Pig (2021) – Review: A Beautiful Film That Features Another Inspired Performance From Nicolas Cage
Quick Thoughts – Grade – A – Pig is a beautiful film that will definitely be included in my year end “best of” lists. I can’t think of the last time I was so engrossed in a movie. Also, Nicolas Cage is excellent, and between Pig, Joe, Mandy, and Color Out of Space, he’s been putting in some great work in movies that place him in a wooded area.
The best thing about Pig is that you have no clue where it’s going. The trailer with it’s classical music, and eerie score makes you believe that it’s a thriller/psychological drama about a man trying to find the truffle pig that was stolen from him. To a certain extent, that’s true, but the lurid editing (I don’t blame the marketers, they had to sell it) hides how truly soulful it is. If you are looking for a contemplative, thoughtful and beautifully shot experience, I totally recommend you rent (or buy) Pig. If you can, turn off the lights, and enjoy the 92-minute film that features excellent work from Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, and Adam Arkin.
Directed by Michael Sarnoski, Pig tells the story of Rob (Nicolas Cage), a truffle hunter heading to Portland in hopes of finding his pig that was stolen from him by two opportunistic thieves. The thieves were hired by a Portland bigwig, who heard about the pigs mythical ability to hunt down truffles that are sold to the Pacific northwest elite in haughty restaurants that deconstruct pretty much anything. Joining Rob in his journey, is his buyer Amir (Alex Wolff), who drives him to the big city after Rob is attacked and left bloody in his isolated shack (he never cleans himself up, and it’s great). From there, the two find themselves exploring the seedy side of Portland, and it would be a shame to tell you more. Why? Pig is a movie that you should know very little about, because it will take you to places you’d never expect.
The cinematography by Patrck Scola (who has shot music videos for The Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Alt-J and The Neighbourhood) is beautiful to look at, as it uses doorframe, trees, and Nic Cage’s face to wonderful results. It would be disappointing to not see Scola nominated for any awards because his work is constantly inventive, and the use of focus and depth of field is inspired. Also, the script by Sarnoski and Vanessa Block keeps you engaged as it takes you from the isolated woods to an urban landscape that feels almost as dangerous and foreign as the Oregon woods. It’s also nice that the movie doesn’t go the Taken or John Wick route, as violence is mostly avoided, and aside from a couple beatdowns, the film mostly relies on tense dialogue scenes that are far more suspenseful than people punching each other in their faces.
After Color Out of Space, Mandy, Willy’s Wonderland, Mom and Dad, and Now Pig, Nicolas Cage has been turning in excellent performances in solid movies that have been missed by the mainstream (Watch Mandy now!). The narrative may be that he is stuck in direct-to-DVD purgatory, but that can’t be further from the truth. His work is interesting, unique, and in the case of Willy’s Wonderland, mostly silent. Mandy might be one of the best horror films of the 21st century, and a big reason for that is Cage’s performance, as he’s asked to be an ultimate badass who endures worlds of hurt, suffering, and pain at the hands of supernatural gross people, and cult members who have no clue who they are up against. If you get a chance, check out one of these films, they are well worth your time.
Final Thoughts – Watch Pig. Do it now.

Quick Thoughts: – Grade – D – Great White is an underwhelming shark film that doesn’t have any bite. The characters aren’t likable enough to carry the film, and the occasionally beautiful cinematography can’t carry the action scenes that rely on contrived moments to create tension.
Directed by Martin Wilson (famed commercial director who made his feature film debut with Great White) and starring Katrina Bowden, Aaron Jakubenko, and Kimie Tsukakoshi, Great White is a shark movie that takes itself too seriously, and let’s itself down when it moves inside a soundstage for the night scenes. The idea is sound, as placing several people (who are either pregnant, wildly jealous, or afraid of sharks after an attack) in a life raft and having them be harassed by sharks is always fun, but the movie falls apart when it isn’t showing us beautiful overhead footage of the Australian Coast.
The worst part about Great White is that you feel horribly for the great whites. In the best shark films like Jaws, Deep Blue Sea and The Shallows, the sharks are comically evil, genetically modified, or oddly vindictive, and they are treated like horror movie villains, and not like actual great whites (who are beautiful creatures). Great White keeps things grounded, which means when the sharks eventually die, you feel bad for them because they were just doing their thing, and they end up getting killed. Also, since the characters are thinly drawn, and only two of them come across as actual humans (Bowden and Jakubenko are solid), the kills don’t mean anything because there is no connection to them. For instance, Benny (Te Kohe Tuhaka), a likable character, dies when Joji (Tim Kano – stuck with a wildly underwritten character) who is annoyed that Benny is assisting his wife Michelle (Kimie Tsukakoshi), pushes him into the water, and before Benny can make it back to the raft, he is killed. So, essentially, Joji is a murderer, who probably should go to jail if he survives the ensuing attacks. It’s unnecessary moments like this that do nothing for the film, and start making you consider laws about shoving people into water and causing them to be eaten by a shark.
