Pigs! (1973)

Movie Info

Crazy serial killer lady…you’re trying to seduce me…aren’t you?

Zambrini (Marc Lawrence) has a secret…his pigs have learned a taste for human flesh.  Now, Zambrini must keep finding food for them, and Zambrini finds that his new waitress Lynn Hart (Toni Lawrence) could be their next meal…but Lynn has a secret too.  Lynn is on the run from a mental hospital, and has her own deadly problem.

Written and directed by Marc Lawrence, Pigs! is a low-budget horror movie.  The film went under multiple titles including The 13th Pig, Horror Farm, and Daddy’s Deadly Darling.

If you read the description of Pigs! on paper (or even see some of the other titles), you have to watch Pigs!  The movie has everything you’d expect from a low budget horror movie and often like a lot of low-budget horror movie disappoints on the premise instead of relishing in it

All the models are wearing lipstick this way

The movie can’t decide what it is.  The movie could have been based around the horror of killer pigs or it could have been based around the horror of a man who feeds people to killer pigs.  Instead, the movie’s plot is further complicated by kind of circling new arrival Lynn who is an escaped mental patient with a killer zest…and the idea of people turning into pigs.  It adds crazy neighbors and some of the worst police work of all time.  The movie is a mess, but like a lot of these ’70s grindhouse films, the movie is kind of entertaining (and quick).

The cast is led by Marc Lawrence (the director) who actually is kind of entertains as the human-flesh eating pigs’ owner who just seems to vamp most of the movie as a curmudgeon (who is also kind of a creep voyeur at points).  As the actor, writer and director, I wish Lawrence had done a better job establishing his motivation and actions.  The killer he sometimes stares lustily at is played by his daughter Toni Lawrence who plays the insane Lynn who appears insane through the whole film (but no one seems to question).  Toni Lawrence also is known for later being the second wife of Billy Bob Thorton.

Ok…I’m not even sure what’s happening at this point.

The movie actually looks a lot better and is more stylishly shot than a lot of low budget movies from this period.  The film quality is higher than normal, but unfortunately, the story can’t carry the movie since it is all over the place.

Pigs! is a movie with characters yelling about everything and being “on edge” for the whole short runtime.  It is unbalance, pretty uninspired, and not as much fun as it should have been.  It was shot in eight days and it shows at points.  You can’t predict where Pigs! will go and that is the movie’s saving grace…but it also curses the movie.