Razorback (1984)

Plot

Lets face it...its a bloody pig!

The film opens with Jake Cullen's house being destroyed and burnt to the ground by a giant Razorback. At the time he is caring for his grandson, who becomes lost during the boars assault. With no evidence left that proves the existence of this Razorback Jake becomes suspected of killing his own grandson. Whilst the case is dismissed due to lack of evidence, Jake is left humiliated and vows to kill the boar and hang its body on the side of the pub.

A few years later a female reporter travels to Australia with the encouragement of her husband, to direct a news report on kangaroo killings. Whilst there she is harassed by two brothers ( Benny and Dicko) who work at the local meat factory. Later she goes to their meat factory but is discovered snooping around. The two brothers ram her off the road with their car, and one of them attempts to rape her, however this is interrupted by an attack by a giant Razorback. The two brothers escape, however the female reporter is brutally attacked and killed leaving no evidence of what killed her.

Jake, he loves blasting the S#@t out of a Razorback

When news of this reaches her husband Carl, he decides to go to the Australian outback to discover what happened to his wife. He finds the grizzled Jake Cullen who tells him about the dastardly Razorback, and that he should seek Benny and Dicko if he wants to find out more. The two brothers agree that Carl can stay with them for a while to go on one of their midnight kangaroo killing hunts however they soon begin to believe that Carl suspects them both of murdering the reporter.

The two brothers leave him in the middle of the desert at night, where Carl is chased by a heard of wild boar. After spending the night strapped to the top of a windmill, Carl attempts to escape the desert but is lost and soon starts hallucinating from exposure. Somehow he manages to stumble upon Sarah's house, a local who is Jake Cullen's only friend. Together Jake, Carl and Sarah attempt to track down the giant razorback but thats not the only danger they face.

Benny and Dicko are still out there, and they'll do anything to stop Carl from involving them in the killing of his wife, even if they have to resort to murder.

Production

An example of an Australian Bombed out Holden Car Tree. They are native to the South West

Razorback was handed to Russell Mulcahy after the producers had watched some of the music videos he had directed for pop band 'Duran Duran', namely his 'Hungry like the Wolf' video. He agreed to direct the film and was very enthusiastic during pre-production, however the film was riddled with complications. The film wen't over budget and over schedule. The mechanical razorback was not as he envisioned it, hoping for something more threatening looking as well as bigger. It also barely worked and was prone to breaking which happened a few times when actors were too rough with it. The Razorback also did not perform well and most the boars on-screen presence is not the animatronic bore but a puppet board which they wheeled around like a giant wheelbarrow.

Due to all of these complications, many scenes were deleted and the film ran out of both time and money to shoot the scripted ending. Mulcahy was forced to shoot a much cheaper and forced ending for the movie.

Dream Sequence

What is this...I don't even.

The dream sequence that Carl goes through wondering the Australian desert whilst hallucinating from extreme exposure is widely regarded as the best part of the film, some saying that it is the only good part of the film. The movies Producer himself has said '...if only the rest of the film had looked like that'. The dream sequence is highly stylistic and some have attributed this to Mulcahy's extensive experience as a music video director, as this part of the movie looks very much like a music video and even goes for about the same time as one.

The Dream sequence is full of what was considered to be quite amazing usage of practical special effects which ranged from having a colored glass side covering the camera lens to make it seem like there is a giant chasm in the middle of the desert, to more complicated trickery to produce the effect of two suns being on screen at once.

Censorship

While not heavily censored, some scenes were left on the cutting room floor as they were deemed to be too grotesque and would potentially bump Razorback's classification up to an R rating. No one entire scene was cut out completely and instead three scenes in the film were edited to show less gore, all involving the Razorback. The most notable of these three is the scene in which the Razorback kills Jake. Whilst in the theatrical release of the film most of this occurs off screen, the full edit shows the boar eating Jakes face off, ripping the skin from his flesh.

	Peter Brennan	novel
	Everett De Roche	written by

	Gregory Harrison	Carl Winters
	Arkie Whiteley	Sarah Cameron
	Bill Kerr	Jake Cullen
	Chris Haywood	Benny Baker
	David Argue	Dicko Baker
	Judy Morris	Beth Winters
	John Howard	Danny
	John Ewart	Turner
	Don Smith	Wallace
	Mervyn Drake	Andy
See Full Credits

Name	Razorback
US Release	Nov. 16, 1984
UK Release
AUS Release	April 19, 1984
Runtime	95
Language(s)	Add a new language English
Genre(s)	Add a new genre Horror Thriller
Theme(s)	Add a new theme
Rating	R
Alias(es)

	Cujo
	Anaconda
	Python II
	Pig Hunt
	Chaw

Domestic	$0
Foreign	+$0

Razorback (1984)

Plot

Production

Dream Sequence

Censorship

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