Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Day: Halloween 2010 edition!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf or streamed via Netflix Instant and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day.]
Welcome my fellow Samhainers on this festive holiday! I’m closing out this run of A Movie A Day on a real high note, boils and ghouls!
Razorback is Australia’s answer to JAWS, but instead of a giant shark we have a giant boar.
If you’ve read me for any length of time you’ll probably know that I’m a big fan of Jaws rip-offs. Not all of them, of course, but I like more than I don’t.
Razorback has risen to the top of the Jaws-inspired movies stack next to Piranha and Alligator. You know why? It’s not cheesy. How the hell you make a movie about a killer giant pig and do it without camp oozing off the screen is beyond me, but Russell Mulcahy (who later went on to direct Highlander) did it.
The opening of the film has an old, grizzled outback hunter guy watching after his grandson. And fuck-off giant truck sized boar shows up, gores the old man and breaks down walls to snatch up (and presumably eat) the small child.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
This poor bastard, played by Bill Kerr, is then tried and nearly convicted for the disappearance of his grandson. For some reason the “he was taken by a giant killer pig” excuse doesn’t seem to fly with the authorities.
But he’s let go due to lack of evidence and we see the birth of Ahab, the origin of Quint as this man devotes his life to hunting and killing this mythic beast.
And Kerr is fucking great in this role. He’s old enough and his lived life shows clearly on his face, giving weight and gravitas to his lines later in the movie.
Mulcahy also pulls a bit of a Psycho on us with the introduction of a pregnant American animal rights reporter who is flown out to Australia to cover the mass killing of kangaroos by the hunters in the region, paid for by a local pet food factory that uses the meat for its dog food.
Of course since it’s Australia we have a few key things that have to happen. There has to be at least one weird punk asshole character, a pimped out car or truck and nudity. Go ahead and check all three off your Aussie film list because this flick has ‘em. And boy does it have ‘em.
The punk asshole characters, one step away from Mad Max, are Dicko and Benny Baker (David Argue and Chris Haywood) employees of the pet food company who, of course, don’t like American reporters sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong and chase her down one night. Things are looking grim for her, then out of nowhere this giant killer pig attacks.
But just when she thinks she’s safe, the punks flee, leaving her with the killer pig who proceeds to eat the shit out of her. It’s a rather horrific death, doubly so when you remember that she’s pregnant.
I thought that was going to be the main character! Thank God it wasn’t, by the way. Judy Morris is all well and good, but the reporter isn’t all that exciting of a character. Her answers seeking husband, Gregory Harrison, is a much stronger character.
Of course at some point the grieving husband and grizzled hunter team up, but to make an already great movie better the grizzled hunter is shacking up with an incredibly hot blonde (Arkie Whiteley, from The Road Warrior). And I’m not just throwing around the term incredibly hot. Good lord is she adorable in this movie. Think of Grease-era Olivia Newton-John and you’re close to how cute this girl us. And thank the movie gods the nudity box is checked whenever we first meet her. She’s taking an outdoor shower, bless her heart.
So you have two guys with grudges going out in the brush hunting a giant killer pig with some crazy Aussie punks wrecking havoc whenever they can.
Oh, I almost forgot. Both the punks and the grizzled hunter have reinforced rides, trucks plated with steel and hooks and guns and all sorts of macho men gizmos. You can check that off the list now, too.
The pig effects are quite good. Not flawless, of course, but Mulcahy does a good enough job setting up the world and shooting around the effect that it never really gets embarrassing (I’m looking at you ManBearPig from Prophecy).
In fact, Mulcahy deserves a lot of credit here. There’s a lot of style to this movie and if there’s anything I like it is a little theatrical flare in my supernatural horror stories. This isn’t our reality, really. It’s recognizable, but one step removed. Not all the light sources make sense, but they sure look cool and set the mood perfectly.
Final Thoughts: Warner Archives put this out on DVD and it’s a must have for any genre fan. My only wish is they would have been able to remaster it like they have some of their more recently releases. It’s a fine print and the best anybody’s ever been able to see outside of a movie theater, but there’s still some artifacting that was noticeable. But the movie’s great, a ton of fun and has a pretty crazy finale that delivers on the set-up. Like I said at the beginning, it was definitely a good pick to send off Halloween AMAD 2010.
Currently in print on DVD: YES
Currently available on Netflix Instant: NO
Well that’s it. Hope you guys enjoyed following along as I crossed yet another 31 movies off my “haven’t seen” list. Some good flicks, some not so good flicks, but an adventure the whole way.
Since it is Halloween and I’ve made you fine folks read about some pretty horrible horror movies I figured I’d run through some really decent horror flicks that are available to stream via Netflix Instant. Of course you have to watch The Walking Dead tonight on AMC, but for other good horror flicks you can fire up the old video game consol or whathaveyou and stream some of these great flicks:
PEEPING TOM (1960)
BLACK SABBATH (1963)
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)
THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (2001)
THE ORPHANAGE (2007)
FRIGHT NIGHT (1985)
THE EVIL DEAD (1981)
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (1988)
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)
BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)
SHOCK WAVES (1977)
THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982)
CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980)
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
THE BURNING (1981)
BURNT OFFERINGS (1976)
PHANTASM (1979)
SUSPIRIA (1977)
SESSION 9 (2001)
PATRICK (1978)
THE BEAST WITHIN (1982)
CREEPSHOW (1982)
CARRIE (1976)
SCANNERS (1980)
THE FLY (1986)
THE FLY (1958)
CANDYMAN (1992)
JD’S REVENGE (1976)
TERROR TRAIN (1980)
CHILD’S PLAY (1988)
THE TOOLBOX MURDERS (1978)
AUDITION(1999)
That’s not a full list of the horror available, but a damn good selection of horror flicks that get the Quint stamp of approval.
Happy Halloween folks!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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