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“Piggy” is like the feature-length version of an editing gag that (often) feels cheap. Backed into a proverbial corner, an angry character lashes out at another in some explosive bit of violence. But then: another cut reveals this moment was just a fantasy in our protagonist’s head (you can see this gotcha bit in David O. Russell's “ Amsterdam ” this week, for example). A cheek is turned instead, or at least, the capacity for violence is brought back to reality. Even when the other person really has it coming to them.  

Written and directed by Carlota Pereda , “Piggy” visualizes this more literally. There is actually a violent force that’s lashing out at the tormenters of teenager Sara ( Laura Galán ), and he’s a slasher killer. His violence against Sara’s list of bullies provides a temptation of justice, and a release for her from all the awful things they have said about her or her or her weight, right to her face and to a slew of likes on social media. When Sara swims at the town pool, already self-conscious about being out in a swimsuit, her bullies hunt her down, they call her names, hold her down underwater with a net, they run away with her clothes and towel. Trying to get away from this nightmare becomes a gauntlet, as Sara’s vulnerability attracts even more torment.  

Some of these venomous bullies soon go missing; Sara even sees one of them being stuffed into a white van in the woods, and she makes eye contact with the killer. But Sara doesn’t go public about what she saw. She initially lies about whether she was at the pool where the slasher might have started his stalking, in part for fear of the embarrassment of revisiting what happened. It would also be more torment, and to help those who have only made her life worse. And maybe they really had it coming to them.  

“Piggy” has a lot of tongue-in-cheek jokes, like the corpse that Sara casually swims by in the pool without her noticing, but it doesn’t turn this latest development into some darkly comic victory. Pereda’s script instead plays it like Sara is trying on a new costume she’s not sure of—one that has her thinking and considering whether she's doing the right thing for herself. As the pressure for her to speak up becomes more and more, with the townsfolk investigating in between their tears, Sara goes inward, which usually involves a lot of huffing to match her usual expression of silence. It’s a tricky thing to play this type of transformation while still honoring the anger and sadness that later has her bursting out, “I wish you were all dead!”  

Galán does this well, even though this inner turmoil is placed in scenes of interrogation (from the locals, and police) that aren't funny, scary, or sad when corpses start appearing. (Pereda throws in another act of violence that has the weight of a deleted scene.) When it should be jostling us in one way or another, "Piggy" feels like it's just killing time.  

Played by a burly Richard Holmes , the killer is a heavy-handed embodiment of Sara’s anger toward the bullies, a manifestation of anyone’s desire for their bullies to suffer. She finds comfort in him; their faces get close after they bump into each other in the woods (both of them trying to clear their tracks), and even though he has a knife in hand, her conception of the moment is romance, fantasy. Later, when they meet again, he does things more akin to Prince Charming while committing more violence that could be for her benefit, if she so chooses. He sees something in her, and she in him. His beats show the flip side of a love story with a brooding mystery man: sometimes said mystery figure is just Jason Voorhees. 

Inside her home, Sara receives a lot of minimizing from her mother, who peppers in a “What is wrong with you?” on nearly every interaction. She is played with memorable presence by Carmen Machi , and in one of Pereda’s more amusing jokes, she always catches Sara in moments of her trying to sneak around the house. At times this character seems to be written as a more out-of-touch classic mother figure, but Machi shows the protective nature at the heart of this archetype. She’s also one of the few characters who get enough dimension from a script that gets more and more narrow.  

This all brings “Piggy” to a finale that simplifies everything even more down to a slight parable about having corrosive hate in one’s heart. Pereda gets a couple of staid slasher genre thrills out of it, mixing her boxy Academy aspect ratio with explosive gruesomeness, but it mostly, plainly hinges on what Sara does when confronted with the ultimate choice of her fantasy. Do bad people deserve the worst things? The question comes from a commendable surplus of empathy, but “Piggy” struggles with how limiting its intent can be when asking it.

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Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Piggy (2022)

Laura Galán as Sara

Richard Holmes as Desconocido

Carmen Machi as Madre

Julián Valcárcel as Padre

José Pastor as Pedro

Irene Ferreiro as Claudia

Camille Aguilar as Roci

Claudia Salas as Maca

• Carlota Pereda

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• David Peregrin
• Olivier Arson

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‘Piggy’ Review: Carlota Pereda’s Searing Feminist Horror Turns Body Shame to Bloody Games

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The sweltering heat of summer in a small town hangs thick in the air in “Piggy,” the blistering feature debut from Spanish filmmaker Carlota Pereda. Part coming-of-age romance, part psychological body horror, “Piggy” firmly establishes Pereda as a bold new voice in feminist horror — that recently flourishing sub-genre popularized by the likes of Julia Ducournau, Ana Lily Amirpour, and Jennifer Reeder.

