In the crowded landscape of modern horror, “folk horror” often relies on dirt farming peasants, thatched roof villages or pagan rituals in the British Isles. However, Chad Crawford Kinkle’s 2013 debut feature, Jug Face (also known as The Pit), drags the genre into the muddy, isolated backwoods of modern-day Tennessee. It is a film that trades grand cinematic sweep for a suffocating, intimate world where the supernatural is not a distant legend, but rather a hungry present threat.
A Pact Written in Blood and Mud
The story centers on an isolated community that lives by a singular, bloody covenant. Deep in the woods lies “The Pit,” a shallow muddy hole int eh ground that grants its followers miraculous healing and protection from disease. In exchange, The Pit provides this for the low, low price of an occasional human sacrifice.
The mechanism of this selection is the film’s fascinatingly original concept. Dawai (Sean Bridgers), a local simpleton, is given the power to fall into a trance. While mentally disconnected from the world, he sculpts the face of the next victim onto a ceramic “jug face.” When a jug is finished, the jug face is presented to the community and the person emblazoned on the ceramic it ceremoniously killed by the side the pit by having their throat slit. Dawai is unable to remember anything that occurs while he is entranced.
Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter), is a young woman trapped within the social confines of her backwoods reality. Before long she also finds herself entangled in the supernatural. In a cliche often ascribed to backwoods Appalachian communities, she is pregnant with her brother’s child and facing an arranged marriage to a local boy she doesn’t love. Even more catastrophic, it is her visage on Dawai’s latest jug face. Desperate to survive, Ada hides the jug, sparking a chain reaction of divine consequence that proves the Pit is not a patient deity.
Themes of Fate and Autonomy
At its core, Jug Face is a Greek tragedy dressed in the trappings of Deliverance (1972). Ada contends with the inevitability of fate, and the collateral damage that comes when one tries to change that fate. It’s difficult to label Ada as the monster even though she is absolutely the architect of the carnage that ensues. By refusing to die, she inadvertently causes the deaths of those around her and ultimately threatens the her entirety of their existence.
Ada is sympathetic because rooting for a young woman trying to escape a cult and an incestuous, abusive environment aligns with sensibilities around morality. Yet, her survival is purchased with the blood of others. What remains is a paradox that forces the viewer to shuffle through the virtue of it all.
Additionally, Jug Face brings forth an often present Folk Horror sub-current suggesting a feminist revolution in the face of patriarchal oppression.
The People Feeding the Pit
In a film featuring mostly trampled dirt of the forest floor and the trees that surround it, the cast is what makes this film work. Sean Young and Larry Fesseden play Ada’s parents. They clearly care for Ada, but have completely resigned themselves to the wants of the pit. Their actions and attitudes seem extreme to anyone except those that live withing this isolated community.
Sean Bridgers (Deadwood, The Woman) provides a perfect support role in that Dawai must confront his own relationship with the pit considering that he knows the ramifications of Ada’s actions, yet he loves Ada and is willing to see the world burn so that she is safe. While Ada doesn’t love him in this way, it is her love for him that pushes her to the final resolution that saves the community that she loathes.
Lauren Ashley Carter, as Ada, delivers a haunting performance as she navigates the oppressive nature of here existence, concealment of panic and the internal conflict of knowing that her self preservation has a massive. cost. Mostly, her ability evoke sympathy through concealing her pregnancy, emotionally crumbling at the thought he arranged marriage and her ultimate confrontation with the pit.
Triumphs and Flaws
For a film shot in 17 days on a shoestring budget, Jug Face punches significantly above its weight. This is mostly due to the oppressive atmosphere that it creates. The film is wrapped in starkness of a natural backdrop of browns and greens that makes the Tennessee backwoods feel both beautiful, but also strangely suffocating and predatory.
Jug Face maintains a very minimalist relationship with its soundscape. Much of the movie is supported by nothing more than the Tennessee woods. When it departs from this formula consist of simple ambience and throbbing sounds that conjure the threat of The Pit. This soundscape was produced by Sean Spillane.
Speaking of the pit, the fact that the pit is nothing more than a muddy hole in the ground makes for an interesting design choice. It would be all too easy to point to the budget as being the main driver for this. However, when one tries to summon a suitable creature that would best represent this ancient evil, a simple unexplained hole in the ground may be the only design that will not teeter into the ridiculous.
The film suffers significantly from one specific narrative device involving the apparition of a young boy, “The Shunned Boy”, that represents those lost to the pit when it was not appeased by its chosen victim. This device takes away from some of the mystery of the film by over explaining the forces at hand. It does this in the face of other narrative possibilities that would feel much more organic and in line with the rest of the story.
As the story goes Ada is not the only one that has tested the mettle of the pit, and that person happens to still be alive. Perhaps, The Shunned Boy’s story would have been better told by that character rather than a poorly rendered CGI spook. What’s more, it detracts from the idea that the pit is a singular ancient Lovecraftian force and demotes it to just another supernatural things in a world of supernatural things.
Appeasing the Pit
To say again, Jug Face punches way above its weight to tell a tale that on its face looks simple, but roils in the turbulence of its social commentary. Not only is it the tale of a ancient
natural force that demands tribute from its followers, it is a story about how belief systems are often justify abuse and stagnation. It is a bleak, “feel-bad” movie that delves into uncomfortable taboos like incest and child loss. It offers no easy catharsis and no “final girl” triumph.
Jug Face is a Southern Gothic / Lovecraftian nightmare that stays with you long after the credits roll, primarily because of its ending. Without spoiling the specifics, the finale is “pitch-perfect,” as Chad Crawford Kinkle refuses to grant the audience an escape from its cruel logic.
If you enjoy the folk horror with a twist of feminism like The Witch or Midsommer, Jug Face will not disappoint.
Jug Face (2013) - The Pit Wants What The Pit Wants - Malevolentdark
Director: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Date Created: 1970-01-01 00:33
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2 Responses
Thanks Lionel. I was too, but it is well made and the story gets its hooks in early.
Awesome review! I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this one.