If you’ve been following MFF for a while, you know that I love pretty much every shark movie ever made (We started Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast). I bought Great White without ever seeing a trailer, and I regret buying it because it does nothing for the genre, as the obviously fake soundstage work (which was necessary for the budget), wonky lighting, occasionally bad VFX, and lack of memorable characters make it hard to enjoy. I really wanted to love Great White, and if I didn’t, I was fully prepared to defend it by saying “A bad shark movie is better than most other movies.” However, Great White is a middling film that does nothing to warrant a cult audience, or “so bad, it’s good” consideration.
Final thoughts – Great White is a subpar shark film that should only be watched by shark movie completists.
Bad Movie Tuesday: Winterbeast (1986 or 1992, who knows?), a wacktastic, very low budget B-movie loaded with stop-motion monsters.
MY CALL: If you love really bad b-movies with stop-motion monsters, then this nonsense is for you! MORE MOVIES LIKE Winterbeast: The Alien Factor (1978) feels similarly bad and diverse in its creatures. The Strangeness (1985) likewise features some great stop-motion monster fare.
From IMDB: “People are being killed off near a popular mountain lodge, with a legend claiming that the mountain is haunted by a deadly Native American demonic curse.”
Hoooooly shit. Okay, so “scene 1” of this clunky B-movie lets you know from its first line reading that it’s terrible. But it also lets you know from its first creature effects that it’s deliciously terrible as some sort of stop-motion skinless tentacle monster flails about while some possessed mutant peels away a bleeding chunk of flesh from his ribcage. Why does this all happen, you may ask? Haven’t a clue. Next scene! Now a diminutive wheezing skull is chest-bursting out of some guy for about 10 seconds. Why? Screw it! Next scene! Okay now a few dialogue scenes incoherently spewing exposition that doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere. Yeah, this movie is special and I already like it! This is the most wonderful kind of bad.
I’ve got to admit, I love the bad movie charm of some wonky stop-motion critters. A stop-motion giant tree-man stalks some topless woman, then grabs her (she’s now a poorly rendered clay woman) through the window like King Kong and slams her against the house. Then a bug-eyed troglodyte-sasquatch bursts from the ground and drags two women away to their presumed rape-y demise. And a giant four-armed stop-motion alien(?) grabs a man (now another laughable clay figure) and rips off his little clay head. Oh, and a “mummy” rises from a “grave” in the middle of the woods somewhere in the United States. So a lot of sense is being made, for sure.
I’m not complaining or anything, but this movie just keeps giving us little vignettes of stop-motion monsters killing and abducting people interspersed with relatively meaningless lumbering scenes of a few park rangers searching for the missing people. Apparently these are all Native American Gods, totems or monsters of sort punishing people through a curse. The plot is inane, and the delivery is beyond incomprehensible. At one point we see what I can only describe as a spastic Dungeons & Dragons “ogre mage.”
The editing is atrocious and, as warned before the film started, portions of this movie were filmed years apart (and in some cases, with different actors playing the same character or the same actor with very different haircuts cutting back and forth mid-dialogue!). Mid-conservation you’ll see someone walk outside in daylight, then turn around and continue their conversation but the next cut… it’s clearly at night! Ed Wood would proud of the scrappy dedication it took to cobble this Frankensteinian set of 1986 and 1989 shots into a marginally passable B-movie, which even features what I can only describe as an awkwardly long, melancholy-slow, macabre dance number.
If you wanted so bad it’s good, you’ve positively found it. This is solid gold bad movie fodder. Strongly recommended especially to fans of stop-motion monsters.
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 379: Death Becomes Her, Shovel Fights and Twisted Heads
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Mark and Niall discuss 1992 visual effects bonanza Death Becomes Her. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, and starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, and Isabella Rossellini, the film focuses on what happens after people consume an elixir that grants them immortality (a lot of shenanigans). In this episode, they talk about twisted heads, holes in stomachs, and wonderful visual effects. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Beyond Dream’s Door (1989), a lame 80s horror movie that deserves to remain forgotten.
MY CALL: Overall this was really boring despite some worthy lower budget gore efforts. I was never more than momentarily amused by any scene in this entire movie. This is a hard pass, folks. MORE MOVIES LIKE Beyond Dream’s Door: Another incoherent movie about dream research, Nightwish (1990) comes to mind.
Troubled by his nightmares, Ben seeks help from his psychology professor. But when Ben’s dreams come to haunt his professor in the daytime, they realize they’re both in over their heads.