Aided by a dynamite performance from newcomer Laura Galán, “Piggy” uses the tension of a slasher thriller to weave a painfully relatable tale of adolescent angst gone terribly awry. As body shame and self-loathing morph into a disturbing complicity with violence, “Piggy” pushes the torments of youth to their naturally wicked ends. The film’s most brilliant trick is to mire the audience in the twisted moral dilemma with which its protagonist is grappling, taunting us with the question: What would you have done differently?

Loading its resonant title with double meaning, “Piggy” opens in a butcher shop. The opening frames include a whole pig hanging from a meat hook; the thwack of a cleaver on bone; and the springy bounce of deep purple blood sausage. Sara (Galán) sucks on a strand of her curly dark hair as she studies at the counter, her homework dappled with pig’s blood. Through the window of her family’s shop, she observes a group of carefree teens flirting playfully in the summer heat, so at ease in their lithe young bodies. She stands at crisp attention when two of the girls enter the shop to pick up an order, the air heavy with unspoken familiarity.

In this brief opening scene, a few knowing glances explain a lifetime of setup. Sara’s former friend Claudia (Irene Ferreiro) only hangs with the popular girls now, who taunt Sara about her weight with cruel names like “piggy” and “Miss Bacon,” unbeknownst to Sara’s nosy but clueless parents (Carmen Machi and Julián Valcárcel). One of the mean girls posts a quick family photo in the butcher shop to Instagram with the caption “Three Little Piggies.”

Flustered from the cruel interaction, Sara heads to the town pool to cool off, hardly noticing the eerily empty public park. She’s entirely alone except for a hulking man who bursts from the water, locking Sara into some seriously penetrating eye contact. The moment is cut short by the trio of mean girls, who nearly drown Sara by assaulting her with a pool net before taking off with her towel and belongings.

Ashamed and hurt, she cries all the way home, trying but failing to cover up her exposed body. Along the way, she stumbles upon her tormentors trapped in the back of a white van, waving bloody hands and crying for help. When the man from the pool opens the door and gently places a towel on the ground, she says nothing and lets him drive off. From that moment, it’s a race to the finish as Sara becomes embroiled in an agonizing game of what she will and won’t say. Once the lifeguard’s body is found in the pool, she becomes the target of questions from local police and frantic mothers looking for their daughters.

Pereda adorns the film with visceral clues to Sara’s physical state; her skin is crispy pink with sunburn after her long walk home, and blue residue clings to her lips as she anxiously sucks down a lollipop. She films the bullying scene at the pool with claustrophobic intimacy, casting the pool net around the camera to inhabit Sara’s direct point of view as she flails for air. Rita Noriega’s clever cinematography and David Pelegrín’s sharp editing work beautifully together to reveal Sara’s mindset without dialogue having to explain much.

Being a Spanish filmmaker, Pereda throws in a fun surrealist touch with the appearance of a young bull on the loose, escaped from a local bullfight. A police dog also barks at Sara every time she passes the precinct. The line between animal and human blurs as Sara’s search for the killer forces her to confront her demons and her basest survival instincts. When they finally come to blows, rolling around in the dry mud of an empty slaughterhouse, Sara and her mystery man exchange guttural groans from the depths of some primal place.

The whole film hangs on Galán, who delivers a forcefully transformative performance as only a fresh face can. Fully embodying her harrowing anti-heroine journey, Galán earns the bloody resolve of a prizefighter who, after summoning an inner force that shocked even her, will never be the same. And neither will you.

“Piggy” is currently playing in select theaters and VOD. 

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‘Piggy’ Is a Brutal Parable About Bullying That Will Haunt Your Nightmares

A blood-soaked revenge nightmare about a teenage girl who faces constant, violent body shaming, the gripping Spanish horror film examines how cruelty can become self-perpetuating.

Laura Bradley

Senior Entertainment Reporter

Morena Films

At its most intense, Piggy —a horror film from Spanish director Carlota Pereda premiering in select theaters Friday and wide on Oct. 14—is almost as fascinated in bodily destruction as the Saw movies . Pereda’s greatest triumphs, however, are the film’s brutal bullying scenes.

