Pigs in Zen

You wouldn’t think a movie about wild pig hunting would play well in the city, but we happen to be surrounded by hills filled with 200-pound, tusk-sporting boar. They’ve been on notice for years. They’ve also been getting shot. After all, they’re locally grown, free-range, and chefs feel tough when roasting them on a spit atop a primordial blaze for six hours. But since the whole idea of pig killing, field dressing, and spit roasting is kinda creepy, the indie filmmakers of Pig Hunt decided to go the horror route, creating a total gore-filled freakfest of a film that has to be slotted at midnight. It features a group of S.F. city boys on a pig hunt, a 2,000-pound boar, rednecks, lady pot farmers, and Les Claypool on bass (he did the soundtrack). It all ends in tears, obviously. And just to put you over the top on this thing, Pig Hunt was written by Zack and Robert Mailer Anderson, the latter of whom is a fantastic local resource, not only for books like Boonville, but also for his storytelling skill on stages like Porchlight, his talent at wearing a proper hat, and the general sense that this is one man who could kill a pig, bare-knuckled if necessary. If he hasn’t bagged one yet, it’s only because the pigs are keeping an eye on him.
April 10-11, 11:55 p.m., 2009