Razorback (1983)

[akiratubo]

The video box would have you believe this is a movie about a GIANT, MAN-EATING PIG.  It isn't.  It's a movie about an Americn guy wandering around Australia and looking at stuff.  Sure, a GIANT, MAN-EATING PIG makes a brief appearance during the first minutes of the film but don't you fall for it!  That sucker isn't showing up again anytime soon.

So, why is that American guy I meantioned in Australia?  Because his wife, an investigative reporter, went there to spy on kangaroo poachers who use the meat to make pet food.  She subsequently disappeared.  So, guy goes to look for her and spends awhile wandering around and looking at stuff.  He looks at the p**sant little town that was his wife's last known location.  He looks at the people.  He looks at the countryside.  Good golly, he looks at freaking everything!  Eventually, he looks at the weird guys who run that poaching/pet food operation, and goes on a hunt with them.  Then the movie spends awhile blatantly ripping off the kangaroo hunt from Outback (1971).  Guy goes a little bonkers when he kills a kangaroo and wanders off into the arid landscape, where he - you guessed it - looks at even more stuff, except this time, he's delirious from heat stroke and dehydration.  The freak-out does contain the one thing in this movie that's any good, at least.  The cow (horse?) skeleton that he hallucinates coming out of the ground to chase him is creepier than it has any right to be.

Now, at long last, the GIANT, MAN-EATING PIG sort of reenters the plot.  Guy wakes up to find himself on the homestead of a young woman and her father, who were the victims of the GIANT, MAN-EATING PIG'S brief attack during the first few minutes of the movie, eons ago.  The dad has gone a little nuts and has spent every waking moment since searching for the GIANT, MAN-EATING PIG so he can kill it.  The woman is only in the movie to provide a love interest for the American guy.

I'm not going to recap this any further because thinking of this movie hurts me.  The old VHS box for this movie was fantastic, what with the pig's visage leering at you like that.  Unfortunately, director Russel Mulcahy seems to have had no interest in the GIANT, MAN-EATING PIG and instead invested all of his creative energy on pointing his camera at every - single - thing in the Australian outback until his entire supply of film was exhausted.  When the pig finally does show up, you barely even get to see it and it does absolutely f**k all except have one of the most pathetic movie monster deaths of all time.  Maybe I'm being too hard on poor Russel.  Given that the animatronic pig can't seem to do anything but stand completely still and open its mouth, he simply may not have been able to use it on camera for much.  Oh, well.

Talk about a waste of potential.

[zelmo73]

I concur. I saw this on CBS in the early-to-mid '80s. Damn, this movie sucked. 

[Jack]

I haven't seen that in ages but I liked it.  I kind of took it as a walkabout type thing, just soaking up the scenery and the local culture.  I still remember that one guy saying "There's something about blasting the s**t out of a razorback that brightens up my whole day."   

Of course I'm also about the only one to enjoy Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy as well.

[The Burgomaster]

We had it (with the large, plastic VHS box) at the video store where I worked in the 1980s.  I don't remember much about it, but I'm pretty sure I thought it was okay at best.

[claws]

Seen it back in video rental days and liked it. I remember this was a must-see for Horror fans as it came with tons of praise. Most of these Australian movies back then had a fresh look and visual style.
I've been meaning to watch this again but I'm still awaiting a decent Blu-ray release.

[voltron]

Seen it back in video rental days and liked it. I remember this was a must-see for Horror fans as it came with tons of praise. Most of these Australian movies back then had a fresh look and visual style.
I've been meaning to watch this again but I'm still awaiting a decent Blu-ray release.

Yeah claws, I remember when I was a kid asking somebody "what was the grossest movie you've seen?". He replied "Razorback". I know I saw it soon after that but I remember nothing of it. I think the director did music videos before he did this movie didn't he? I guess that's where the style comes from.

[Couchtr26]

Saw it recently on Vudu or Hulu, I think on a Killer Pigs movie kick.  Wasn't bad but definitely not good.  Still think I preferred Chawz.