Boar Movie Review

Holidaying in the Australian countryside, a mixed American and Aussie family run afoul of a man-eating wild boar the size of a rhino. With their vehicle smashed to bits, several already dead, and the boar salivating for more, the food chain is horribly reversed and the family find themselves helpless at the boar’s tusks.

This Australian creature features owes its broadest strokes to the cult favourite Razorback, but it’s more of a stylistic cross between Rogue and Hatchet; a gory, folksy slasher film which just so happens to feature a giant boar as its monster. Wolf Creek star John Jarratt plays against type as the kindly local town drunk, and Bill Moseley is there as wet lettuce stepdad Bruce. Keep an eye out too, for Mad Max stars Steve Bisley and Roger Ward, rounding out the likeable supporting cast. But of the humans, champion strongman Nathan Jones emerges victor, if only for the sheer gusto with which he throws himself into this ridiculous killer pig movie.

As for the boar itself, viewers shouldn’t be left disappointed by this impressive hog. Kept shrouded in darkness for just long enough to drum up the tension, when the beast is revealed it makes for a nicely grotesque, truly threatening horror movie monster. If the CGI is Syfy-level shaky during the broad daylight action sequences, the more practical effects make up for it later on when darkness falls again and the humans come up close and personal with the boar’s jaws. The animal-on-human violence in this one makes Rampage and The Meg look like a pleasant day at the family petting zoo. Jones too, could give Dwayne Johnson and the Statham a run for their money.

It’s fourth time lucky for writer and director Chris Sun, as Boar is his most enjoyable movie yet. It’s sharp, sick and slick, with a good cast, gainfully employed (Jarratt and Ward are almost heartbreakingly sympathetic here). The action sequences are effectively done, the gore plentiful. On that front, it delivers everything one might reasonably expect from a giant killer pig movie.

Nevertheless, the story’s wonky pacing means that the film doesn’t feel cohesive until the second half, and many of its characters could have been better integrated. It’s almost literally a film of two halves, in which characters from the first barely interact with those from the second. Its structure is all over the place, and this holds true of its finale too, which doesn’t satisfy nearly as much as some of the action which precedes it.

Boar is a mixed bag of pork scratchings, but there’s more than enough meat amidst the rinds and gristle for us to consider it a broadly successful Aussie creature feature. Fans of B-movie schlock should eat this one right up.