Spanish writer/director Carlota Pereda adapts her 2018 short to expand on the complex effects of bullying against a backdrop of horror. In Piggy, it’s not just the bullies, and the bullied that deals with the emotional fallout and ramifications of bullying. It ripples through a small town, exacerbated by the arrival of a serial killer, presenting an immersive, psychological character study.
Sara (Laura Galán) spends most of her summer working in her family’s butcher shop, hiding away from the blazing sun and catty peers that relentlessly tease her over her weight. After a clique of catty means girls heads off on a trip, Sara sneaks away to the town pool for an afternoon swim, briefly encountering a stranger there before the girls return to viciously target her once more. Sara’s forced to take the long walk home in only her bathing suit and multiple harrowing encounters along the way makes her the only person with the knowledge that a killer’s on the loose. But as a constant target of abuse, Sara’s morally conflicted on what to do about it.
A still from PIGGY by Carlota Pereda, photo by Jorge Fuembuena.
Pereda frames everything through Sara’s perspective and puts the viewer in her shoes. Piggy paints a clear, heartwrenching picture of the bullying Sara’s subjected to from classmates, both online and in person. Still, it spends a lot of time examining how it starts in the home with an overbearing mother (30 Coin’s Carmen Machi). Pereda examines the psychological and emotional toll all of it takes on Sara, how it shaped her withdrawn, quiet personality, and why it causes dubious action or inaction on Sara’s part once the town realizes people have gone missing. Most intriguingly, Pereda explores how it creates a fascination in Sara for the killer.
Because we’re so fully immersed in Sara’s story and arc, the horror elements get relegated to the background for stretches. Shocking details Sara completely misses during moments of peak distress or turning a blind eye, and more aggressive moments of terror occur throughout. But it takes a while for the killer’s path to fully converge with Sara’s. Once it does, Pereda lets the blood flow and makes the viewer complicit in the moral dubiousness of Sara’s plight.
Laura Galán appears in PIGGY by Carlota Pereda, photo by Jorge Fuembuena.
Galán’s layered vulnerability keeps you invested in Piggy throughout; Sara’s twisted coming-of-age story puts her through the emotional wringer even as the more exciting horror story happens off-screen for the most part. It makes for a less suspenseful but more satisfying dramatic arc. At least depending on which component of Sara’s journey resonates most, redemption, discovery, or retribution? Pereda makes a strong case for all of it, which lends unpredictability to the finale.
Piggy gives viewers a lot to chew on in this intimate morality tale carried by Galán’s haunting performance. Every bit of Sara’s helplessness, fear, anguish, rage, and even attraction is tangible. Pereda casts an unflinching eye on Sara, making it feel even more personal through the aspect ratio and restraint in specific types of violence. That restraint makes Piggy more horror adjacent than outright horror, but its impact is keenly felt all the same.
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