Jug Face (2013)

Pay attention to the opening cartoon drawing sequences during the opening credits as it reveals what is going on in the community... or read this review. A pit cures people of illness, but also requires that people die from time to time. Their blood is sacrificed to the pit. The selection is determined by the community half-wit (Sean Bridgers) who is a potter. The pit channels the information to him and then he makes a jug with the face of the next victim. He goes into a black out phase and doesn't remember anything. Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) secretly pregnant, discovers a jug with her face and for some reason doesn't want to die and hides the jug. The pit is angry and lashes out at the community.The God=pit metaphor is well established when they use phrases like , "the pit giveth and taketh away." Instead of God taking people through various natural mechanisms, the pit has the community sacrifice seeming random people. While human sacrifice films through lotteries etc. are common, I liked the unique way this is done. Would have been a great role for Jennifer Lawrence.Guide: F-word, sex, nudity (Lauren Ashley Carter)

Jug face was one of those movies I chose to watch because I was getting low on films I wanted to see with my Amazon Shudder subscription. Prior to this one, I watched 'Shuttle' and started watching 'A lonely place to die', and though Jugface is more of a horror film than the latter mentioned features which fall into the 'psychological thriller' category, it is by far much better.Jug Face kind of reminds me of a Cormac McCarthy story for some reason. The plot centers around a young girl living in a backwoods and backwards community who becomes impregnated by her brother. The community is based around a belief in a magical pit that in return for human sacrifice, can cure disease and illness. The community potter supposedly receives visions from the pit of the face of the person-to-be-sacrificed, and then makes a clay sculpture of their face (hence 'Jug Face'). Of course it comes to be that the face that the potter makes is that of our pregnant protagonist, who hides the jug face before anyone can see it, causing a chain of tragedy that eventually propels her to try to escape her community and the spirits that dwell within it.Despite the ridiculous premise which definitely has overtones of dark humor, Jug Face is a pretty intense film. It's the kind of movie that will have you laughing one minute, but unlike many other 'horror-comedy' the director knows when to reel it back in so not to sacrifice any of the suspense.Jug Face is low budget, but the cinematography, acting and directing, and even the soundtrack is all top-notch. Not mind blowing by any means, but a good movie.

I knew at first that this movie was a low budget and that was fine with me because some low budget movie are really awesome, but when I was watching this one, I thought at first it was going to be good low budget horror, but it changed about half way through the movie and I was disappointed. Maybe they will start improving on some low budget films and at least make the story line better.I hope the actors realized this in making the movie, I know the producers know they are not working with a lot of money but it has to be able to be real or at least feel real. If they would have re-shot the last half of the movie it would have been better.

Jug Face is excellent representation of the southern Gothic stories that have permeated the American folklore tales of old. There is something creepy about an unexplained phenomena existing patiently and quietly side by side with the colonial development of the American frontier, only to be sated by working in concordance with sacrifice to feed it's dark needs, while providing healing to keep the sources of such feeding sustained. An endless dark cycle, unquestioned for decades until one girl/virgin/un-virgin/woman finally interrupts that feeding, prompting the hunger of the phenomena to lash out in retaliation until the woman, realizing the error of her ways to ever interrupt that age old symbiotic feeding agreement, finally succumbs to her calling, and sacrifices herself to keep the cycle ongoing. Truly terrifying, and reminiscent of classic frontier Gothic literature. Watch this film and experience a piece of American folklore