Ben’s dreams include his non-existent kid brother, the death of his skinless decapitated parents, but mostly revolve around a monstrous creature with huge gangly claws which masquerades as a naked woman.
Even if very low budget, the visual of his grotesquely flayed and mutilated professor punches above the weight of this movie. His brains are squeezed from his ruptured head as I giggled with glee. Enjoy it, for it’s the only ‘good’ scene in this movie. Sure there are some noteworthy gory efforts. But for the most part, everything in this film falls flat.
With repeated use of sewers and red balloons, this was definitely influenced by Stephen King’s 1986 book “It.” Though it brings it no justice with the displaced homage. Nor does it do anything but disappoint with its depiction of zombies… ooof, that’s a lame scene. Why was that zombie scene even in this movie!?!?!
Having now seen two of the three films in my Home-Grown Horrors volume 1 pack from Vinegar Syndrome, I can confidently place this movie well below Winterbeast (1992). Sure, Beyond is much better acted and slightly less incoherently written. But the monster effects are too few and far between, the plot is poorly explored, and the main monster gets dumber as the movie progresses. Truth be told, I was never more than momentarily amused by any scene in this entire movie. This is a hard pass, folks.
John’s Horror Corner: Mirrors 2 (2010), a watchable sequel with enjoyable death scenes.
MY CALL: Unfortunately, this is one of those sequels that takes all its plays from the playbook of part 1, but simply uses a different (and cheaper) cast of characters in highly similar situations. But what the movie lacks in most respects, it makes up for with decent quality death scenes. I’d definitely give this a low priority recommendation if you liked part 1. I’m glad I saw it, but once was enough. MORE MOVIES LIKE Mirrors 2: For more evil mirror movies try Mirrors (2008), Oculus (2014), Into the Mirror (2003) or Mirror Mirror (1990). But I’d skip Mirror (2014).
Still recovering from a terrible accident, Max (Nick Stahl; Disturbing Behavior, Dead Awake, Hunter Hunter) is recruited by his father to be a night security guard for the all-new renovated Mayflower, the very same cursed shopping mall of Mirrors (2008). As soon as his first shift begins, we are jump-scared by visions of a ghostly woman he sees in the mirror.
Following boldly in the footsteps of part 1’s director Alexandre Aja (Mirrors, Piranha 3D, The Hills Have Eyes, Crawl) who remade and one-upped the South Korean Into the Mirror (2003) with brutal pizzazz, Víctor García (The Damned, Hellraiser: Revelations, Return to the House on Haunted Hill) steps to the helm for this quickly released sequel.
Unfortunately, this is one of those sequels that takes all its plays from the playbook of part 1, but simply uses a different (and cheaper) cast of characters in highly similar situations. Moreover, this sequel plays on premonitions of presumably ‘preventable’ deaths in the manner of Final Destination (2000) and sequels.
Just like Mirrors (2008), we open with a night security guard (Evan Jones; The Book of Eli, Wishcraft) at the Mayflower Department Store who finds his reflection is quite malevolent and dies to the actions of his cast image. The methodology is a tad weak, but the death scene remains mean and gory.
The story lacks the development, tact or execution of its predecessor. Really, this feels like a completely standalone horror movie that just happens to take place in the same cursed store as before. Except now… the rules of the store and its haunting are completely different; basically unrelated in any way except for the involvement of angry spirits in mirrors killing people via possessed reflections. Oooooh boy, and the story involves rape, which is always charming, right? So there’s your trigger warning.
What the movie lacks in most respects, it makes up for with decent quality death scenes. Christy Carlson Romano’s shower scene death features extensive nudity, a lot of blood and some redeemingly shocking gore when her head is brutally guillotined by a broken pane of glass. No death could live up to Amy Smart’s (Mirrors) jaw-ripping demise in part 1, but this shower death scene remains incredibly satisfying for this gorehound. Likewise, Jon Michael Davis’ death is just plain mean and brutal complete with Achilles tendon gashes and disembowelment. So while this is clearly ranked below its predecessor, I still enjoyed watching it.
This movie had exactly the kind of cheap ending that, in my opinion, no one wants. But the bad people got what they had coming in the form of horribly murderous ghostly revenge, and that’s somewhat satisfying on its own. And the death scenes (though not numerous) were a disgusting joy. I’d definitely give this a low priority recommendation if you liked part 1. I’m glad I saw it, but once was enough.
Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast – Episode 56: The Decapitator, Spin Kicks, and Jumping Sharks
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Jay and Mark are joined by Aaron “Spin Kick” Neuwirth (@AaronsPS4 on Twitter) to discuss the eighth chapter on the Deep Blue Sea 3 Blu-ray. In this episode, they discuss spin kicks, jumping sharks, and unexpected low blows. Enjoy!
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