JUG FACE (2013)

Studio:       Gravitas Ventures
Director:    Chad Crawford Kinkle
Writer:       Chad Crawford Kinkle
Producer:  Robert Tonino, Andrew van den Houten
Stars:     Lauren Ashley Carter, Sean Bridgers, Sean Young, Larry Fessenden, Daniel Manche

Review Score: 

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Summary:

A teenage girl questions her backwoods community’s religious-like devotion to a mysterious pit in the woods. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Jessaby playfully chases his sister Ada before they have sex with each other in the woods. Meanwhile, Dawai the potter sculpts a jug and places it in an outdoor kiln while in a trance. Ada returns home and learns that she is to be joined to Bodey at the next full moon, provided that she has been true. Her father Sustin signs a contract in blood with Bodey’s father. Everyone in the community is invited for a celebratory dinner. Hiding the fact that she has missed her period, Ada puts red paint on the inside of her underwear to pass her mother’s inspection. Before leaving Dawai’s, Ada looks into the kiln and sees that the jug has her face. She buries the jug in the forest. After the dinner, Jessaby threatens his sister about keeping their secret. Ada takes a plate to her invalid grandfather who resides in a trailer out back.

While her father sells moonshine in town, Ada steals a pregnancy test. The test is positive. Ada later does laundry at a creek with Bodey’s sister Eilen. Dawai searches for the missing jug. While hanging clothes to dry, Ada has a vision of an emaciated boy. Something then crawls out of the pit in the forest that the community holds in reverence and it kills Eilen. After finding the body, Eilen’s mother blows a shofar to summon everyone to the pit.

The community tries to understand why the pit killed someone without producing a jug first. When the pit decides whom it wants sacrificed, it gives a vision to the potter, who then sculpts a jug in that person’s image. By keeping the pit satiated, its believers can use the pit’s healing powers. Dawai reveals that he may have had a vision, but he never found a jug face. Ada visits Dawai and finds that he has a jug with a baby on it, but he never told anyone since no one has a baby. Ada suggests that Dawai think hard and create another jug based on what he remembers. When Ada returns home, her mother Loriss inspects between her legs and discovers that she is not a virgin. Loriss punishes Ada by slicing her knuckles, although Ada claims that she only pleasured herself and did not have sex. Sustin later comforts his daughter. Before they go to sleep, Ada tells Jessaby that she is pregnant.

The community gathers at the pit and Dawai produces a jug with Bodey’s face. Bodey allows his throat to be slit in sacrifice to the pit. Ada visits her grandfather and sees the emaciated boy again. The boy belongs to “The Shunned,” people killed by the pit out of turn. The boy reveals that he is shunned because Ada’s grandfather once hid a jug face of Ada’s grandmother. The pit did not forgive him and that is why he is an invalid. The boy tells Ada that she must die in the pit to set things right.

Jessaby tells his father that he is sick. Sustin takes him to the pit over Ada’s protestations. Jessaby bathes in the pit and it kills him while Ada goes into a trance. Sustin blows the horn. Ada reveals to Dawai that the pit wants her and her baby. Sustin comes to Dawai’s and repeatedly punches the potter. Dawai tells Sustin and Bodey’s father that he lost the original jug and was only guessing when he created Bodey’s jug. Sustin and the community tie Dawai to a log near the pit, presuming that the pit will eventually take him.

Ada frees Dawai and they hitchhike into town. They try to sell moonshine to the storeowner, but he calls Sustin instead. Ada and Dawai are returned to the community and whipped. Ada later loses her baby while Loriss bathes her. Ada tells her parents that it was Jessaby’s child. She then sneaks out of her bedroom window to visit her grandfather and summon the emaciated boy. The boy tells her that she must be sacrificed. While Sustin confronts Dawai as he is chained to the log again, the pit kills Sustin. Dawai blows the horn. Ada confesses to hiding her jug face when her mother attempts to kill Dawai over Sustin’s death. Ada recovers her jug face and is then tied up next to Dawai.