Sara (Laura Galán), the film’s teenage protagonist, faces relentless bullying from everyone in her orbit—from her judgmental mother to a gaggle of slender teenage girls, who seem to follow her everywhere she goes just so they can belittle her with names like “Piggy.” At every turn, Pereda reminds us that this is the true horror. Even as Sara’s revenge nightmare reaches its bloody climax, it’s her bullies’ cruelty that sticks in the mind the most.

Sara’s bullies first find her at her father’s butcher shop in Extremadura, where she often works. One of the girls, Claudia ( Irene Ferreiro ), seems reluctant to participate in the cruelty but never stands up against it. Still, the harassment escalates when the group finds Sara at the local pool. Their ringleader, Maca ( Claudia Salas ), almost drowns Sara with a pool net as she pushes the girl’s head down toward the water, cackling all the while. Forced to walk home in a small bathing suit after the girls ran off with her clothes, Sara’s afternoon becomes even more traumatizing when a group of young men attack her and try to run her over with their car.

The sounds Galán makes in these scenes are almost animalistic in their distress. Her body seems to be on fire and freezing all at once as she grips at her arms, her torso, her unclasped bikini top. It’s a desperate search for something, someone—anyone—to hold onto, but in the end, all she can find is herself. Sara is so dazed on the walk home that she almost fails to notice that her bullies have been captured in a van. When she looks up and sees the desperate girls (and the man who captured them) the teen makes a startling decision: She turns away and lets him drive off with them.

Piggy ’s most evocative scenes capture the psychological effects of bullying at their most visceral. Sara radiates with the panicked energy of a trapped animal as she wails and convulses and sobs through a torment everyone around her refuses to see or understand. Filled with shame and scorned by seemingly everyone around her, even her mother, Sara protects herself by hiding herself. She eats snacks in her room so no one can see, and she doesn’t tell anyone what she saw that day at the pool—even as the girls’ families frantically search for them.

In Spain, like everywhere else, the female body has been a political battleground. Early on in the film, we observe Sara walking by a sign emblazoned with the slogan “Todo por la patria”—which has its roots in Francisco Franco’s fascist 1936 coup. Catholicism was paramount to Franco’s New Spain. Women were expected to be modest in dress —bikinis would become a major battleground in the 1950’s—and physical education became an essential tool to ensure Spanish women would be “ fit mothers for the fatherland .” Many markers of femininity, like stockings, would have been out of reach for women below a certain socioeconomic class.

By including that slogan so early in the film, Pereda (who also wrote the screenplay) might be slyly hinting at the systemic cruelty that underpins the bullying Sara faces—a system of repression that relies, above all, on sowing division and scapegoating those who fall outside an arbitrary “norm.” Sara’s is not the kind of docile body fascists are known to prize, and her status as a butcher’s daughter further alienates her from her bullies, whose families also appear to be wealthier.

Tender moments are rare in Piggy , but at its most vulnerable, the film can be as disarming as it is twisted. When Sara eventually confronts her bullies’ kidnapper, she seems to intuitively know he won’t hurt her. For some reason she can’t grasp, this murderous man—and no one else—is on her side. He looks at her with wonder in his eyes, and as they hide together in the dark, he touches his lips and exhales her name in a murmur—a sensual moment she later imagines as she masturbates beneath her sheets (and under the watchful eye of a Virgin Mary figurine).

Pereda maintains a frenetic pace throughout the film and avoids the didactic pitfalls that can drag down even the best-conceived social horror films. Confident, impressionistic, and stressful to the last moment, Piggy is a gripping testament to just how brutal human beings can be—especially to those they’ve deemed less than human.

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‘Piggy’ Review: A Killer on the Loose Isn’t the Scariest Thing in This Visceral, Upsetting Body-Image Horror

Spanish helmer Carlota Pereda's formidable debut draws its terror from the same well of adolescent female insecurity as 'Carrie,' before going its own grisly way.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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Premiering in Sundance’s Midnight strand, “Piggy” sits at an unexpected intersection of artistic sensibilities, first recalling Catherine Breillat, then Brian DePalma, before taking a deep, bloody plunge into grindhouse (or perhaps that should be meatgrinder-house) territory toward its unsettling, ambiguous finale. Yet in fluently expanding her Goya-winning, festival-lauded short of the same name to feature length, Pereda shuffles tones and influences with enough finesse and genre smarts to ensure that this little “Piggy” will go very successfully to market. It’s easy to imagine the filmmaker soon graduating to bigger, glossier assignments, rather like the comparable Julia Ducournau before her: One hopes she likewise retains her nasty nerve.

