Thursday, February 1, 2018

Throwback Thursday - Razorback (1984)

First post of the new year!  Sure, it's a month into it, but Happy New Year, anyways!  2017 wasn't a very good year for me, but 1984 was a great year for movies.  I can't recall all the awesome movies they made that year, but I found one more!

Razorback (1984) is an Australian-made horror movie that opens with an outback grand-dad putting his toddler grandkid down for the night.  The grandad hears something outside, and picks up his gun, because everyone in Australia owns a gun, or at least they did in 1984.  Next comes some hairy, grunting thing that blows through the grand-dad like he was a made of tissue paper, slams through the wall of the house, and snatches the toddler right out of the crib.  Whatever it is, it slams through the far wall of the house, sparking a fire that reduces the house to ash, and leaves the grand-dad wandering the night screaming for his lost grandson...

The name of this flick gives it away, but it's a big boar, or what they call a Razorback.  Old grand-dad is actually tried for the crime of killing his own grand-son, but even what passed for law in small-town Australia back in 1984 couldn't convict a man with such an appalling lack of evidence.  Grand-dad devotes his life to getting vengeance on the big Razorback, but he doesn't get his chance until a newswoman from the States shows up to make a big stink about the killing of Kangaroos for pet food a few years later.  And that sets the stage for the real hero of the movie, Dicko Baker! Dicko Baker is a zany 'roo-hunter and opal miner and works at the Petpak meat-packing plant that turns roo-meat into dogfood for...  Wait, what?  Dicko's not the hero, he's the villain?  Shit!  I got this movie all wrong.  I guess the real hero is the news-lady's husband, but that's just crazy.  Who the hell comes all the way to Australia just to find his wife?  What a lunatic.

Razorback is an older movie, so don't expect any of the special effects to be all that CGI bullshit that fills all the monster movies nowadays.  All the wild kangaroos and piglets are absolutely real!  :-o  Though I am pretty sure the big Razorback is the Aussie equivalent of a mechanical Jaws.  The people are also real, and though the acting isn't particularly outstanding, it gets the job done.  Gregory Harrison is the news-lady's husband, supposedly the "real" hero of this movie, but he can't hold a candle to the likes of David Argue and Chris Heywood, who play Dicko and Benny Baker, the Roo-hunting, opal-mining Baker brothers.  The Baker brothers not only provide comedy relief for this movie, but provide that vital bit of scenery-chewing background that just moves the whole plot right along.

I caught this movie on Turner Classic Movies last week, but I have no idea where you guys might find it.  I've seen it before, but it's worth a second or third viewing.  The action isn't exactly crazy tense, but the pig scares the bejeesus out of you when it does show up.  The thing's farkin huge, and has tusks about yay-big (holds hands about a foot apart for emphasis, even though you can't see details over the internet).  Anywho, check out Razorback if you feel like it, and can find it.

In other news, not much else going on.  I started the year with the flu, and though I'm over it now, I'm just waiting for the next round of it to come after me.  Seems like everyone in the country is sick with flu right now, and the flu season doesn't really start to fade til March.  I hope I make it til Spring.  :-/

Catch you guys with a review the next time I see a good movie.  :-)

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