In the night, Ada’s grandfather visits with the emaciated boy and tells Ada to leave. Ada learns that Dawai will be spared if she sacrifices herself, so she chooses to die instead. In the morning, Ada has her throat slit in ceremony over the pit. Dawai is freed and he places Ada’s jug face on his shelf.

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NOTE: "Jug Face" was released as "The Pit" in the UK.

Review:

“Jug Face” is a spiritual companion to Lucky McKee’s “The Woman.”  Although not as controversially dark, “Jug Face” still blends uncomfortable taboos into its tale of backwoods country folk whose lives involve a religious-like reverence of a mysterious pit in the woods.  With McKee also onboard “Jug Face” as an executive producer, both films share two of their leads, Lauren Ashley Carter and Sean Bridgers, in addition to their similarly unsettling tones.

Not too much can be shared about the plot details.  Not because the story involves any Keyser Soze-like twist, but because it unfolds in a very calculated order.  Director Chad Crawford Kinkle wants to expose the audience to “Jug Face” in a deliberate manner, and that carefully chosen sequencing works brilliantly.  Scenes take on different meanings later in the film as new character relationships are identified and as additional backstories are exposed.  The story is easily followed, but the piecemeal revelation creates a layered viewing experience without relying on storytelling shocks or having to keep secrets from the audience.

“Jug Face” is about a backwoods community that keeps to themselves and their secluded way of life.  These are the kind of country folk who do their laundry on a washboard in the crick and who celebrate major events with music that features clanging spoons as an instrument.  Their names include Bodey, Jessaby, Sustin, and Loriss.  They drink moonshine and use words such as “joining” in reference to marriage and “dripping” with regards to menstruation.  But these are not inbred hillbillies likely to play dueling banjos anytime soon.  Their faith in “The Pit” is rooted in proven miracles, and not in religious fear of a supernatural creature.  Although the healing gifts of the pit do come with a price, as the sentient hole in the forest floor gives only as much as it takes away.

By keeping details of character motives and the pit mythology from spilling completely on the table upfront, “Jug Face” makes way for a mood that is free to creep at its own revelatory pace.  The slow crawl stride of the film goes unnoticed, with interest sustained by the developing personalities.  As simple as their ways are, they are also fascinating.  There is much more going on in this place than just a dimwit tribe of bumpkins blindly worshipping a hole in the ground.

Whatever country stereotypes still existed in the script when filming began were shed by performances that treat the roles as reverentially as the characters treat the pit.  The cast respects these personalities as having complexities that belie their rustic way of life.  Sean Bridgers turns disposable dialogue into memorable moments with subtle inflections and subtler mannerisms.  Lauren Ashley Carter gives her character Ada as much intelligence as she does internal conflict.  And Larry Fessenden and Sean Young make for a pair of parents that perfectly encapsulates everything good and bad that can be attributed to the people residing in these shacks and trailers.

Adding to the film’s own personality are several unique flourishes.  “Jug Face” primes the pump perfectly with an opening sequence of two-dimensional chalk-drawing animations.  The style is fantastic and rewards careful attention with the complete history of the pit.  (Although it may not make complete sense on the first viewing.)  Andrew Smetek is rightly credited for Sound Design rather than for Music or as a composer.  The distorted electric guitar strains seemed out of place with the setting at first.  But the score quickly fades into being the pulse beat of the film and ties each scene together into a free flowing stream.

The horror in “Jug Face” is illustrated by how these families treat one another.  Whatever is in the pit is just a physical manifestation of the psychological terror that permeates the community.  Any time that a more internally fueled horror movie features a physical creature as a distraction, there may be those in the audience who become bored by a perceived lacking of action and constant movement in the surrounding scenes.  Through no fault of their own other than personal tastes in cinematic style, not everyone will be able to see how “Jug Face” works.  The movie’s aim is to frighten through the mind and not through the eyes.  The method will not work on everyone, but those whose patience allows them to be drawn into the setting will find “Jug Face” to be both thoughtful and chilling.

Review Score:  80

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