Horror Movie Review: Porkchop II: Rise of the Rind (2012)

The original Porkchop movie wasn’t a terrible movie. However, the super-low budget slasher flick had some pretty unforgivable issues. You can read our full review of it here. Silly, fun and gory there was entertainment to be had but few people were calling for a sequel.

Well, that hardly matters because we got one in 2012.

The cleverly titled Porkchop II: Rise of the Rind sees the pig-mask wearing killer return to slash and murder his way through a new set of characters.

It’s the arrival of Simon (Sam Qualiana) and his parents that brings Porkchop out of hiding. The family have moved out of the city into the middle of West Virginia to an old house that they got at a super-low price. Why so cheap? Porkchop is why.

That’s not important at first though as writer/director Eamon Hardiman takes a bit more time building his characters. In a surprising turn of events, Porkchop II’s story is far more complete and paced way better. That, unfortunately doesn’t make it a good movie though.

Simon struggles to fit in running afoul of a group of bullies. Life gets better for him though when he meets Meg (Angela Pritchett), a local girl who has an unhealthy obsession with the legend of Porkchop. The two hit it off, I mean they really hit it off but her interest seems to be more focused on the fact that Simon now lives in Porkchop’s old house.

Old porky is not happy about the occupation though and when Meg decides to throw a party at the house to help Simon fit in, the killer strikes and things get bloody.

Don’t be under any impression that Porkchop II: Rise of the Rind is a good horror movie though. It is not. The low-budget can be forgiven and the audio issues are not as annoying here but they still exist. The real issues come from how pointless the movie feels. The body count is far higher here (as is the nudity) but most of the early characters that are killed off are literally only introduced to be offed moments later. It’s not like we get amazing death scenes either as most are pretty poor.

The opening death sees two women start to have sex in the woods. One performs oral sex on the other and then has Porkchop stand on her head effectively suffocating her in the act. That would be a cool death and all if she didn’t die within 5 seconds and he doesn’t even look like he’s putting much pressure on her head. Get used to the disappointment as it just never does anything really unique or clever. In fact, some kills are off-screen and there isn’t that much gore later on it the film.

Its attempts at comedy fall short with most of the jokes failing to hit. A lot of it feels really odd too such as Simon and Meg singing to each other. It’s head-scratching in its randomness.

There is some diabolical acting here with only Angela Pritchett doing a decent job. Her character is decent but it’s pretty clear just what her role is early on making the finale feel flat. It’s disappointing because the original Porkchop showed promise and this feels like a step backwards.

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