Led by queen bee Maca (Claudia Salas), they in turn endlessly torment Sara, both in person and online: “Piggy” is their unimaginative nickname for her, used liberally and without an ounce of affection. Only quiet blonde Claudia (Irene Ferreiro) hangs back slightly from the clique’s bullying, though she doesn’t intervene either. Sara daren’t tell her protective but brusque mother (Carmen Machi, superb) about the bullying, while the girls’ poolside assault on her is witnessed only by a hulking, taciturn stranger (Richard Holmes) taking a dip at the same time. Turns out he’s not quite a passive observer: As Sara later stumbles home in her bikini, her clothes and phone having been stolen by Maca, she sees the same man attacking and abducting her bullies, bundling them into a van and gazing at her complicitly before driving off.

Soon after, the pool lifeguard’s dead body is discovered in the water, another woman is murdered in her home, and it becomes clear this usually humdrum community is in the grip of a serial killer. To Sara, however, he’s something of a guardian angel: Not sure why she was spared, and strangely turned on by this rare encounter with mercy, she keeps the secret of the missing girls’ abduction to herself, even as their parents and the police insist she must know something. Is she exacting revenge by accidental proxy? Or is she perversely hoping he’ll come back for her too? Pereda’s sinuous script and Galán’s remarkable, emotionally volatile performance keep her precise motivations perversely just out of view — perhaps even to Sara herself, as she embraces a kind of dark fatalism that, in her prematurely weary mind, can’t be worse than whatever else life has in store for her. Like the eponymous heroine of “Carrie,” she’s a wallflower suddenly granted extraordinary powers of life and death over others; unlike Carrie, she needs no supernatural abilities to wield them.

Shooting in tight Academy ratio, Pereda and Noriega use boxy closeups and sweaty, intimate lighting to suggest Sara’s sense of confinement in her small, provincial, unkind life. Her body is shot frankly but not exploitatively, her discomfort with other people’s stares reflected back at the impassive camera lens. Galán keeps us attuned to Sara’s troubled body image in every scene, whether she’s trying to escape people’s notice making herself as small as possible, or fighting the limits of her physicality when fleeing a carful of leering, mocking young men — in a gruelingly sustained shot that may not be gory, but is harder and crueler to watch than any standard torture porn. A brutish, bearded murderer isn’t exactly a red herring in Pereda’s ferocious debut, but he’s not what “Piggy” fears most.

Reviewed online, Sundance Film Festival (Midnight), Jan. 23, 2022. Running time: 98 MIN. (Original title: "Cerdita")

• Production: A Morena Films production in coproduction with Backup Studio, Cerdita Aie. (World sales: Charades, Paris.) Producer: Merry Colomer. Executive producer: Pilar Benito. Co-producers: David Atlan-Jackson, Jean-Baptiste Babin, Joel Thibout.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Carlota Pereda. Camera: Rita Noriega. Editor: David Pelegrín. Music: Olivier Arson.
• With: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar, Jose Pastor, Pilar Castro, Fernando Delgado-Hierro, Claudia Salas.

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Piggy review – darkly fun horror wreaks brutal revenge on the bodyshamers

Laura Galán is a delight as an awkward teen caught in a web of small-town gossip and murder in this socially conscious Spanish slasher

With its rosy, sun-drenched colour palette (at least initially), Carlota Pereda’s spiky Spanish horror understands girlish anxiety so well that it could comfortably be a coming-of-age pic. Behind the glass counter of her parents’ butcher shop, Sara (Laura Galán) keeps a safe distance from the cool-girl clique which mercilessly makes fun of her weight. Highly aware of her body, Sara’s self-consciousness is exacerbated by an overly protective mother, who watches her every move. As if growing pains aren’t bad enough, Richard Holmes’s burly, oddly charismatic serial killer wanders into the small Spanish town and starts abducting her bullies. Talk about awkward!

Weaving together grindhouse thrills and adolescent dilemmas, Piggy has a dark humour that proves deliciously entertaining. Shots where Sara tries to hide her knowledge of the bullies’ disappearance from her overbearing mum are framed with the same nail-biting suspense as when she stalks around her twisted saviour’s macabre slaughterhouse. Issues such as body shaming are also explored without didacticism. In contrast to lesser horrors that attempt to be socially conscious, Piggy is much more specific and detailed in how it builds moods and atmosphere, especially the gossipy dynamics that run rampant in a tight-knit community.

Galán is also a delight to watch, a rare instance where an actor accurately conjures up the fidgety confusion of a young girl. Her character might be indebted to the slasher film’s long line of virginal, awkward teenagers, but Galán’s multidimensional performance ingeniously avoids facile ideals of female empowerment. She is far from a badass protagonist, but her faults are as endearing as her (gradually built) strength.

