The movie begins with Paulie explaining everything to Brandon’s (the friend they lost) family and sharing a memory he had with Brandon. The film follows Paulie on his way to the bus station, he talks about the bond they all shared as kids and how they drifted apart after college. They arrive at the bus station and pick up 3 more members of their group, the movie just follows them for a bit making small talk and catching up. The film jumps around some here, the guys sit around drinking beers and smoking weed, talking about their friend. I really felt like they wasted a bit of time here, like the director was afraid of not making his set time. The film jumps to the next morning we find the group on the road already all giving Josh a hard time for being hung over. They arrive at a pub and meet up with the rest of their group. They proceed to drink more and tell more stories, all of which are old stories of Brandon. The film cuts to Adam at 4 am who decides to wake his friends up and “give them a good scare”, he fails miserably.
It is at this point we finally get on the road to Connemara. During the hike to the mountains, some of group take time to leave messages to his family. The actors really are convincing in that they are hurting from the loss of their friend. The next part of the movie just pops in and out on the friends do random things that you do in the woods. The group settles in for a bit, a fight in the group starts, which I wasn’t quite sure what it was over. The camera cuts out and when it comes back they are fighting again. After the fight both men begun to walk off in different directions leaving the group behind. The film again cuts out and when it comes back all seven men are back together. They are again walking through the woods at dusk, this seen was very dark and not much can be seen of the men. I want to note at this point you are about 40 minutes into the film which only has a running time of 1 hour and 11 minutes, and nothing has happened yet.
They settle in for the night or so it seems, the film jumps again to Lee and Sammy once again fighting over whatever they started fighting over before. At this point you hear a gunshot somewhere off in the distance, they all take off running and the film again cuts out and jumps to the next morning. They sit around discussing the night before and the fight between Lee and Sammy. As I sat and watch this approaching the 45 minute mark nothing still taking place, I remember why I have a problem with found footage. While the acting was strong, the camera work is shotty and shaky at best. Like most found footage films I have a problem with it takes very long to develop with little to no true plot.
It is not until you are three quarters of the way through the film does anything even begin to develop. It all starts with Josh calling the rest of the group over to a rock which is cover in fresh blood. They discover a bloody handprint on the rock among all the blood. Not soon after do they hear yelling, a man who calls himself Jerry comes running from behind a bunch of rocks. Jerry has been brutalized and is cover in blood. When asked who did this to him he says “Masked men”. At this point the group is split, half of them want to return to the car, while the rest want to go on to find their missing friends. Of course as you guessed they press on to find their friends.
All in all the camera work for this film is a bit shaky, the story took far to long to develop for my taste and even when the action starts (which is not until 55 minutes into the film and at night when the screen is completely blacked out) it was far to late to save the movie. There is little to no special effects to speak of, this is the same with the sound track. As much as I tried to go into the film with high hopes and giving found footage a chance, this film made me remember all the problems I have with found footage. While the acting is above what is to be expected, good acting can’t save terrible writing. Though I will say when the killing finally starts it take over the film. In my honest opinion if you are going to venture to watch The Pigman Murders save yourself 50 minutes and skip to the last 25 minutes if the film.
reviewed by Shawn
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