Directed by: Russell Mulcahy
Starring: Gregory Harrison, Arkie Whiteley, Bill Kerr
Before he directed the cult classic Highlander, Russell Mulcahy adapted this Australian wildlife horror film from a novel by Peter Brennan.
Gregory Harrison plays Carl Winters, a man who travels to the Australian outback seeking answers about the mysterious disappearance of his journalist wife who was investigating a story on the poaching of kangaroos. Upon his arrival he meets Jake Cullen (Bill Kerr), a man who is obsessed with hunting a giant razorback boar which killed his grandson. Although he was acquitted of his grandson's murder, he is the only person to have seen the monster pig and therefore the rest of the community thinks that he is making it up.
When it becomes apparent that Carl's wife was also a victim of the razorback, he teams up with Jake and farmer Sarah Cameron (Arkie Whiteley) to track down and kill the beast. They follow it to the local dog food factory where they encounter two psychotic workers who have been feeding the giant pig and thus increasing it's size and appetite.
Basically it's Jaws but with a pig instead of a shark, and a few twists thrown in. The atmosphere of the Australian outback is one of the most impressive facets of this movie, and makes for a stark and frightening backdrop. The acting is solid but nothing impressive. A lack of CGI means that you don't get to see a lot of the pig throughout the film, but this helps rather than taking away. The finale in the dog food factory is a very tense and enjoyable scene and caps off the movie perfectly.
Although the movie has aged a lot since it's release in 1984 it still stands up fairly well today and is a better than average entry into the killer animal/revenge genre. And as an Australian horror film it is a must see.
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