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Piggy Reviews

While this film is gruesome, what I love about it is how Pereda deftly subverts what you expect from a slasher film. She uses the genre to explore further themes of bullying and self-worth.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2024

Piggy's first act is stupendous. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 19, 2023

Pereda doesn’t dive into the culture’s toxic standards of beauty, which would have been a great addition to an exploration of a misogynistic and fatphobic culture.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

Carlota Pereda takes advantage of the terrific lead performance from Laura Galán and delivers a shocking, violent, and frighteningly grounded story about bullying, fat-shaming, and self-acceptance.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 23, 2023

Carlota Pereda makes this with great skill as Sara reckons with how far she’s willing to go to stop the bullying.

Full Review | Mar 13, 2023

Carlota Pereda’s film uses outright pulp horror to emphasise the everyday horrors of teenage cruelty.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 2, 2023

As the coming-of-age horror becomes the blood and gore of horror movie violence, it makes the choice Sara must ultimately make that much more powerful, with an ending that should inspire spirited discussion.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 15, 2023

While this intelligent Spanish slasher gleefully sloshes on the high-tension splatter, it also delights in inverting generic tropes, dishing up a lip-smacking level of moral complexity.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 18, 2023

Piggy manages to be incisively socially conscious, a stark meditation on cruelty, silence, and retribution.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2023

There’s an atmospheric, unsavoury oiliness to the cinematography and an uncomfortable tussle of sympathies – director Carlota Pereda shows real promise as a genre film-maker.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2023

Piggy presumably aims to test our sympathies, but just forfeits them entirely, in the service of a facile plot and a heroine even the film itself can’t seem to stand.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 5, 2023

Piggy’s avoidance of shallow and didactic reflections on body size mark it out as a real treat.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2023

The slasher style, small-town naturalism and nods to 70s horror are quite memorable.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 5, 2023

Tender moments are rare in Piggy, but at its most vulnerable, the film can be as disarming as it is twisted.

Full Review | Dec 22, 2022

Pereda isn’t afraid to make us laugh, push us into the throes of revulsion or yank our chain – hard, all the way to the end.

Carlota Pereda‘s Piggy created a horror movie where the big girl was not the side character, the first one to die, or a flat character at the heart of every joke.

One of those films that's so consciously extreme, disfigured, and shocking that it's almost impossible it'll generate a unanimous response, even within the same person. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 16, 2022

Cathartic and in no way soothing.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2022

The mix of genres is very successful. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 26, 2022

Writer-director Carlota Pereda has a terrific eye for detail, and notable skill as a storyteller who cares about her characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 20, 2022

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‘piggy’ (‘cerdita’): film review | sundance 2022.

Spanish writer-director Carlota Pereda expands her 2018 short film in this harrowing genre exploration of bullying, internalized trauma, revenge and desire, premiering in the Sundance Midnight section.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Michel Franco’s After Lucia was a distressing drama about the awful ripple consequences of teen bullying, its grim catharsis almost as startling as its unsparing depiction of inhumanity. The breathtaking cruelty of Carlota Pereda’s feature debut, Piggy , rivals that 2012 Mexican production. Expanded from the Spanish writer-director’s award-winning 2018 short of the same name, this disturbing psychological drama spirals into blood-drenched horror, its wild genre extremities never disguising the feeling that its social commentary on violence and abuse comes from a very real and personal place.

The eerily atmospheric setting is a small community in a sweltering summer in the Extremadura region bordering Portugal in southwestern Spain. “This town is full of spite,” hisses the protagonist’s mother (Carmen Machi) of the village, which appears to be in the middle of nowhere. She’s not wrong, but nor is she exempt from that charge.

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Venue : Sundance Film Festival (Midnight) Cast : Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar, Pilar Castro, Claudia Salas Director-screenwriter : Carlota Pereda

Her teenage daughter Sara (Laura Galán) is sullen and alone. She disappears into the music in her headphones while reluctantly helping out in the butcher shop run by her father (Julián Valcárcel) and watching the cool kids mingle on the street outside with a mix of scowling resentment, fascination and longing. Every glimpse Sara takes of the social media feeds of the mean girls her age reveals their vicious insensitivity to her embarrassment about her excess weight, the reason for the heartless nickname that provides the movie’s title.

