Piggy (2022) Movie Ending, Explained – Does Sara save her bullies?

Piggy (2022) Movie Ending Explained: A macabre blend of morally unchaste coming-of-age romance and morbidly justified slasher thriller; Piggy (Cerdita) dares to explore teenage angst, cruelty, and extreme diffidence with a tale as bloody as the taste of perplexed, festering anger. A fearless newcomer director’s feminist body horror armored with the brilliant debut performance by Laura Galan haunts the 4:3 aspect ratio screen with more distress that would make you want to look away than just disturbing gore.

The discomfort of the scorching small-town sun beating down on a bullied teen’s soft skin creeps up the suffocating loneliness that surrounds and aids Carlota Pereda’s increasingly agonizing story of retribution. Pereda’s short film of the same name makes space in this feature-length horror for a more detailed journey of a bullied fat girl–a horrifying knight in a filthy, unbuttoned shirt–parents as clueless and mean as they come, and a group of teens vile enough to make even the worst possible revenge look satisfying.

In the dark lanes giving rise to the reminiscence of “A girl walks home alone at night,” runs the sweet Sara from the investigations of the murders and the disappearances around her. Disappearances she’s well aware of. Sara’s story of a moral dilemma with possible fatal outcomes becomes a haunting study of societal issues covering and exceeding that of shame, body image, sexuality, and hatred. Piggy is a gruesome horror, treating our lead with more sympathy than she ever got from the people who were supposed to be kind. The muted tones of Stockholm Syndrome that haunt the plot are never allowed to grow to the point where the possibility of ignorant victim-blaming may emerge. Pereda does justice to Sara, whether the world does or not. 

Piggy (2022) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis: 

Sitting in her father’s butcher shop with her bloodied homework, Sara (Laura Galan) looks out the window at the flock of careless teens with “socially acceptable” bodies and munches on her hair as an anxiety tic. One of the teens, Sara’s old friend Claudia (Irene Ferreiro), enters the shop and with her enters the nasty Maca (Claudia Salas), Who clicks a picture of Sara along with her parents and posts on Instagram with the caption “three little piggies.” With parents that are hardly sensible enough to know of her struggles, let alone support her, lonely Sara swallows her pain and dives into her comfort food when stressed.

Going to the local swimming pool in the afternoon to avoid the judgemental stares does not quite work out for her as she is shocked by the sudden emergence of a strange man (Adrian Grosser) from underwater and then is met with disgusting remarks by Roci (Camille Aguillar) and Maca while visibly uncomfortable Claudia watches. The bullying does not stop with just the taunts and leads to Roci and Maca trying to drown Sara by pushing her head in with a pool net. The devilish laughter and Sara’s cries end with the group of bullies fleeing with her belongings.

As though running through the streets in the blistering heat with her swimsuit cutting into her skin was not harrowing enough, Sara gets followed by a car full of local ne’er-do-well boys throwing disturbing insults at her. As she catches up to a deserted lane, mortified Sara sees Claudia’s bloody hand begging for help from the back of a car. She recognizes the driver of the car as the same man at the pool. The scary stranger shows her the first sign of kindness by throwing a towel on the ground for her to wrap herself in before driving off with her bullies in the back.

Sara’s night, absorbed by the sensual thoughts about her ghoulish “friend,” gets interrupted by Pedro (Jose Pastor) asking her to sneak out and begging her to come clean about the happenings at the pool. When the town barely sees any major crimes and is scared out of its wits with the police finding the lifeguard’s body underwater and the pool waitress going missing, Sara decides to keep the knowledge of the strange murderer a secret. She denies going to the pool that afternoon. She steals her father’s phone and tracks the phone that she had lost.

Being led into the woods in her search, Sara is met with the danger of being caught when the parents of the kidnapped teens track their phones and arrive at the same place. The distressed parents attacking Sara on the road led to her being brought to the police station with her mother. Trembling with fear, Sara has a close encounter with the burly serial killer who treats her with softness and gets her out of the woods with no one watching.

Overstimulated with the questions and her mother’s incessant defensiveness, Sara breaks down and reveals that she is at the pool. Her young, tortured mind, overwhelmed with the dilemma of black and white, decides to side with what she perceives as gray and makes her protect the identity of the murderer.

Sara returns home with her mother, not knowing that the same man has killed her father. Frustrated beyond her limits with her mother’s lack of sensibility, Sara screams passionately at her for the first time. When the murderer strikes her mother down, puzzled and terrified, Sara follows him out. Driving into the night with a dangerous man who is also the first to show her kindness, Sara doesn’t know what to think or do. Driving straight into a lone bull in the night leads to an unconscious Sara being carried into the slaughterhouse, where Claudia and Roci remain tied up by the serial killer.

