The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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.

Film maker Chad Crawford Kinkle has produced one of the truly disturbing motion picture entries in the Southern Gothic genre. Brilliantly written and directed by Kinkle, this captures vividly the backwoods mentality that leads to the creation of weird rituals based on generations old mythology. Beautifully photographed on location and with an atmosphere eliciting fear, dread, and surrealism, the power of this film is almost overwhelming in its intensity. A superb cast give memorable performances as they depict a people apart, vulnerable as well as sinister, and all enslaved to a practice no one seems to truly understand. Sean Young is particularly stunning in an against-type role she seems have been born to play. Unrelenting in suspense and uncompromising in its subtle horror, no one who sees this film will soon forget the skilfully created terror that is Jugface.

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.

A reclusive backwoods society maintains their way of life by making sacrifices to an unspecified monster. When a teenage girl discovers both that she is pregnant and she's the next sacrifice, she tries to escape her fate. Some blood, but mostly just creepy and sees the ending through with more focus than A-List movies. Acting is not just serviceable but good, especially since it deals with backwoods archetypes that it's hard to not turn into a parody. This thing is deadly serious and realistically portrayed even with the supernatural elements.Good movie - kind of a different take on "Winter's Bone" if you liked that. Check it out.