Daddy's Deadly Darling

Ladies and Gentlemen, the hall of 70's exploitation obscurity proudly presents "Pigs", a movie made by, made for and – of course – largely revolving on … Pigs! Just in case you're looking for a totally incompetent yet strangely fascinating and one of a kind drive in class-sick, I warmly recommend this movie which Marc Lawrence (supportive cast member of such acclaimed classics as "Key Largo" and "The Asphalt Jungle") wrote, produced, starred in and directed entirely by himself! "Pigs", which is a much easier and equally appropriate title to use instead of the official "Daddy's Deadly Darling", blends two main story lines that are typical 70's exploitation guff (meaning: absurd and utterly tasteless), yet the wholesome feels refreshing and unique. The opening sequences introduce Lynn Webster. She's a beautiful and impressively voluptuous young girl who has just slain her father because he couldn't keep his hands to himself and a certain other body part inside his pants. One minor problem, however, Lynn refuses to accept her daddy is dead and she even escapes from the asylum to search for him. Why she desperately wants to be reunited with the guy who physically abused her is just one of the many weird kinks in the plot that remains unexplained and neglected. I guess it's because she's mentally unstable and those people tend to desire weird things. Anyway, she arrives at a remote countryside diner where funny farmer Zambrini employs her as a waitress. Zambrini has a couple of issues of his own, though. To a corpse he stole from the local morgue he explains how his pigs accidentally developed a taste for human blood. It started when they devoured a drunkard who fell asleep in their barnyard, but now they exclusively crave human flesh. The rest of the film is pure but amusing nonsense, with Lynn gradually losing whatever's left of her sanity and Zambrini desperately collecting corpses to keep his porkers satisfied. Jesse Vint stars as the handsome Sheriff investigating the odd events at Zambrini's farm and, like any other male character, he falls for Lynn's gorgeous rack. "Pigs" guarantees 80 minutes of uncompromising and demented 'Rednecksploitation' fun! Naturally it's a horrible film, complete with amateurish acting performances and dialogs that appear to have been written by the pigs, but trained admirers of cinematic 70's smut won't be able to resist it. The camera-work looks hideous, Marc Lawrence clearly never heard of editing and the make-up effects wouldn't even scare a child. "Pigs" also features a misfit but incredibly catchy theme song called "Somebody's Waiting For You" (misfit songs were almost obligatory in 70's drive-in classics) and the endlessly repeated "La la lalalla la la" tunes. Marc Lawrence donated the role of Lynn to his real-life daughter Toni, presumably to launch her career. It must have been awkward, for the both of them, to shoot all the sequences where she wears a revealing and too tight nightgown. Do I sense incestuous undertones? Sure, why not … Everything goes in the wondrously twisted world of 70's exploitation, right?

Good Times! Marc Lawrence makes another memorable character in the old, crotchety Zambrini - an ex-circus performer who supposedly came back from the dead after a tragic high-dive. Well, now he owns and operates a little cafe in the middle of nowheresville and feeds his pigs dead humans after midnight. As luck would have it, his newest employee of the cafe is a runaway psychotic from an insane asylum who likes to cut up men who come on to strong to her. She is really the film's main character and, as it turns out, Daddy's Deadly Darling is actually Marc Lawrence's deadly daughter in real life. Seems that he wanted to jump start his daughter's career so he gave her the lead. Well, unfortunately, she doesn't carry nearly enough quirkiness or depth to bring that character to life, unlike her father, who is a real gem to watch.

As a director, Mr. Lawrence had some good ideas to make some creepy, uneasy scenes to watch, but the version I watched (called PIGS) was very choppy and sloppy from an editing standpoint and the camera seems to enjoy shooting things in pitch black darkness. That's low-budget for you, but there's still something charming about this otherwise standard '70s exploitation fare. And any movie that has Marc Lawrence in it is, by default, going to have something going for it.

Toni Lawrence stars as a psychotic young woman who kills her father after he rapes her.

This film is pretty bad; many scenes just don't make sense and some of them seem to come out of nowhere. On the plus side, a lot of the dopey characters are fun to watch (especially Zambrini), and the movie has a bizarre, dreamy (and sometimes nightmarish) quality throughout. The scene where Toni Lawrence hears loud pig squeals and then runs screaming through a field for what seems like an eternity is probably the best example of the weird, out-of-nowhere sequences that continuously crop up. Unprofessional filmaking at its best!

Produced & directed by legendary character actor Marc Lawrence - known for his many gangster roles - the somewhat obscure curiosity "Daddy's Deadly Darling" (a.k.a. "Pigs" and "The 13th Pig") is nothing if not interesting. It's actually kind of appealing in its warped way, largely because it's just so sincere. The dialogue (screenplay by Mr. Lawrence, billed as "F.A. Foss") isn't always the greatest, but it's delivered with as much gravitas as the cast can muster. It's well shot by Glenn Roland and features a haunting refrain and score by the consistently reliable Charles Bernstein ("A Nightmare on Elm Street" '84, "Cujo").

This is largely a vehicle for Marcs' daughter Toni, a pretty and leggy young woman who stars as Lynn, a mystery lady running from something who arrives in a small California community. She takes a job as a waitress in a local cafe, working for a man named Zambrini (Mr. Lawrence), an elderly man who lived through a devastating accident when he worked for a circus. On Zambrinis' property are a dozen pigs, and it is rumored by the locals that these pigs got used to the taste of human flesh long ago, and that Zambrini will resort to murder of drifters in order to keep these pigs fed.

Ultimately, the developments in Lawrences' story aren't all that surprising, but the presentation is just offbeat and atmospheric enough to make this an intriguing viewing. Ms. Lawrence does a decent job as the disturbed Lynn, and her dad is likable (for a change) as Zambrini takes a paternalistic care towards his new employee. '70s drive-in favorite Jesse Vint is fine as the local sheriff, and there are other solid contributions by Jim Antonio, Catherine Ross, Paul Hickey, Walter Barnes, and Erik Holland.

It's commendable that boutique labels such as Vinegar Syndrome, which released this one on DVD & Blu-ray this year, are doing such a fine job of resurrecting little known cult / exploitation titles like this and giving them such impressive presentations.

Eight out of 10.

This film has many titles. Among them are "Pigs" "Daddy's Deadly Darling" and "The Strange Exorcism Of Lynn Hart". It was meant to be a star vehicle for the director, Marc Lawrence's daughter Toni Lawrence (if only she could act!) but turned out to be one of the only movies she ever made. It is filmed in the style of a "Last House on the Left" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" that grainy style of film making that always gives the viewer that "not so fresh" feeling. An often overlooked cult classic in it's own right "Pigs" is worth a one-time viewing for die hard horror fans but viewers beware the version currently in circulation that is being distributed by Troma is actually a censored version of the film (why anyone would care to bother censoring a film with so much of NOTHING in it is beyond me) it is missing a few key scenes (such as a scene where a victims hand is fed to the pigs) and is disappointingly void of extras (I would LOVE to hear how Marc Lawrence feels about this film nowadays or at least see the theatrical trailer for this sleaze fest).