films of a bygone era, were swiftly crushed within minutes of the film. Pig Hill is; instead, a nonsensical, incoherent, swing-and-a-miss mess that has very little to be appreciated as entertainment.

The overall story and pacing feels incredibly rushed, mechanical - this scene happens, now this scene happens, oh can't forget that this scene happens - with very little time to process or breathe. Certain scenes slow the film down to a standstill, whereas scenes that could benefit from breathing room and aid in developing the 'story', are short and / or replaced with a drastic time jump.

Considering the film's entire crux revolves around a character's exploration into the enigma of the pig people, we spend very little time through the film... exploring the enigma of the pig people. We're instead slapped in the face - not once, not twice, but thrice(!) - with the 'ending / big reveal' in the space of 4 minutes.

The reveal itself - although an interesting concept that should have been explored / developed - creates a feeling of pointlessness and redundancy for almost every prior scene and interaction, as we're told something we haven't seen, nor had been alluded to prior. Thus removing any stake or weight in; any of the three separate times, the reveal is ham-fisted home.

That brings me to an extremely egregious highlight:

Dialogue replaces any intention of visually / naturally developing characters, or lore and is - unfortunately - accompanied by a level of cringe-delivery found only in the basement of Instagram Reels. Notably, Shane West (Andy) and Shiloh Fernandez (Chris Barrett) are serviceable in their delivery, but the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast** who, at times, elicited quite a few unintentional laughs.

**The blame is solely on the poor direction and supremely inadequate writing.

Pig Hill (2025) | Film Review

This is all before mentioning the mind-numbing accompaniment of music through 99.9% of the film. This can only be attributed to incompetency of direction, or lack of confidence with the filmed material to convey any emotion to the audience without being handheld.

The only positive to mention - and, I'm stretching the word, positive - is the lighting. The lighting had a Giallo feel, with bright coloured lights washing certain scenes and casting shadows across faces and scenery.

Back to the negatives:

In a attempt to keep the horror aspect 'alive', we're 'treated' to an attempted abortion, forced sodomy / humiliation rape, aggressive rape, potential incest and even a splash of implied bestiality. All of which, were pointless to the overall story, due to the aforementioned three-time delivered reveal rendering it all redundant and filler.

Pointless horrific scenes doth not a good horror film make.

Overall, Pig Hill feels like an attempt to be a grim homage to The Hills Have Eyes (Craven, 1977), splashed with a bit of twists / turns (that fail tremendously). Perhaps the creators should have lowered the bar and paid homage to Slaughterhouse (Roessler, 1987) instead, or maybe just had a bit of clarity and given the reigns to someone with the potential to write something - anything - better.