Razorback (1984) d. Mulcahy, Russell (Australia)
During the Ozploitation heyday born of the success of George Miller’s The Road Warrior, music video veteran Mulcahy took the wheel for this surprisingly effective yarn about a giant killer boar menacing Outback locals. In the decade after Jaws scared everyone out of the water, the silver screen played host to all varieties of vicious oversized beasties, with the results ranging from tongue-in-cheek thrills (Alligator, Grizzly) to ludicrous camp classics (The Sea Serpent, Deadly Eyes). No one could have guessed that an carnivorous slab of bacon sporting giant tusks and a bad attitude would turn out to be one of the more successful imitators; Mulcahy’s approach of presenting the cloven-hoofed menace completely straight-faced, while simultaneously introducing the foreignness of the desolate sand-swept environs and its bizarre inhabitants, works like gangbusters.
