Why so much hype?

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Being an avid horror fan, I've watched plenty of poorly done B-Movies. This is not poorly made and is well done. I had overlooked it for two years based on it's cover appearance and lack of good reviews. Well this was one of those rare times I'm glad I watched the movie anyway. The reason I viewed this movie was due to a comment I found regarding the plot in a list of Lovecrafted Themed movies. I know this usually promises a movie will be even terrible but I was intrigued by the mention of a backwoods community worshiping a thing in a pit. This may be one of the best cult movies I've ever seen because it is told from the backwoods perspective of a member of the community that worships some ab-horrid thing that lives in a watery pit.Usually these movies fall flat when you see the thing in the pit. Not so in this movie. There are even a couple familiar faces including Sean Young a hotty from the 80's and 90's. If any of this appeals to you definitely check this movie out. You'll be impressed.

A Lost EffortIt had a lot of potential, but failed to keep a consistent tone. It reminds me of the original Children of the Corn, but without any real suspense. The cast is competent, the dialogue is believable, and the effects kept to a minimum so it does not overburden the tale. If the right director were involved, this could have been an amazing film. Instead, it just comes off as a really $5 bargain bin movie. Hopefully in a few years, when the director matures, he will revisit this film and make it again. It would be an interesting contrast to see the difference experience makes.

Straight up I'll say that Jug Face is definitely one of the more worthwhile horrors available on Netflix instant right now. Although it's ultra low budget, it's impeccably acted (including a surprising turn up of Sean Young whom I haven't seen in years) and the story and directing maintain a delicious southern Gothic atmosphere throughout. It's short, clocking in at a nifty 81 minutes, but that's a good thing in this case because the story is a simple, character-driven morality tale that didn't need padding or embellishing with extra subplots.The story centers on Ada (played brilliantly by Lauren Ashley Carter), who is a timid young woman living with a backwoods moonshine cult in some undisclosed region of Southern USA. The cult worship a small pit in the woods which apparently has the ability to heal them but which in return demands occasional sacrifices. Whatever old god or beast dwells in the pit briefly possesses one of the inhabitants of the group - the potter - and makes him shape a clay jug in the likeness of one of the group who is then unceremoniously bent over a tree stump beside the pit and has their throat slit. The blood apparently placates the pit... for a while...When Ada finds a jug in her own likeness in the potters kiln, she understandably takes it and hides it in the woods to avoid her own sacrifice - mostly because she is with child. But this selfishness leads to a number of gruesome deaths as the beast in the pit punishes the followers for her act of selfishness. It's pretty obvious where the story will go and how it will end, but surprises aren't the reason behind the southern Gothic style anyway. The strength in Jug Face lies in its simplicity, its creepiness, and the lingering question of whether it's right to save oneself even to the detriment of the larger populace. In spite of a few dodgy special effects and a story component involving a ghost boy whose presence seems purely to function as an info dump, I still very much enjoyed its backwoods flavor, sick characters and offbeat atmosphere. 6/10.

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