The incident that sets the drama in dizzying motion is one of shocking emotional and physical abuse. Sara goes to the village pool early in the morning in the hope no one else will be around. Only a shifty-looking stranger (Richard Holmes) is there, finishing his swim as she undresses and prepares to slip into the water. But before that cooling plunge into weightlessness can happen, three girls appear and begin to mock her. One of them, Claudia (Irene Ferreiro), holds back, perhaps suggesting a past friendship. But the others, Roci (Camille Aguilar) and especially the hateful ringleader Maca (Claudia Salas), are merciless.

The hard-to-watch violence is magnified when the bullies snatch Sara’s backpack, clothes and towel and run off, leaving her to stagger home, weeping and traumatized, with only her bikini to cover her. Three local boys in a passing car add to her horrific ordeal with their own spiteful taunts. But Sara is momentarily jolted out of her own pain when she witnesses her tormentors from the pool being abducted by the stranger who observed her grueling experience. He idles in his van just long enough to toss her a towel and exchange a complicit glance before driving off with a bloodied Claudia visible through the rear window, begging for help.

Pereda drew on her own experience as a gay teen, an outsider who changed schools frequently, becoming both a target for bullying and a silent witness to the torment of others, too afraid for her own survival to speak up.

With a mix of compassion and indignation, she observes how even a basically decent person like Claudia can be coerced by peer pressure into setting aside her conscience. The script also notes the way factors like weight make people feel free to judge — one village woman after hearing how Sara was ridiculed mutters, “She’s actually quite fat,” while a grocery store clerk sanctimoniously warns her off the purchase of some unhealthy snacks, reminding her that if she eats them she has to live with the consequences.

The film reflects on the damage such stigmatization can inflict on a vulnerable teenage psyche, pointing to harsh treatment that goes back to Sara’s childhood and underlining her isolation even within her own family — from her shrewish mother; her vulgar father, whose body type she has inherited; and her bratty younger brother.

While still severely shaken by her ordeal, Sara resolves to herself to say nothing of what she saw, refusing to open up to her folks, to cooperate with police or talk to the missing girls’ parents, causing a clash between Claudia’s desperate mother (Pilar Castro) and Sara’s. Her silence at first carries the satisfying sting of payback, but morphs gradually into guilt as other locals turn up dead. Sara’s feelings are further complicated by her sexual attraction to the stranger, who continues making contact with her, initially in subtle ways. But she ultimately throws off her passive helplessness and repression, embracing her rage in an empowering crescendo of violence, which is vivid without being exploitative.

Machi is terrific as Sara’s ill-tempered mother, ferociously protective of her though far from sympathetic. But it’s Galán who carries the film. She’s riveting in her character’s gradual transformation, from a timid young woman rendered almost mute by social anxiety — yearning for invisibility in a body and a town that offers her none — to a fierce banshee caked in dirt and blood and hot angry tears. The determination on her face as she walks away from the chaos of the final act suggests that while Sara has delivered justice — and not without remorse — she will also own her role in her tormentors’ suffering, regardless of the price.

Cinematographer Rita Noriega shoots in the snug 1.33:1 aspect ratio, emphasizing Sara’s aloneness in a sprawling wasteland. The look is raw, sweaty and earthy, and the sense of place enveloping. Camera movement and use of music are minimal in the early stages, growing darker and more agitated as the tone shifts into full-blown horror and Sara moves toward her complex reckoning in the stranger’s slaughterhouse hideout. Piggy is a bruising character study, with no neat and tidy redemption arc; its emotionally cathartic portrayal of bullying and its toll packs a wallop.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Midnight) Production companies: Morena Films, Backup Media Cast: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar, Pilar Castro, Claudia Salas, Julián Valcárcel, José Pastor, Fernando Delgado-Hierro Director-screenwriter: Carlota Pereda Producer: Merry Colomer Executive producer: Pilar Benito Director of photography: Rita Noriega Production designer: Óscar Sempere Costume designer: Arantxa Ezquerro Music: Oliver Arson Editor: David Pelegrín Casting: Paula Cámara, Arantza Vélez Sales: XYZ, Charades

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Piggy – Movie Review (4/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Oct 7, 2022 | 3 minutes

PIGGY is a horror movie from Spain (org. title Cerdita ). It has all the makings of a classic horror movie, but also offers quite a twist. Equal parts revenge story and bloody horror, you’ll want to watch this. Read our full  Piggy  movie review here!

PIGGY is a new Spanish horror movie (org. title Cerdita ) that you do not want to miss. Parts of this is about terrible teen bullying, but then it also goes into something that feels straight out of  Texas Chainsaw Massacre . The poster alone gives you a pretty good indication that this story will end in blood. Lots and lots of blood.

