The story of “the Ed Gein of Canada”, Robert Pickton, comes to life in this very dramatic and at times disturbing film from Chad Ferrin.

In the outskirts of Vancouver, Robert Pickton and his brother David have inherited their family pig farm after the deaths of their parents. While David and Robert, affectionately known as Willy, tend to the farm, Willy slowly has become unhinged. In 1983, Willy would begin a killing spree, mainly targeting sex workers in the area. To hide the bodies, Willy would dismember the bodies and feed the remains to his pigs. 

Years later, and Willy has already killed over forty women. He attempts to hide the evidence despite possibly being caught by his close ones. When Wendy Eastman, a drug addict who has grown tired of her father and her always being berated by her stepmother, finds consolation in Willy at a local bar, little does she know what’s in store. 

Currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for at least 25 years, Robert Pickton is one of the most notorious Canadian serial killers. From 1983 to his capture in 2002, Pickton killed forty-nine women and fed the remains to his family pigs. This biopic from writer-director Chad Ferrin was the idea of producer Kate Patel, who hails from Vancouver and had done her homework on Pickton. What Ferrin could have done was make this a full-on horror film, but instead does something very ingenious. He combines the slasher genre with that of a storytelling mode that would make Martin Scorsese proud.

Jake Busey churns out of his most brilliant performances as Pickton. Busey comes off as charming when we first see him at the local bar. He seems to be well respected in some ways towards his peers. However, we soon learn that he has a dark side where he lures ladies of the night in his RV and he proceeds to kill them, have his way with them, then dismember the bodies. During the first victim, played by a cameo-performing Bai Ling, we see Pickton having flashbacks of an incestuous relationship with his mother, played by adult film legend turned mainstream indie icon Ginger Lynn Allen. We also get glimpses of the abuse he endures from his father, played by Porky’s Cyril O’Reilly. 

What Ferrin does is not just give us Pickton’s story, but bring us a side story involving the only woman who escaped the killer. Renamed Wendy Eastman, producer Kate Patel definitely makes the role her own. As a drug addict who has fallen a downward spiral due to losing her mother and having a very spiteful stepmother, Wendy eventually finds herself standing up to both her father and evil stepmother in a pivotal scene where they have dinner. This leads to where she confides in Willy at the bar, which leads to her capture, torture, and eventual escape but it is not as easy as one would think.

Kudos also goes out to Joe Castro, whose FX work on That’s a Wrap, is amazing and does it again with this film as we see Willy dismember his victims. In a very disturbing scene, we also see Willy naked with a pig mask as he assaults a victim both in a kill and sexualized manner. While this is clearly on a level of being uncomfortable for some, we have to remember that this does depict the sick depravity of this serial killer. 

Pig Killer does something quite different with the serial killer genre, meshing the slasher with a Scorsese-like storytelling of both titular killer and the one victim who escaped his wrath. Excellent performances by Jake Busey and Kate Patel drive this film as one for fans of true crime films.

WFG RATING: A

Breaking Glass Pictures presents a Crappy World Films production in association with Girls and Corpses and Laurelwood Pictures. Director; Chad Ferrin. Producers: Chad Ferrin, Robert Miano, and Robert Rhine. Writer: Chad Ferrin. Cinematography: Jeff Billings. Editing: Jahad Ferif.

Cast: Jake Busey, Lew Temple, Kate Patel, Michael Pare, Ginger Lynn Allen, Cyril O’Reilly, Bai Ling, Robert Miano, Robert Rhine, James Russo, Susan Priver, Jennifer Drake. 

The film will debut in select theaters, DVD, and VOD on November 17.