Director Russell Mulcahy doesn’t have the most outstanding career, known primarily for Highlander and a few cult horror films, but Razorback is notable as one of his earliest works, unavailable on DVD for a decade. The story is as follows, set around present day Australia for its release in 1984: Two years ago, a colossal, mutant pig ransacked Jake Cullen’s (Bill Kerr) house, set it ablaze and made off with his two-year-old grandson. He was tried for murder, as few people were willing to believe his story about a killer animal, but the case was dismissed due to a lack of evidence. Since then, the professional kangaroo shooter and wildlife expert has dedicated his life to hunting boars. According to Jake, razorbacks are covered in a thick shield of bristles and don’t succumb to gunfire like most creatures, since they don’t possess a nervous system.

In New York, news reporter and animal rights campaigner Beth Winters (Judy Morris) is given an assignment to cover a kangaroo slaughterhouse in Australia. She journeys there with her trusty cameraman to uncover the disturbing truths behind the Petpak Cannery, run by two incredibly grungy, hideous kangaroo hunter brothers - one-eyed Benny and mole-faced Dicko. Her presence upsets many of the residents of Gamulla, near Sydney, and when she pokes around at Petpak, she’s terrorized, run off the road, and nearly raped – only to be momentarily rescued by the reappearance of the gargantuan razorback, before it makes a meal of her.

The police insist that Beth fell down a mineshaft, but her husband Carl Winters (Gregory Harrison) thinks otherwise, and travels down under in search of facts. He meets up with Jake, still bitter and intent on tracking down the monstrous boar, and Sarah Cameron (Arkie Whiteley), a young woman taken in by Jake when her parents died. As they attempt to track down the murderous pig, they must continue to thwart the villainous Petpack crew – once again proving that with every movie monster there’s also human antagonists to supplement the evilness.

Quite a few clever segue shots and scene transitions mark the unique editing of Razorback, along with superbly fitting, macabre, creepy and bloody sets, and weird, surrealistic nightmares consisting of pig-faced women, whinnying horse skeletons and Martian landscapes. But the film suffers from a conspicuously stupid main character that makes classic monster movie mistakes, including comically stumbling all over the place during escapes and never believably fighting for his life, giving the creature plenty of time to sneak up behind him. It also doesn’t help that there’s an obvious reluctance to show the hulking pig, especially in full-body shots that would have helped to establish its frightening size.

An occasionally effective animal cruelty subtext makes its way into the film, with ghastly slaughterhouse imagery and violence to pigs and dogs. And with an expected low-angle razorback cam, humorous gore, a love story between Carl and Sarah (conveniently placed immediately after his wife dies), and unexpected casualties, Razorback is a mildly entertaining 80’s horror film worth watching because it’s the only one with a giant, killer pig.

- Mike Massie

 

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