You could also describe this movie as a revenge horror story, but that almost feels too simple. No, actually, it is too simple. Still, if you like revenge horror movies, you should enjoy this.

Continue reading our Piggy  movie review below.

Based on a short film

Piggy is based on the writer/director’s own short film  Cerdita  from 2018, which was just 14 minutes long and had the same actor in the lead. The short film won  many  awards at film festivals all over the world and most definitely deserved every single one of them.

If you want to check out the short film, you can watch it online for free. We’ve included it at the bottom of this review.

Watch the Cerdita short film that Piggy is based on Click here to go to the  Cerdita  short film >

Obviously, the short film does spoil events that take place in the feature film version. However, the story and characters are much more developed in the feature film which has a runtime of 90 minutes as opposed to the short film with just 14 minutes.

The brilliant Laura Galán

What might be most impressive, is that the same actor has repeated her role as Sara. Her name is Laura Galán and she is astonishing . We’ve actually already seen her in other productions as well. So have you, if you’ve watched the brilliant Netflix genre hybrid Unknown Origins .

For the record, Laura Galán was born in 1986, so the fact that she can play a teen convincingly is impressive enough in itself. That she plays the same role twice over the span of five years (give or take) is just breathtaking. Until I looked her up to check out what else I could watch her in, I had no idea she wasn’t a teenager.

It’s  Orphan -level magic, but without any special effects.

And yes, I realize I am saying very little about the actual movie, but that’s because I would spoil the whole thing. You will  definitely  want to experience how  Piggy  evolves for yourself.

Watch  Piggy  in theaters or On-Demand

Carlota Pereda is the writer and director of  Piggy , which is her feature film debut as a solo director. Having directed several other short films (including the one this is based on) already – as well as episodes of various TV series – it’s obvious that Carlota Pereda is more than ready (and capable) of directing feature films.

This movie is definitely one that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. It makes quite the impact – both the personal story and the gore – which stays with you.

Basically,  Piggy has everything you need in a classic horror movie. And then some. The twist including both bullying, revenge, and a stranger-coming-to-aid, which makes this so much more than what you see on the surface. With equal parts revenge story and very bloody horror, you’ll want to watch this.

Piggy  (org. title  Cerdita ) opens exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas on October 7, 2022. Additional theaters, as well as VOD, start on October 14, 2022.

Director: Carlota Pereda Cast: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro & Camielle Aguilar, with the special collaborations of Pilar Castro & Claudia Salas Release Dates: October 7, 2022 (Exclusively in Alamo Drafthouse Theaters), October 14, 2022 (Theatrical/VOD)

With the summer sun beating down on her rural Spanish town, Sara hides away in her parent’s butcher shop. A teenager whose excess weight makes her the target of incessant bullying, she flees a clique of capricious girls who torment her at the town pool, only to stumble upon them being brutally kidnapped by a stranger, who drives off with them in his van. When the police begin asking questions, Sara keeps quiet. Intrigued by the stranger — an interest that’s mutual — she’s torn between revealing the truth and protecting the man who saved her.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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Common sense media reviewers.

Disturbing but memorable horror tale has bullying, violence.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The lead character, Sara, is a bullied young teen

Shows the trauma, humiliation, and sorrow Sara exp

Graphic violence and bullying throughout. Lead cha

The lead character is shown under the covers in he

Strong language, including "f--k" and "c--t." Also

The lead character smokes marijuana with another t

Parents need to know that Piggy is a 2023 Spanish horror movie in which a bullied overweight teen discovers a serial killer in her village. There are many scenes in which the lead character, Sara, is mercilessly bullied through words, actions, and social media posts. Three teen girls in particular bully her,…

Positive Role Models

The lead character, Sara, is a bullied young teen who suffers several traumatic experiences throughout the movie and eventually makes very bad decisions in the face of a community that does nothing to help her. Her female peers bully her relentlessly in person and on social media, and her male peers mock her nonstop because of her weight. Sara's parents are clueless about what's going on, and when her mother finds out that Sara is being bullied because of her appearance, she forces her to go on a diet.

