Horror Movie Review: Jug Face (2013)

Jug Face, also known as The Pit, also known as The Pit: Jug Face is a 2013 horror written and directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle and starring Sean Bridgers & Lauren Ashley Carter.

The plot, one that is not exactly the easiest to follow, surrounds an isolated & backwoods community that worship a pit. Where the ‘jug face’ side of things comes into play is with the character, Dawai (Bridgers). His role is to carve jugs with faces on them out of clay. Should one of them resemble a member of the community, that person will then be sacrificed to the pit.

Yep, that system is really questionable but the entire community take it in their stride. All except for Ada (Carter) who discovers her face on the latest jug. Scared, especially as she’s been having sex with her brother, decides to hide the jug & asks Dawai to carve a new one.

He does it out of love for her & the group execute the latest jug face. Unfortunately for them the pit is not happy & a monster that lives in it starts to kill off members of the community. Unsure of just what they’ve done to anger the pit, suspicions begin to rise regarding Ada’s lack of purity. To make matters even worse, Ada discovers she is pregnant & will do anything to ensure she isn’t sacrificed to the pit.

One of the more impressive things about Jug Face is how it feels as though we’re privy to a legitimate communities odd worshipping rituals. As if this has been going on for thousands of years & we’re now seeing the final days of this community. Considering just how small it is at the start of the movie & then just how small it is by the end of the movie, you have to believe that this is one such religion that is soon to die out.

As silly as it is, the film’s small scale & budget makes it feel very believable. Up to a point though & good performances all round help. It’s not overly long, the pacing is decent & the flashes of extreme gore please.

Where the film falls down is with its lack of detail about the pit & what resides in it. On the one hand a bit of mystery is good but on the other…what? Does it actually have healing abilities? Why do they worship it? What is the monster? Questions that don’t really get answered.

There is an attempt to shoe-horn in some explanations thanks to the ‘ghost-boy’ but it just comes across as a cheap story-telling tool. The rubbish smoky CGI that surrounds him hardly helps with taking him seriously.

The bleakness of the tale will make it a struggle for many to get through. It’s also hard to get behind a character (Ada) who gets pregnant by choice by her brother. However, under all this nastiness is an interesting & different idea that will leave you with plenty to think about afterwards.

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