Piggy (2022) Movie Review

One of the most striking achievements of this movie is how it’s able to amp up the discomfort through the dominant theme of bullying instead of relying solely on the gore. In the sensible hands of director Carlota Pereda, this small-town slasher horror finds the intricate psychosocial elements that elevate its status far higher than most movies in this genre. There is carnage aplenty. Scenes are going to the extremes of a blood-soaked massacre. But what makes you hold your breath is the unspoken tension hovering over the experience throughout. 

Laura Galan’s moving performance brings the undoubtedly relevant social issues to life. With not a very vocal character, Galan communicates each affliction through her unbelievably poignant body language. Even in a story of violence that isn’t necessarily common in the real world, Sara is every bullied teen. She is a very overweight kid who feels unaccepted. She is a very lonely adolescent, ignored by her unfeeling parents. It isn’t easy to effectively impact the audience with root-level affairs affecting the everyday life of an impressionable growing teen. But the newcomer actor-director duo do it successfully.

Seeing Sara treated like a child is distressing when it suits the grownups. The scene with Sara’s mother treating the topic of her menstruation with the usual misogynistic disgust is just one of the intricate details that make Sara’s shame and loneliness disturbingly relatable. It is a relief that, unlike most body horrors, the protagonist here doesn’t get “saved” by a messed up “knight in shining armor.” Pereda’s lead gets to be as soft as she wants and as relentless as she needs to be. 

Being an incredible combination of subtle, atmospheric thriller and a bold horror of extreme bloodshed, Piggy is without a doubt one of the fascinating adventures of its genre. Starting the movie with a heavy cleaver mercilessly cutting through the bones sets the tone for the bloodshed to follow. The blood-curdling tension is cruelly complemented by the sound of crickets chirping, leaving no place for the audience to take shelter. The cinematography fits each scene with precisely the kind of backdrop it needs, engaging the audience with a quiet, gradual revelation of the horror. 

Piggy (2022) Movie Ending Explained:

Does Sara save her bullies?

Sara is terrified and relieved to find Claudia and Roci alive in the murderer’s workshop. Even at the height of the panic, she tries to untie them and let them go. However, the strange killer comes back, making her hide and injuring her foot in the process. Slipping in a pile of plastic wrapping sheets, Sara falls over and lands on the chopped-up pieces of Maca. Her screams draw the attention of the murderer, and to her surprise, he is still as pleasant to her as he has always been. Petrified, Sara begs him not to kill her and is surprised to be met with a reassuring hug while the tied-up bullies scream for help in the background.

She is placed at the helm of confusion–to save the lives of the people who have tormented her cruelly–or to side with the merciless psychopath who has shown her kindness. In a manner seeking morbid validation, he hands the knife to Sara and asks her to butcher Claudia and Roci. Teetering on the thin thread of decisions that will make or break who she is as a person, Sara decides to do the right thing and attacks him with the knife.

Overpowered by the huge man who is now starting to show his brutality to her, Sara struggles to keep him from using the shotgun and manages to weaken him with a stab. In the brawl, the gun is fired, leaving Claudia with one of her hands obliterated. When rage takes over the innocent Sara, she bites into his neck, rips out the flesh, and leaves him on the ground to bleed to death. Shocked by the height of violence she’s able to reach, Sara has a wild meltdown and grabs the shotgun. She shoots at their shackles and saves their lives.

Bloodied from the nightmarish event, Sara walks down the street barefoot. In the middle of the road, she is met by Pedro, who offers to drive her to the town. Sitting on the back of Pedro’s motorcycle, Sara feels a sigh of relief coming. The weakness she has felt all her life fades into the vastness of the mountains. 

Sara had all the reasons to seek comfort even in the most dangerous places, a teenager as tortured as her, as unloved and abused as her. She had all the reasons to wish for unimaginable pain to befall the ones that did her wrong. Her decision to not side with the murderer and save Claudia and Roci is evidently a fine study of the prevalent goodness and the wise judgment that can reside within someone even when their limits are pushed. By murdering the serial killer, she realizes she is the savior she has been looking for. The theme of revenge sees a more complex demonstration, with the victim showing mercy when she feels the perpetrators have paid enough. For Sara, the true victory is not losing her soft, humane side, even with enough anger to do much worse. 

Where To Watch And Stream Carlota Pereda’s New Horror Movie ‘Piggy’ Online?

Piggy (2022) Movie Trailer

Piggy (2022) Movie Links: IMDb, RottenTomatoes
Piggy (2022) Movie Cast: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi

Where to watch Piggy