[FrightFest 2025]: Pig Hill

Directed by Kevin Lewis, Pig Hill is a dark and mysterious thriller that centres itself around an urban legend of pig-like people which has haunted the locals of a small town. Since childhood, Carrie has been fascinated with this myth, and is now intent on investigating the truth.

Following the separation from her husband, Carrie (played by Rainey Qualley) throws herself into investigating and researching for her new book which will detail her hometown’s local legend of pig people that exist up on Pig Hill. Much to her brother Chris’ (Shiloh Fernandez) warnings, Carrie finds herself drawn to local man Andy (Shane West) and together they begin to probe into the disappearance of the tenth woman in the area. 

Shane West as Andy

Starting off with a feeling that Pig Hill may very well be a new addition to the Poohniverse series of films, it soon devolves into a mystery locked away in Carrie’s psyche, suffering from apparent dissociative amnesia. With a cast including Qualley, Fernandez and West, audiences would be mistaken into thinking Pig Hill may be a sanitary and safe horror, however, once the first piglet is born despite a botched abortion attempt with a coat hanger, it soon becomes apparent the film is about to get dark and twisted real soon. 

Shiloh Fernandez as Chris

With hints of influence from the New French Extremity movement, particularly films like Frontier(s) (2007) and High Tension (2003), Pig Hill flirts with nihilism, yet never really pushes the boat out fully. With characters that never fully grasp viewers' attention or empathy, at times it feels as if audiences are just being put through the paces to reach the inevitable and predictable ending.  If the film had leaned fully into not only disturbing audiences, but creating a real sense of emotional attachment to the characters à la the French horror film movement from the early 2000s, then maybe it would seem less of a futile attempt to shock and appall. 

2 Screams out of 5