Oink

image for Oink

Short takes

Not suitable under 6; parental guidance to 8 (violence, themes, scary scenes, crude humour)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Oink
  • a review of Oink completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 23 October 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 6 Not suitable due to violence, themes, scary scenes, and crude humour.
Children aged 6–8 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, themes, scary scenes, and crude humour.
Children aged 9 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Oink
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes and crude humour
Length: 72 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

A competition to be crowned ‘King Sausage’ holds surprising results for two competing butchers. Butcher Tuitjes (voice of Kees Prins) is basking in the judges’ praise until he is attacked by Butcher Smak (voice of John Kraaijkamp Jr), who accuses him of putting rat tails in his sausages. The pair begin to fight and are subsequently banned from all competitions for the next 25 years. Tuitjes disappears, leaving his young daughter Margareet (voice of Jelka Van Houten) with her Aunt, and Smak opens a butcher shop in town, biding his time until he is allowed to compete again. Meanwhile, Margareet grows up and becomes a mother herself. Her vegetarian daughter, Babs (voice of Hiba Ghafry) loves to ride skateboards and cook with her best friend Tijn (voice of Matsen Montsma), and her dearest wish is to have a puppy. One day, as she is playing with Tijn, her grandfather Tuitjes shows up unexpectedly. He says he wants to get to know his granddaughter and make amends for the past but there is something about Tuitjes that Tijn doesn’t trust. When Babs’s parents won’t get her a dog for her birthday, her grandfather takes her to a farm and allows her to pick out a piglet. He shows her how to look after it and does everything he can to make Margareet, who does not want a pig on her property, happy with the situation all the while singing about sausages. When the piglet, called Oink, destroys Margareet’s vegetable garden, Margareet insists that the pig be returned but relents on the condition that Oink attend obedience training and pass an exam at puppy school. Against all odds, Oink passes with flying colours. The family is so proud but Tijn makes a shocking discovery and seeds of doubt regarding Tuitjes are sown, even though no one wants to believe them. When Babs awakens on the morning of the King Sausage competition, to find both Oink and her grandfather missing, she can’t help but think the worst – only the worst is far more terrible than anything she could have imagined. Will Babs be able to save Oink? Will anyone be able to save her? And will justice finally be served at the King Sausage competition?

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Family dysfunction; The slaughtering of helpless animals; The desire to be the best at all costs; Betrayal; Child abandonment and the repercussions thereof.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Tuitjes and Smak punch each other during a competition, they throw tongs and condiments at each other, and they wrestle on the ground and hit each other with sausages.
  • Smak throws sausages at kids.
  • Babs and Tijn are nearly hit by a car.
  • Smak threatens to put Tijn and Babs in a meat grinder.
  • Margareet is reminded that her mother died and that her father walked out on her.
  • Oink misbehaves in puppy school and winds up getting everyone tied up in a big knot.
  • Tijn is hit by a car.
  • Tuitjes ties up and gags Babs when she comes to try to save Oink, who is tied to a meat grinder.
  • Tuitjes tries to put Oink into the meat grinder and the piglet is so terrified that he poops into the grinder instead.
  • A dog is thrown at a man.
  • Potatoes fly out of a machine and repeatedly hit Tuitjes in the head.
  • Margareet hits her father with a bag of poop sausages.
  • Oink looks like he is being pulled apart as both Babs and her grandfather fight to take control of him.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

  • Nothing further noted for this age group.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Oink sees a severed pig head in a butcher’s shop with its eyes sewn shut. He sees a creepy-looking butcher with a bloodied knife and is terrified as the butcher begins to chase him, saying that he should be turned into sausages.
  • Tuitjes repeatedly tries to put Oink into a meat grinder. The poor pig is terrified, and Babs is crying and begging her grandfather not to kill her pet. Tuitjes is very determined to make his sausages, no matter what, and ties up and gags his granddaughter and her friend. He tries to outrun the family on a tractor, while at the same time dangling Oink over a meat grinder. The pig struggles and squeals in terror while Babs tries to grab him away from her grandfather. Eventually, the tractor crashes into a fence and everyone goes flying.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • The top of Grandpa Tuitjes’ bare bottom is seen on his way to the shower.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Characters are seen drinking Vodka.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Stupid
  • Stupid pig!

In a nutshell

Oink is a Dutch, stop-motion film based on the book by Tosca Menten. The film is dubbed in English so there are no subtitles but the expression of the characters falls somewhat flat. The film contains lots of crude humour, including numerous pig farts and Oink pooping all over the place: on slides; in the garden; in a butcher’s shop, splattering poo on customers; while being spun around a room with poo flying onto all the family members; and features a tutorial from Grandpa Tuitjes who shows Babs how to squeeze the poo out of Oink. Likely to be most enjoyed by children aged 9 and up, with parental guidance for ages 6 to 8.

The main messages from this movie are that what goes around comes around; and that we don’t have to eat meat to be happy or healthy but that vegetables can be even more delicious than animal products, if you prepare them properly.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Love
  • Compassion
  • Determination
  • Creativity
  • Friendship.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Following your own desires without any thought to the needs and wellbeing of others.
  • Eating meat and where the food comes from.
  • Abandoning or betraying your family.