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Released by: Independent Entertainment
Released on: September 25, 2012.
Director: Eamon Hardiman
Cast: Sam Qualiana, Angela Pritchett
Year: 2011
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The Movie:
Following hot on the heels of the first film in the series, Eamon Hardiman's Porkchop II: Rise Of The Rind doesn't waste any time setting the tone for the movie. Two lesbians are strolling through the woods. The mood hits and one lifts up the skirt of the other and goes down on her. Just as she brings her partner to a climax a behemoth of a man wearing a mask made of a pig's face steps on her face and smothers her to death between the other girl's legs before disemboweling the second girl with a gardening tool.
From here we meet Simon Robertson (Sam Qualiana) and his parents who are in the midst of moving to a small town. Upon his arrival he meets Meg (Angela Prichett), an eccentric young lady with an obsession for the town's local serial killer, Porkchop. Meg, in fact, is delighter to meet Simon because as it turns out, he and his folks are moving into the house that belonged to the killer a few years back, a house that has been off limits to her until now. She and Simon hit it off and flirt a lot and she starts to bring him out of his shell - they even share a musical number together as they stroll through a lovely serene pasture (seriously).
Soon enough, Simon's parents have to split back to the old house to take care of some moving details. At this point, Meg decides to help Simon complete his quest to make it into the cool kids club and gain some popularity with his fellow students. She invites a bunch of people to a party at his place… just in time for our pig masked maniac to show up and start systematically slaughtering anyone he can get his hands on.
If you've seen this first movie in the series released last year, you'll have a rough idea of what to expect here. Though we lose the trash talking robot and frequently naked Erin Russ, we gain the aforementioned musical scene and some rather earthy looking lesbians. It's not quite a fair trade but it counts for something. Once again, the gore scenes are all done with practical effects - we're talking latex and butcher shop leftovers, not computer rendered splatter but the real deal, the kind that fans of slasher films know and love. Hardiman falls into that camp and wears his influences proudly like a badge of honor, letting the rural slashers of the eighties guide him without ever having to resort to homage or rip offs or unnecessary references to what came before.
The movie is well shot for a low budget film though the acting is as bad as you'd probably expect. With that said, you can't help but like Sam Qualiana (who popped up in Poltrygeist) as he seems to be more or less playing himself here. He's awkward, kind of dorky, but seems like he'd be a nice guy to know. Angela Prichett as Meg is his opposite in most every way possible but she too does fine with her role and actually has a fairly pleasant singing voice. There are times where it seems like the movie is trying a little too hard to be quirky at the cost of storytelling but sometimes the humor can be pretty effective and the kill scenes are, if not as good as those in the first movie, pretty darn close. This isn't a masterpiece, but it's fun.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Porkchop II: Rise Of The Rind is presented in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen in a fairly erratic looking transfer. While most of the movie looks pretty clean there are shots here and there that show some mild to moderate compression issues, a problem that plagued the first movie as well - though it's not as severe this time around. Once you remove that element the movie looks fine for the micro-budget feature that it is and the colors come across nicely here.
The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is occasionally muddy and falls victim to some issues with improperly balanced levels here and there making certain scenes harder to understand than others. The score sounds good, but it occasionally buries the performers. A couple of minor synch issues pop up here and there too.
Extras include a decent behind the scenes segment that has some interesting footage shot while the low budget feature was in production and an informative commentary track that offers up some welcome information about what it was like to work on the film. Aside from that, there are trailers included for the first Porkchop movie and for a few other Independent Entertainment DVD releases.
The Final Word:
Porkchop II: Rise Of The Rind is not as good a movie as the first one but it is still a pretty entertaining mix of blood, guts, sex and comedy. At seventy one minutes it feels just long enough and while the movie may wear its low budget plainly on its sleeve, if you're in the right frame of mind for it you'll get a kick out of it.
