Razorback (1984) - Scream Factory - March 14, 2023

[Christian Muth]

Somebody, book a flight to Japan pronto and get exploring those film vaults!

Chris

[Nick Michalak]

Originally Posted by HippieDalek

Russell Mulcahy's debut film. Despite the Highlander connection I've never actually got around to seeing this beast...

I bought the Beyond Genres series release several years ago from Umbrella Entertainment. They did a full restoration on it. It looks stunning, but almost forgettable in plot. I should give it another run through someday.

[Cinema84]

Originally Posted by SpaceBlackKnight

[Show spoiler]Several Australian films back in the day had distributors with little-to-no funding (or incentive) to do much with their product, other than getting titles out for theater/TV and video to stay afloat. Most distributors, film labs and storage facilities discarded original film and audio elements after making release prints and/or IPs for archival purposes. Some distributors made edits on certain films for a lower rating certificate (read ticket sales, moolah) directly on the negatives. Some high profile directors and film funding groups did make efforts to preserve original elements or OCNs for future/export market purposes, but there were far few in-between that did and most had no money or very little left to even get the title out to theaters or overseas markets.

In the case of Razorback, the OCN edits Aussie distributor Greater Union did were carried over to the IP and new prints made from it. The cut OCN is believed to be long lost or discarded, but in some podcast for the Umbrella release it was theorized the OCN possibly got sent to Warner, as they got distribution rights for various territories and made IPs and dupes form it.

However, there were also rumors of an uncut dupe neg that was sent over to Toho-Towa for the subbed Japanese theatrical release. Russell Mulcahy mentioned this in an interview as he once believed the Japanese VHS and LD were of this version, before discovering they were based on the version from Warner.

As to the Aussie VHS release being uncut, that was made from the uncut dupe before it supposedly got shipped to Japan. Unforninutely, on top of being a messy analog PAL master it was permanently butchered to pan and scan ratio.

Unless their distribution rights expired, this may possibly be licensed from Warner. Probably is since it's using cover art Warner used for the older releases. We won't know exactly until they put out specs.

Not that it would matter much since it was confirmed to the cut version, but if Warner has the OCN Shout probably did a new 4k transfer off that, if not a 2k off some IP. Unlikely they'd use the 4k IP master by Umbrella as Warner almost never allows usage of transfers from other entities, plus their policy is 2k - IP/IN/Fine Grains, 4k - OCN only. Would be a miracle if someone else tipped them off the Japanese sources and they found a usable print to reconstruct from. At worst, they'd include the cut VHS footage as bonus material as I can't see them including the full uncut VHS transfer.



Warner are much more protective with their materials than MGM and Universal, but don't completely block 3rd parties from creating their own transfers unlike Sony and 20th Century.

Like Paramount, Warner handles film scanning of it's materials but allows third parties to finish the rest. Cliff confirmed this for titles like Creepshow, and Criterion's Shaft and Menace II Society were scanned by Warner while Criterion did the mastering and 4k HDR work themselves.

Quite depressing, yet fascinating read. I had no idea distributors had such power over completed films. So a Director/filmmaker spends a year or more making a film, and the Distributor is allowed to go in and make edits to the negative as they see fit? What if a different entity other than the distributor financed the film? Reading the post above it's really a minor miracle the film survived at all. Bummer that we likely will not get the uncut version, hopefully the Shout release will at least be as definitive as it could be.

[The Great Owl]

I love my Region A playable Umbrella release, but am watching the developing news here with great interest.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

Quite depressing, yet fascinating read. I had no idea distributors had such power over completed films. So a Director/filmmaker spends a year or more making a film, and the Distributor is allowed to go in and make edits to the negative as they see fit? What if a different entity other than the distributor financed the film? Reading the post above it's really a minor miracle the film survived at all. Bummer that we likely will not get the uncut version, hopefully the Shout release will at least be as definitive as it could be.

Greater Union were also co-producer as they put down a huge chunk of cash into the production. Theoretically they had the power on what the film should be and what needed to be trimmed to make it marketable.

