Howdie movie enthusiasts. We know you are fond of European cinema. After all the old continent has given us such unrefined celluloid gold as Rubber and film makers as influential as Federico Fellini and Uwe Boll. In our new series we are on the hunt for the next European blockbuster – new movie ideas by aspiring European scriptwriters destined to bring back moist in our eyes during summer heatwaves.

Our first pitch is thought as a continuation of Hostel, the ultimate video guide to backpackers in Europe.

Pitch I: Pig farm

by Sissy Neck

A group of Western European millennials venture into the countryside of an unnamed Eastern European country on a break from their dead-end jobs in the outsourcing industry of that country’s capital. During their journey the friends stumble upon the village of Pičovica, where the only krcma is a blast and the locals are very friendly, offering to host them for the evening.

As the night progresses the villagers are becoming increasingly creepier in their demands for attention. Strange characters appear, such as Vova, who claims that an electromagnetic interference with his dental fillings is allowing him to overhear confidential communication from the CIA. The latter are aware of some dark mystery in the forest near the village. The friends get sick either as a result of the excessive amounts of vodka they consume or their drinks being spiked by the locals. They pass out in their vomit.

The friends wake up on the floor of a large premise resembling a barn. They are surrounded by huge boars, eating chunks of raw meat from unknown origins, scaring the protagonists, most of them vegans, to death. An attempt to escape provokes an attack by the boars who bite off flesh from two of the friends’ behinds. The noise attracts the attention of the owner of the establishment, Stanislav, one of the village’s pig farmers who has entrapped the protagonists as part of his sinister plans.

Stanislav puts them on a farm and forces them to toil from dark to dark with breaks only to drink water and eat gluten-rich bread. He explains this is no different than how rich feudal landlords treated his own peasant family centuries ago. Each of the friends has to plant ten acres of cabbage, while they are also forced to make apple preserves, which the farmer sells to tourists at exorbitant prices.

One day while shoveling in a remote part of the field the main character comes across an object in the ground, which turns out to be a rusty iron hatch. The friends struggle to open it and one of them gets her thighs skinned in a pile of barbed wire. The hatch leads to a staircase ending with a door. An attempt to break the latter results in major leg trauma to another of the characters, an associate softened by office work, whose bone is protruding from the wound.

Through common efforts the friends manage to open the door and find themselves in the antechamber of an enormous lavishly decorated estate. After some exploration, they come across a cabinet containing documents revealing the origins and purpose of the structure – a fancy mansion built by the pig farmer entirely underground in order to conceal the proceeds of stolen cash from European projects. Apparently, the farmer received subsidies for farm diversification that only happened on paper.

Having revealed the pig farmer’s dark secret, the protagonists panic and their fear is intensified by approaching boar screams, announcing the arrival of Stanislav. While desperately trying to find an exit from the mansion two of them get mauled by the hogs, and a third one is killed by the farmer who suffocates him with an aubergine. The farmer is wearing women’s clothes, and it is revealed he is actually an elderly woman whom the years have chiseled into a male.

Only the main character has remained alive, hiding in a full-size plastic can, used to keep sauerkraut. Stanislav is seen roaming naked around the premises, looking for the last survivor. She releases fermented plum marc into the house, the smell of which makes the protagonist faint. He comes back to life at an unknown hour completely paralyzed from the uncomfortable position. The mansion is dark and smelly.

The last survivor manages to get out and find an exit, which leads to the forest near the farm. While making his way through the trees he reaches a clearing where he sees the most abominable view he has ever witnessed. A congregation of naked Putin supporters, vowing their pledges to pigs, who are now dressed, standing upright and giving orders. Losing his mind, he takes off his clothes and joins the crowd. The CIA arrives and kills everybody, sealing the area.

Residents of Pičovica| Photo: TheAnimalDay.org, CC BY 2.0 (Flickr)

Cover photo: PheritCC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (Flickr)

  • retro

    Alex is Bulgarian and is currently stationed in Poland. He did Politics & Security at University College London and specialised at Charles University in Prague for a year. He is an analyst with interests in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

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