Movies
Razor Eaters (V)
“RAZOR EATERS isn’t really a new film. It’s almost 5-years old at this point. But it’s finally making its way to DVD here in the states. The film is really an Australian version of NATURAL BORN KILLERS.”
Australian cinema has put out some provocative films over the past few years. Films like CHOPPER or Mark Savage’s underground flicks DEFENCELESS and SENSITIVE NEW-AGE KILLER. But even in the extremity of those last two productions those films have been missing that certain immediacy that seemed set to explode off the screen back in 1992 when Geoffery Wright and Russell Crowe stormed across the pacific and landed ROMPER STOMPER into the laps of an unsuspecting American audience. The truth is, when I saw ROMPER STOMPER during its theatrical run, I really hadn’t seen anything like it in terms of violence. It was a film that arrived at almost precisely the same time as Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVIOR DOGS and the French film MAN BITES DOG. Combined, those 3 films blew independent cinema out of the water with regards to extreme violence on screen. It would only be a scant few years before U.S. screens everywhere were inundated with TRUE ROMANCE, TRAINSPOTTING and Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS. The French went on to bring us IRREVERSIBLE, BAISE-MOI and all manner of new millennium torture films from FRONTIER(S) to HAUTE TENSION. But what happened in Australia? Well we’re about to find out.
RAZOR EATERS isn’t really a new film. It’s almost 5-years old at this point. But it’s finally making its way to DVD here in the states. The film is really an Australian version of NATURAL BORN KILLERS. It tells a tale loosely based on The Hedge Burners gang, which terrorized the Melbourne area committing a series of crimes and videotaping their exploits. In the film, the Razor Eaters are committed to “Organize, Traumatize, and Immortalize” and are lead into suburban battle by their leader Zach (Richard Cawthorne). Their goal is total anarchy, book deals, T-shirts, fan clubs, and copycat killers—nothing less than full-frenzied media exploitation and pop culture immortality. Their victims are Drug Runners, Bad Drivers, Arms Dealers, Egomaniacal Soccer Stars and Corrupt Politicians. They’re modern day demon Robin Hoods being lead about by Zach—who seems to be channeling Robert Carlyle’s TRAINSPOTING performance as Begbie into a whole other realm of sheer madness. The public is split on their support of the Razor Eaters leaving Police Detective Danny Berdan (Paul Moder) even more at a loss as to how to apprehend these maniacs who are actually ridding his streets of Heroin Pushers and Gun Runners.
At its gut, the story of RAZOR EATERS is compelling in its hyperactive vigilantism. The character of Zach is a lightening rod of charisma and it’s easy to see how he can work a throng of disaffected youth into a furious crowd of fans while shooting off an AK-47 just as easily as he convinces his friends to start a murderous rampage while spouting quotes from Robert Kennedy, blaming Australia for making them the way they are and lamenting that his country has no Capone or Krays or Trenchcoat Mafia to elevate. Zach is a modern day Charlie Manson, only Zach has no problem getting his hands dirty.
Most of the film is told in retrospect as Detective Berdan pieces together the group’s weeklong reign of terror as told through the amateur video they shot themselves and store surveillance camera footage of their atrocities. This jerky, Vérité, hand-held style makes the film even more gritty and urgent and Writer/Director Shannon Young uses the guerilla style to more than make up for the films budget shortfalls. In fact, considering all the artillery that the Razor Eaters are packing, it would appear that Young and his crew spent every available penny on Pyrotechnics, Squibs and Bullet Ridden Cars. It’s an orgy of gunplay and fireworks the likes of which most low-budget filmmakers never even attempt and coupled with the superior acting on display from Cawthorne it raises the bar on what could have been just another wannabe-gangster-flick into a full metal meltdown of blown up buildings, blown away bystanders and scene-stealing scenery chewing.
If you’re looking for a film that’s as vicious in it’s assessment of society as it is in it’s dispatching of victims then RAZOR EATERS is going to be right up your alley. If you’re looking for a film with easy answers and clear cut heroes and villains, you’re looking at the wrong DVD. Whether or not the RAZOR EATERS are the winners or the losers, when the final credits crawl is a matter of opinion. That Young doesn’t feel the need to provide you those simple answers is a matter of integrity. If you think that by watching a film like this, you’re actually buying into the idea that we live in a society where the worst aspects of humanity are endlessly sensationalized by the media, then you’re probably right on the money. You decide.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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