[Akijama]

Just announced:

Bonus Features
Restored 4K Master By Umbrella Entertainment
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
NEW Audio Commentary With Film Critics/Historians Lee Gambin And Jarret Gahan
Audio Commentary With Director Russell Mulcahy And Shayne Armstrong
Audio Interview With Actor Gregory Harrison
Jaws On Trotters: The Making of RAZORBACK Featuring Interviews With Russell Mulcahy, Producer Hal McElroy, Razorback Creator Bob McCarron, Composer Iva Davies, And Actors Judy Morris And Chris Haywood
Deleted Scenes With Optional Audio Commentary
A Certain Piggish Nature – Looking Back At RAZORBACK With Film Historians Lee Gambin, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Sally Christie, And Emma Westwood
RAZORBACK: The VHS Cut – The Original Uncut 4:3 Australian Home Video Version
Theatrical Trailer
VHS Trailer
Still Gallery

[cakefactory]

So looks like we'll get a new audio commentary and that's the only reason to get this if you have the second Umbrella release. Looks like they carried over everything from that release except the 84 minutes of extended video interviews from Not Quite Hollywood. (They're fairly redundant with the other two long documentaries, so I don't think the loss of that is a reason to skip this release if you don't already have the Umbrella and don't want to import for whatever reason).

[starsteam]

Nice, best outcome. Did the standalone release of Not Quite Hollywood include the extended interviews?

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by starsteam

Nice, best outcome. Did the standalone release of Not Quite Hollywood include the extended interviews?

Not exactly. The Not Quite Hollywood release has its own extra of "deleted scenes" but it's obviously working with a much larger pool of interviewees than just "people that worked on Razorback" and I am sure it's not necessarily just extended interviews anyway. The "Just razorback" extended interviewees is 84 minutes while the extended/deleted scenes on the NQH set is only 71 minutes.

I don't have that disc so I am not sure what overlap there is between the extended scenes and the razorback extended interviews, for all I know there isn't any. It would make sense since the same label released both discs; I dunno why they'd want to duplicate features across releases. They aren't universal with Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein!

[Bravis Jacobson]

Might get this. I think I saw it once when I was a kid. Can't recall anything.

[TripleHBK]

Glad I went with the Umbrella disc last weekend. I picked it up for $17 on ebay as I didn't expect Scream Factory's disc to be all that different despite the extra cost and it appears my hunch was correct.

[DukeTogo84]

Even though I can't actually see this in my order history at Scream's website, it did ship today. Can't wait to give this one a go.

[DaylightsEnd]

Sticking with my Umbrella blu. I’ll for a 4K uhd announcement before I get froggy and jump.

[Rayjg]

Yeah, if you have the Umbrella release(s) there's no point in picking up this one. It'll probably get announced this year for UHD from Umbrella too.

[DukeTogo84]

I never had the Umbrella release and it looks like it uses the same scan as the film opens up with the Umbrella logo. With that being said, this looks fantastic! After looking at the new The Fan release from Mill Creek, it was nice seeing something that looked this good. Overall a solid release by Scream Factory.

[gunnerg]

I'm glad to hear good reports on this release! I just received it, but haven't watched yet. I was very happy with the Umbrella release, except for the wide case and slipcover/case artwork. This Scream factory release is slimmer and the artwork is like the Warner Archives dvd, which is more reminiscent of the vhs I rented at the video store as a kid. I'm very happy this works out as a replacement.

[DukeTogo84]

This was an interesting film. Even though this is set in the present, it felt like I was watching Mad Max at times and it was set in the post apocalypse or something? I thought it was pretty good, but felt disjointed at times. A bit more humor than I was expecting, but the film was very well shot. I've been hoping this would be getting a release for years now ever since BarnDoor listed it as a candidate for a WB release. Glad this film is checked off and don't have to worry about it getting a release.

[HuggyBear73]

Any word yet on which has the edge on transfer... this or Umbrella?

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by HuggyBear73

Any word yet on which has the edge on transfer... this or Umbrella?

It's the exact same transfer, but in terms of the encode, nothing has been mentioned yet.

[HuggyBear73]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

It's the exact same transfer, but in terms of the encode, nothing has been mentioned yet.

Right.. that's what I need to know.