Piggy

In selected cinemas now

Carlota Pereda’s Piggy isn’t the first horror film to muse on socially conscious issues and almost certainly won’t be the latest, but is laudable for achieving the difficult balancing act of discussing difficult topics without trivialising them. By which I mean, it’s very ease for the intentions of such a film to become lost within its genre conventions, and that Pereda does an astute job of avoiding such pitfalls.

Piggy is also laudable for the conviction with which it depicts teenage anxiety and the especially grim act of body shaming, which essentially fuels the character arc of Laura Galán’s excellent protagonist. Bullied by her more popular contemporaries and mollycoddled by her overbearing mother, Galán’s character is especially easy to sympathise with, even as her actions gradually take a darker turn.

Bringing a more familiar, bogeyman effect to proceedings is Richard Holmes’ dark and overtly physical serial killer, whose odd, unspoken connection to the central character fuels the film’s atmospheric build to its bloody, grindhouse crescendo. All the while, Pereda’s screenplay maintains a dark humour which ensures that Piggy remains an entertaining ride from beginning to end.

And, while its motif may not be especially ground-breaking, the film is commendable for doing justice to a vital everyday issue while also delivering a genuinely shocking and often thrilling horror flick.