Diverse Representations

Shows the trauma, humiliation, and sorrow Sara experiences because she's bullied for her weight verbally, physically, and on social media. The movie is set in a small Spanish tourist town.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Graphic violence and bullying throughout. Lead character Sara is bullied by three girls. They take a picture of her at work with her parents in their butcher shop, post it on Instagram, and add hashtag #threelittlepigs. Later, while Sara tries swimming in the community pool, they call her "piggy" while making "oink oink" noises before holding her underwater with a pool skimmer and then stealing her clothes and towel. Boys also bully her relentlessly and also call her "piggy" -- and even chase her from their car while she's trying to walk home after being bullied in the pool. Horror movie violence: serial killer murdering people in the village. A woman's throat is slit; blood. Teen girls are abducted, with one shown held prisoner in a van, later found tied up by wrists and ankles, hanging in an abandoned factory. Stabbings, neck biting, and shootings are bloody. Limbs shot off. Dead body found, dismembered foot nearby. Punches. Dead body found tied up underwater.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

The lead character is shown under the covers in her bed masturbating to internet porn on her phone -- audible sex sounds. Brief nudity -- breasts. Bullies mock the lead character over not having sex. Sara's mother refers to one of the bullies as a "slut."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language, including "f--k" and "c--t." Also "bulls--t," "bastards," "damn," and "hell."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The lead character smokes marijuana with another teen in one scene. Wine drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Piggy is a 2023 Spanish horror movie in which a bullied overweight teen discovers a serial killer in her village. There are many scenes in which the lead character, Sara, is mercilessly bullied through words, actions, and social media posts. Three teen girls in particular bully her, culminating in dunking her in the community pool with a pool skimmer before stealing her clothes. These scenes are extremely upsetting and may trigger those who have been bullied. There's also graphic horror violence, including teen girls tied by their wrists and ankles in an abandoned factory by the serial killer. A teen girl is shown screaming while being held prisoner in a van. A character's hand is shot off. Characters are shot and killed. There's also a stabbing death and neck biting, all bloody. Dead bodies are shown. Strong language includes "f--k" and "c--t." Weed smoking appears in one scene. The lead character is shown masturbating under the blankets in her bed, with audible sex sounds. Breasts are briefly shown. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In PIGGY , Sara (Laura Galán) is a young teen coming of age in a small Spanish village with her parents and brother. She works in her parents' butcher shop, where the popular teens hanging out on the street bully her mercilessly, calling her names like "piggy" and "bacon" due to her weight. Things come to a head when Sara goes swimming in the community pool: Three teen girls make fun of her for wearing a bikini, and then dunk her underwater with a pool skimmer before stealing her clothes. Things take an even darker turn when it's discovered that the lifeguard and server who work at the pool have been murdered and the three teen girls have gone missing. Sara knows what happened to at least one of the girls as she was walking home, but she's afraid to say anything to the authorities. Meanwhile, as more people are killed, Sara is asked by one of the popular boys to come forward, as he knows she was at the pool from a video that the bullying girls sent him. Traumatized beyond belief, Sara feels something of a bond with the serial killer, as she must decide whether or not to come forward with the information that she has.

Is It Any Good?

This is a disturbing, powerful, and unforgettable mix of coming-of-age trauma and serial killer horror. Piggy is likely to be a difficult watch for those who were bullied while growing up, as the lead character, Sara, is pretty much in a perpetual state of trauma -- first at the hands of all the popular teens in her town (and there don't seem to be any other kind), and then by witnessing a serial killer getting a kind of revenge on her tormentors that leads to a disturbing bond borne out of the trauma. As the coming-of-age horror becomes the blood and gore of horror movie violence, it renders the choice Sara must ultimately make that much more powerful, with an ending that should inspire spirited discussion.

As Sara, Laura Galán turns in an incredible performance as the bullied young teen facing the betrayal of a former friend, nonstop merciless bullying on all fronts (verbal, physical, social media), and an indifferent community and family, all without any way to work through it. There's really only one scene where Sara isn't tormented, where she smiles and almost lets her guard down -- given the chance to smoke weed with a popular boy who wants her to go to the police with what she knows. Both characters drop their guard for a brief moment before the community swoops in and they go back to the roles they play in their teen cliques. It's a beautiful contrast that offsets the traumas that happen before and after, and while there are some similarities to the 2001 classic French movie Fat Girl, Piggy stands on its own in its intensity and empathy.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the bullying in Piggy . How is Sara bullied, and how does she try to cope? How do the community and her family respond? Is bullying an issue at your school? If so, what is being done about it?

How did the movie use the standard tropes of horror movies to tell the story? How did it combine a "serial killer" horror story with the coming-of-age traumas of a bullied young teen?

Was the graphic and disturbing violence necessary for the story, or was it too much? Why?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : February 9, 2023
• Cast : Laura Galán , Carmen Machi , Richard Holmes
• Director : Carlota Pereda
• Studio : Hulu
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Brothers and Sisters
• Run time : 99 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : April 17, 2024

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