Long Pigs: Movie Review....Imagine long bacon mmmm

Long Pigs is a movie based around an independent film crew following around a modern day cannibal serial killer not unlike Ed Gein and Jeffery Dahmer. The serial killer is Anthony who is a basic simple man who puts the art of cannibalism as well as the act of killing into the same category of people eating meat such as cows and pigs. In one scene it shows him cutting apart a recently killed victim as he has the corpse hung by their feet as you would in a butcher shop. However as he goes about his deed he is talking with the film crew in a simple monotone sound with such a look on innocence on his face that you tend to forget that he has just killed this person and is preparing them to be eaten. He meticulously butchers the individual as a normal butcher would take pride in his cuts of beef/meat.

The character Anthony himself is actually such a sympathetic character that you begin to feel for him and realize that this is a normal everyday occurrence that to him is like a person going to a grocery store to buy food in order to live. This simple average man works a regular job and even plays in beer league style hockey games. As you always hear in every serial killer report you see on the news “you never would expect him to be a gruesome monster because he always seemed so nice.

One point I enjoyed in the film is where, due to a flat tire, Anthony and the film crew go to a farm to secure a spare tire for them to get home. The farm turns out to be a pig farm and as you walk through their butchering area and see the pigs you can see more how Anthony views his ways as being that of a normal pig farmer.

The movie is sprinkled with a police detective and behavioral psychologist explaining what goes through a serial killers head and just after they finish their speech it shows Anthony doing and being the exact opposite.

Half way through the film though you begin to look at him more as a monster and a disturbed individual that he really is. You can begin to see the symptoms, which were described by the experts, come out more and more in Anthony towards the end of the film until the final climax.

I don’t normally enjoy sitting down to watch movies and tend to sometime fast forward through parts that I feel are drawn out, but in this case I watched the film from start to finish without once thinking about hitting the fast forward button. This movie kept me wanting to see more and I was glad that I did not skip anything in this film.

There were only a few things that I saw with this film that I would change. While the ending of the movie was good it did become a bit predictable towards the end. As well I thought there was a bit too much closure at the end as you see what happens to all the characters you met through the film ala Animal House.

I did enjoy this movie and they say never leave until the credits are done, well this is no exception. No, there isn’t a special surprise after the credits, but there is a conversation between Anthony and a radio show host, who interjects some points during the movie, that says to Anthony everything you would want to say to cannibalistic serial killer.

Be safe and always look to see where your food comes from,

John Cannon