Well, I'd been kind of looking forward to seeing this movie, as it had a cool hand drawn cover of the title character and the tagline bragged of 80's style horror. I was really hoping that I'd have some fun with this film, so I decided to pop it in tonight and see what it was all about. Well, what it seemed to be all about was breaking the cardinal rule of low budget horror films: Do Not Be Boring!
Porkchop is a no-budget movie shot on video, and it starts off terribly with an awful heavy metal tune titled "Porkchop" running over the opening credits of real footage of pigs being butchered in a slaughterhouse. As far as disturbing, or gross, this would be the highlight of the film.
It's the classic tale of getting a group of buddies together to go on a camping trip out in the woods where a rural legend just happens to still be around. We have six "buddies", and one robot. You heard me right, a robot is among the cast for the entire movie, spouting off terrible one liners and being the most annoying of all of the annoying characters in the movie. That's another big no-no that this movie has in store for us. There is not one character to root for in the film. Not one of them would we miss if they ended up on the end of Porkchop's chainsaw. The only thing that seemed to matter to me was hoping that all of the female characters got topless at least once. That one wish was almost fulfilled, as our lead female character does not lose her clothes during the film.
There were some characters that were so bad at acting that I wondered if there was even a script being used at some points. Some of the lines being read, or made up were so poorly acted that I wanted to hide my face in shame for them. I sure hope they got paid well, but somehow I doubt it. Taking a camera into the woods, and filming your friends trying to do scary things can be fun for the people doing it, but not always fun for the people that get to watch what you've made out of it.
The film had no sense of urgency, no atmosphere, no tension, and worst of all, no action at all until the one hour mark. Any attempts among the characters to make any type of jokes or humor fall completely flat. The only interesting time I had was during the campfire scene when the legend of Porkchop was told. It seemed to be the only part of the movie that drew me in for a few minutes, and was quickly discarded as the characters reverted back to their boring nature after that one scene was completed. No matter how many times the actors referenced different 80's icons, it did not look or feel anything like an 80's film like it had been advertised as. And seeing female teenage (supposedly) characters with tattoos and tramp stamps didn't help create any 80's vibe either.
Yes, this film was a disappointment for a lot of reasons. As little as I could let myself get into the film, I still saw mistakes that the filmmakers must have seen themselves and didn't want to, or couldn't afford to fix. A girl has no flashlight in one scene, then suddenly she has one in the next. Even so bad as to start a kill with a long handled buzz saw, and finish the scene with the killer holding a chainsaw. Inexcusable. There is no reason at all that you should need to see this film, unless you choose morbid curiosity, and then you'll just be torturing yourself.
