Another Hole In The Head: Pig Hunt

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Pig Hunt, a local production, was easily the best film I saw at this year's Another Hole in the Head festival. Set in the woods around Boonville, it's a horror flick that features scary rednecks, evil hippies, AND a giant wild pig (referred to as "The Ripper," "Hogzilla," and "Pigfoot" throughout the course of the movie). You get your money's worth with this one.

The fun starts in San Francisco, as John (Travis Aaron Wade) and three of his friends take off for a weekend of hunting at his uncle's cabin in Boonville. John also brings his girlfriend Brooks (Tina Huang) along, and gets all kinds of grief from his friends for bringing a "ho" along on a "bros" weekend. Of course, before the weekend is through, they're all pretty glad to have her around.

The number of horror movies that begin with a bunch of people venturing out into the woods for the weekend is probably too large to count, but Pig Hunt recognizes this, and relishes in its reverence for and references to other movies, including Deliverance, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Apocalypse Now, Evil Dead, and Jaws, among others. But despite the obvious influences, Pig Hunt still manages to surprise. While the movie includes a lot of the requisite T & A, it was refreshing to see a female character (Brooks) who's a lot tougher than most of the men around her, and even though she is, of course, put in peril, I don't recall even hearing her scream for help once. It was also nice to see a monster that was more than just some computer generated code. The movie's not perfect--there are some jarring edits here and there, making the transition between different settings a little puzzling, and the ending includes a final shot that's a bit of a head scratcher--but it's a whole lot of fun.

Writer Robert Mailer Anderson spoke briefly before Saturday night's screening. The town of Boonville and the drive-in at Ukiah were a big influence on him and his cousin, Zack Anderson, co-screenwriter movie, and he talked about the film's decidedly Northern California (or "Up Cal," as he called it) feeling. They'd always wanted to do a movie about Boonville, and realized the only way to get the feeling right was to make it a horror movie. Anderson also revealed that one of the rundown cabins featured in the film (the one you first see Les Claypool's scary patriarch character standing in front of) was actually a place he had lived in, and was also where Alice Walker wrote the book The Color Purple. Anderson wasn't able to stick around for a post-film Q&A, but he and some others involved with the film are supposed to be around for tonight's screening. It's worth checking out. Get yourself some pork chops beforehand and make it a theme night

Another Hole In The Head: Monsters From The Id

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Monsters from the Id, the only documentary in this year's Another Hole in the Head fest, is a film with an agenda. It's an entertaining agenda, but an agenda nonetheless, and therefore falls less into the realm of "documentary" and more into the realm of "thesis statement," or, as my moviegoing companion deemed it, "infomercial for a career in science."

The main point of the film is that the science fiction movies of the 1950s had a direct influence on the brainy kids of the day, influencing many of them to enter into careers in science. And this at least holds true for the scientists interviewed for the movie, which include Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys, which was made into the film October Sky. It's just too bad the director couldn't just let these men talk, instead of forcing an imposing soundtrack over every second of the film, even to the point that it clashes with the soundtracks of the film clips featured. The movie would be a lot more fun if it wasn't so damn...noisy.

And the numerous movie clips that are included in the doc certainly maintain the premise that in 1950s science fiction, it's scientists and smart guys who conquer the monsters and aliens in the end, not sheer brute force. But anyone who has seen a lot of these 1950s films knows that science is not always the savior, and is often to very cause of monstrous calamities. Even the film that the doc takes its title from, Forbidden Planet, includes a military hero, and a scientist whose experiments ultimately lead to the complete destruction of a planet.

It's not imperative that all science be "good" science to influence a generation of braniacs, just a little myopic to assume 1950s science fiction was really that much different from the science fiction of later generations. Although I do think it is true most sci-fi these days probably doesn't have the influence on youngsters it may have had in the past, this probably has more to do with the "novelty" of the atomic age. The atom is old news these days, and the biggest influence the science fiction of today probably has is on kids wanting to work for ILM, not NASA.

(As the festival program notes, this flick is suitable for the entire family, but the short that's playing with it, called "Eat Me," most definitely is not.)