The Dancing Pig (A Lost Episode Short Story)

The Dancing Pig

Have any of you ever heard of an old silent film called “The Dancing Pig”? It was this short film from 1907 about this fatass anthropomorphic pig who tries to hit on a girl, who then tears off his clothes and proceeds to dance with him. There’s not a lot to the film predictably, as it was in the novelty age of film, but the puppetry done on the pig himself is scarily well done for the time period. He looked real, a little too real for comfort. I’m sure it wasn’t a big issue for those first watching it back then, they were just amazed that it was filmed, but nowadays it comes off as creepy, as most movies back then are seen now.

Some of you may be wondering why I’ve brought up this obscure piece of ancient film history. Well, I myself am a film collector who specializes in preserving old film reels from the silent era, roughly around the 1900’s-mid 20’s. I even currently own a projector to screen the films I collect. Recently, I came across an auction on Ebay for what seemed like an absolute steal; the original film reel for “The Dancing Pig” for the shockingly low price of $13.90. A dusty piece of history for my collection, without having to worry about wasting half my rent money!

The reel took a few weeks to ship, as it was all the way down in Boston, and myself in Oregon. When it finally came, the reel itself was in pristine condition. Obviously, the metal of the reel itself was a bit oxidized but far less than most of my other reels. Even the film spool itself was well intact. It was surprisingly long for a short 2-minute film, meaning it could have had unseen outtakes and bloopers as well. I pulled out my old projector, which I hadn’t used in quite a few months, popped the reel in, and powered up the projector. This is where things started to get...strange to say the least.

This particular cut of the film seemed to be in better condition than the digital copies you can find easily on youtube. Not 4k but still pretty decent for the time. The film itself played through the sequence of events as I knew they did; The pig hitting on the girl, she takes off his clothes, etc. Strange, but nothing that hadn’t been seen. This being an original reel and not a digital copy, it didn’t have music as the music was usually played live in theaters at the time. It made me realize how...unnerving the film really was without the upbeat music of the digital restoration. For the most part, nothing was really different from the copies you see online, until the moment the woman walks the giant pig behind the black curtain that hangs in the background. Now, for context, in the film the woman takes the pig back there and then jump-cuts to them walking out with the pig dressed in drag. This original reel was different. When the pig went back there, it cut to a scene behind the curtain. The Woman was attempting to dress the pig in the goofy corset he would be seen wearing later, but failing multiple times to do so. It seemed unscripted like the actress genuinely was having a really tough time fitting this tight dress on the gargantuan pig. This must’ve been one of the outtakes.

After the extra scene, the film continued as normal, with the pig dancing with the girl in drag. I got to the part where the pig starts spazzing out (not the ending) where he starts sticking his tongue out and all sorts of crazy shit when a small detail caught my eye that wasn’t there in the final cut. Rather than the pig having the seizure randomly, the girl actually kisses him on the cheek. It wasn’t as big of a deal as the full missing scene I mentioned earlier, but it at least gave a bit of context as to why the pig freaked out. It made me wonder though, why would they cut out what seemed like an insignificant gesture? Maybe theaters thought it promoted bestiality? I don’t know for sure, but it wasn’t anything major, just something I found interesting.

The climax of the film is when things got batshit insane, and I genuinely mean that. There was no blood or gore, or any fourth wall breaks as most stories told like this, but it definitely caught me off guard. When the woman takes the pig into the backroom for the second time after dancing, we cut back to behind the curtain like last time. This is where things got weird really fast. We see the pig and the woman go in for an embrace but in a more sensual way. The pig was very awkwardly rubbing up against this woman with its engorged stomach. I could tell the actress looked very uncomfortable, and I'm pretty sure it wasn’t her acting. The pig then, shockingly, pulls in the woman closer to him so that they are nose to nose. He then stuck out his giant fake tongue and shoved it in the actress’s throat. When I first witnessed this happening, I thought this was going to turn into some really weird-ass porn, at least it looked like it. The pig was going down on this woman as she grasped her hands onto his head, trying to wriggle herself free. Then, without warning, the pig’s giant maw opened much wider than I initially thought it would be able to, unhinging like a snake and leaving the bottom jaw dangling from his fatty neck. The pig then proceeded to slowly swallow this woman whole, tongue now wrapped around her throat as he worked his way down her body, violating her in every sense. It was really hard to watch, especially seeing how distraught the actress really looked in the situation. After an uncomfortably long scene of tongue rape, he finally grabbed her legs, hoisting her upward as she kicked frantically, and shoved her down his gullet. Once she had fully disappeared, the pig rubbed his belly in glee. Two fingers then suddenly poke through the parting of his lips, which he then forced back down his maw. After this, it cut back to the regular footage of the Pig walking out of the curtain alone rubbing his full belly.

When the film finally ended, I was left completely speechless. This uncut version completely gave a whole new meaning to the film, no fucking wonder it was cut down on its public release. After a few minutes of racking my brain as to what the hell I just witnessed, I popped out the reel from it’s socket and put it on display with the rest of my film collection. This film may have been incredibly disturbing, but I wasn’t just gonna throw away the damn thing, I had the only extended copy after all. By the end of it all I was exhausted, I just wanted to take a shower and sleep off how dirty I felt after watching it all. This all happened two weeks ago, and since then i’ve been having these incredibly vivid nightmares. I know it sounds childish but they really fuck with my mental state. It’s always the same situation; I’m lying in my bed when the fat monster pig crawls from under the foot of my bed and onto it. He then opens his massive jaws as his tongue slithers like a python and constricts me. As he crawls up my body, grazing my legs, my chest, and finally face to face just like the film, he only says one phrase in an incredibly hoarse voice; “I have the body of a pig”.

I don’t think that reel is haunted in any sense, I don’t think the pig is actually real or living in my cupboard waiting to tickle my taint with his tongue. But my experience with this film has definitely been something else. I’ll get over the nightmares eventually, but this film was far darker than I could have ever anticipated, and I hope that someday I can have these scenes digitized for those who are curious to see. I won’t be doing it myself anytime soon though, because seeing that goddamned pig’s ugly laugh takes on a whole different meaning that I’d rather forget now.