<\/p>\n
The pig people are coming \u2014 and a contingent of Meadville filmmakers are going, flying, in fact, and soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cPig Hill,\u201d the horror movie based on a local urban legend and filmed in Meadville in 2023, is set to make its world premiere Aug. 23 at FrightFest, a five-day international film festival held each year in London that is the largest event of its kind in the United Kingdom. Based on the book \u201cPig\u201d by Nancy Williams of Conneaut Lake, the movie\u2019s producers include Ted Watts Jr. of Meadville and R.A. Mihailoff of Townville, the Hollywood veteran best known for playing the title character in \u201cLeatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.\u201d Both Williams and Watts will part of the entourage headed to the premiere.<\/p>\n
The premiere comes as the result of a competitive selection process and is the culmination of a labor-intensive process. Fortunately, the group said, the years-long journey resulted not only in exactly the sort of intense cinematic experience they were hoping before, but one that they hope will prove a launching pad for additional film projects in the area.<\/p>\n
Gathered in front of Tattered Corners New and Used Bookstore last week \u2014 the bookstore provided a key location in the movie as the workplace of the main character \u2014 the moviemakers recalled the production process.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the first day of shooting, right here in front of this store,\u201d Mihailoff said, pointing across Chestnut Street, \u201cright there, sitting on my highboy chair, what a beautiful warm day, I was just looking around, looking at the people, the equipment, shaking my head and going, \u2018Man, I cannot believe what we\u2019ve put together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
What they had built, he continued, was a privately financed production that rivaled many of the independent studio films he had worked on during more than 30 years in Hollywood. Having returned home several years ago. Mihailoff said he has no plans to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe intend for \u2018Pig Hill\u2019 to be the springboard for a continuing slate of movies filmed in northwest Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
The producers drew inspiration from George Romero\u2019s Pittsburgh-area productions and even worked with several of the people involved in Romero\u2019s living dead films, according to Watts. While it added many steps to the process, Watts agreed that they had made the right choice in taking a similar approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is truly independent and that makes it a little tougher up front,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019ve had great control over the movie and what we wanted it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the movie depicts the terrifying pig people rumored to be living on Radio Tower Hill, one of the scariest elements came behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had gotten spooked, for lack of a better word,\u201d Watts recalled. \u201cOn our trail to find the production team \u2014 the director and the designers \u2014 I\u2019d had a few conversations with some people that we were considering and the direction wasn\u2019t what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal was to stay true to the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the kind of movie we wanted to make,\u201d Watts said. \u201cWe had to really protect that because that could get away from you if the wrong people get their hands on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The novel, originally published in 2019 by Hellbender Books, a subsidiary of Sunbury Press Inc., was Williams\u2019 fifth book. She recalled setting out to write a classic monster-based horror story and settling on source material from her youth \u2014 stories told by her older brother and sister to scare their younger sibling.<\/p>\n
\u201cA mutant strain of pig people seemed like a good way to go,\u201d she said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s always been with me. My brother told me a story \u2014 it\u2019s in the first scene of the book \u2014 so I thought it\u2019s local, I\u2019m local, what better material to start with if I want to make a good horror story?\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeing her creation translated to the screen has been a dream come true for Williams, who started writing when she was in high school. The London premiere will be her first chance to see the final version. Based on a director\u2019s cut of the movie and the trailer that was released last month, she said she got goosebumps watching a film that was \u201cnot for the faint of heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just nailed it \u2014 I think they did a little more, I call it \u2018stabby, stabby,\u2019\u201d she added. \u201cThey definitely went more with that aggressive horror aspect to it, which was totally appropriate. I\u2019m really looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film was directed by Kevin Lewis, who received positive reviews for the 2021 Nicolas Cage vehicle \u201cWilly\u2019s Wonderland.\u201d For \u201cPig Hill,\u201d Lewis came up with what Watts called a \u201cvisually stunning\u201d approach that creates the sense of a \u201cpunk rock fever dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to find your footing when you\u2019re watching this movie,\u201d Watts said.<\/p>\n
Part of the goal of the premiere is to draw interest from distributors as the production team plans its strategy for a domestic and international release of the film. At some point during that process, the made-in-Meadville movie will have a Tool City debut, Watts said. Viewers will recognize not only many of the locations \u2014 Tattered Corners, Voodoo Brewery, Firehouse Tap & Grille, Family & Children Community Association, and Radio Tower Hill among them \u2014 but some of the onscreen faces and even some locally sourced music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest thing about it was that all of the locations depicted in the film are the actual locations as they are in Meadville,\u201d Watts said. \u201cWe will definitely be doing something in Meadville.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The pig people are coming \u2014 and a contingent of Meadville filmmakers are going, flying, in fact, and soon. \u201cPig Hill,\u201d the horror movie based on a local urban legend and filmed in Meadville in 2023, is set to make its world premiere Aug. 23 at FrightFest, a five-day international film festival held each year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1946120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[321792,345000,344999,344998,345001,345002],"class_list":["post-1960327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-horror-movie","tag-international-film-festival","tag-meadville","tag-nancy-williams","tag-r-a-mihailoff","tag-ted-watts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Lloyd-native-nominated-for-6-IBMA-awards.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1960327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1960327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1960327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1960327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}