Razorback/Comments

• Razorback is one of the Australian exploitation films of that forgotten era that has actually probably become more popular over time. Director Russell Mulcahy approaches the film with the same mindset as if he was directing a music video (the area which he cut his teeth in). While the film is often derided for being style over substance, you can't deny it's a very stylish film. Filled with silhouettes and landscapes of psychedelic colors, Razorback was a film before its time. Only later would it fit firmly in line with the spate of MTV-influenced action films that became the norm in Hollywood. The story concerns a giant razorback loose around a small Australian country town. It begins with the death of an American TV journalist at the hands of the razorback and some wild locals (the kind of "bullies" you'd expect to see in Ozploitation films). Her husband, upon being notified of her death, decides to go to Australia to find out what happened. When we are confronted with the razorback (which is kept pretty well hidden for the first part of the film), it is the kind of hilarious robotic monster animal that we've come to expect from this kind of film. But the highly stylized cinematography does a good job of hiding the pig's inadequacies on the first viewing. All in all, Razorback is a film that was much derided at the time of it's making, but has since been embraced to some extent by a younger generation, it's varying color palette and fast-cutting firmly in line with the kind of high energy action films that they grew up on. --Angel