Razorback (1984)

Synopsis

The movie Razorback (1984) is an Australian horror film directed by Russell Mulcahy. The story revolves around a giant wild boar that terrorizes the Australian outback, killing and devouring people. The film follows the story of a man named Carl Winters, whose grandson is killed by the razorback. Carl sets out to find the killer boar and avenge his grandson’s death. Along the way, he teams up with a reporter named Beth and a hunter named Jake.

Two years after the initial attack that Carl Winters survives, American wildlife reporter Beth Winters journeys to the outback to document the hunting of Australian wildlife to be processed into pet food at a run-down factory. Beth gets video footage of two thugs, Benny Baker and his brother Dicko, illegally making pet food and is subsequently chased down by them by car. They catch up, force her off the road and attempt to rape her only to be chased off by the same boar that killed Jake’s grandson. Beth attempts to take shelter in her car, but the hog rips off the door, drags her out and eats her. With no witnesses, her disappearance is subsequently ruled an accident by having fallen down an abandoned mine shaft after leaving her wrecked car.

Some time later, Beth’s husband Carl travels to Australia in search of her and encounters Jake, whom Beth interviewed during her initial report. Jake refers Carl to the local cannery, where he meets Benny and Dicko. He pretends to be a Canadian visitor and convinces them to take him along on their next kangaroo hunt, only to be abandoned by them when he spoils a potential kill. Carl is then attacked by a herd of wild pigs, spurred on by the giant boar, which chase him through the night and force him to take shelter atop a windmill. The next morning the pigs knock over the windmill, but Carl is saved by landing in a pond at the windmill’s base, which the pigs fear to enter.

Once the pigs leave, Carl attempts to make his way back to civilization, all the while suffering from dehydration-induced hallucinations, before finally reaching the house of Sarah Cameron: a friend of Jake who has been studying the local pig population and the only person who believes his story of the giant razorback. While recovering, Carl learns from Sarah that something has been causing the wild pigs excess stress, leading them into unusual behavior, such as increased aggression and cannibalizing their own young.

Meanwhile, after learning that Carl had seen the razorback, Jake sets out for the pumping station and manages to shoot it with one of Sarah’s tracking darts. He also finds Beth’s wedding ring in the boar’s feces, which he returns to a grieving Carl.

Benny and Dicko overhear a radio conversation suggesting that Jake knows what really happened to Beth Winters. Fearful that Jake is attempting to implicate them in her death, Benny and Dicko attack Jake at his camp, breaking his legs with bolt-cutters and leaving him to be killed by the razorback. His remains are later found by Sarah and Carl, along with marks in the dirt made by Dicko’s cleaver. Realizing that the brothers were responsible for both Beth and Jake’s deaths, Carl attacks Benny at the brothers’ lair, interrogating him by dangling him over a mine shaft before dropping him into it.

As Sarah rounds up a posse to hunt down the razorback, Carl corners Dicko at the cannery when the razorback suddenly appears and mauls Dicko to death. The razorback then chases Carl into the factory, where Sarah arrives and is seemingly killed by the boar. The boar continues to pursue Carl, and in its maddened rampage, the razorback ends up damaging the cannery’s generator, which sends the machines running. Carl lures the boar onto a conveyor belt that throws it into a giant meat grinder, chopping it to pieces. After shutting down the machinery, Carl finds and rescues Sarah, who had merely been knocked unconscious, and the two embrace.

Cast

Gregory Harrison as Carl Winters
Arkie Whiteley as Beth
Bill Kerr as Jake Cullen
Chris Haywood as Benny Baker
David Argue as Dicko Baker

Trivia

The movie Razorback (1984) was released on November 19, 1984. The film was directed by Russell Mulcahy and produced by Hal McElroy and Bill Leimbach. The screenplay was written by Everett De Roche, and the story was by Peter Brennan. The movie’s cinematography was by Dean Semler, and the music was by Iva Davies. The film was edited by William M. Anderson.

The razorback in the movie was portrayed by a combination of animatronics and a real pig. The animatronic razorback was created by Bob McCarron, who also worked on the special effects for the movie The Road Warrior. The film’s production was plagued by several setbacks, including the death of one of the actors during filming.