Razorback

Razorback (1984)

This movie opens up in the Australian outback. We see an older man tending to his grandson, eventually putting him to bed. After putting him to bed the man hears something outside and goes to investigate. An animal that he says is a giant razorback boar tears thru the house and takes his grandson away. No one believes him and he is tried for the boy’s murder. Years later an animal rights journalist/activist shows up in town and after a run in the locals is killed by the same razorback. Her husband comes looking for answers and after his own issues with the locals ends up banding together with the boy’s grandfather (who was found not guilty, but still shunned by his family) goes after the razorback. Eventually this leads to the final encounter in the local pet food plant (which is entertaining in the hilariously bad way).

I hadn’t seen this movie in years, probably since I rented it on VHS back in the late 80s. The fact that I haven’t been able to catch it on DVD (no official U.S. release) has bugged the heck out of me. Then I caught that great documentary Not Quite Hollywood, which talked about all kinds of OZsploitation movies including this one. So I had to track down a copy of this movie to watch. Now I’m not sure it was worth the effort. The story starts off nicely enough with some incredible cinematography capturing the beautiful scenery of Australia. But after the first attack the movie slows down as it shows the trial and humiliation of the grandfather and then introduces the journalist. In fact it takes way too long for the Gregory Harrison character to show up. When he does finally show up he spends way too much time dealing with a couple of locals that he thinks had something to do with his wife’s death. For a movie called Razorback that portrays itself as being about a killer wild hog there is a disturbing lack of killer critter.

The reason the movie spends so much time on the characters and ignores the hog as much as possible might be because the creature doesn’t work. According to what I’ve read while researching my review they spent a sizeable chunk of budget on an animatronic hog only to give it a few seconds of screen time. After watching the movie I can sort of see why, because when it is on screen it looks really goofy. While that might have killed the movie’s chance at being really scary, I would have preferred a goofy monster movie to what we ended up with. I also wonder if they spent the entire effects budget on the Razorback, because the movie isn’t as gory as I remember it being. In fact it is surprisingly tame compared to some of the other OZsploitation movies that I’ve seen. On a positive note the movie sports some of the nicest visuals that I’ve seen in quite a long time. The scenery is beautifully captured, though the movie does spend too much time showing us how nice everything looks which hurts the pacing. There is also a sequence shot early on with the Harrison character hunting at night with a couple of locals that is shot in an eerie way that brings a lot of atmosphere and sets a great mood.

So I realize that my review has come across very negative. The truth is I think this is at best an average or mediocre movie that has benefited from not being readily available on DVD. I’m just afraid that if like me you have been looking for Razorback for a long time you will be disappointed in it.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer