Turkey Shoot

This was so mindlessly entertaining, you forget about the constant weird inconsistencies in the script. Primarily people show up out of nowhere, even though, well, it SEEMS to be a big compound, wherever they are. Anyways, it's 1981 or so, and the people are so out of control they hold people in camps. One of the camps have decided to control it's prisoner population by holding hunts, featuring prisoners as game. It attracts a lot of big game hunters looking for the kill! Steve Railsback (!!) and Olivia Hussey (?!?!) are two of the prisoners in the game, and they and 3 others (we can pretty much assume their fate) run run run away from the hunters. The hunters seemingly have no problems finding them apparently (which is slightly strange... how did they do that?) and so they must fight to stay alive! Exploding arrows, deadly all terrain vehicles and, yes, mutant werewolf men are used! It's all pretty strange and goes along in a pretty wild pace. I'd highly recommend anyone who likes their movies bloody, fun, and cheesy.

Set in a totalitarian future society, this film has a bleak but quite vividly drawn vision of the world...for its first 20 minutes or so; then it turns into a straight action-chase adventure. The uncut 90-minute version is extremely gory, but some of the effects are rather lame. Nevertheless, it's a fast-paced, trashily entertaining film, and the actors are adequate for the little they're asked to do. (**)

Citizens labelled "deviant" are sent to a prison camp, where the motto is "Freedom is obedience, obedience is work, work is life." The regime is brutal and the only chance of release is by taking part in a "turkey shoot" in which inmates are the prey and the camp governor plus a few cronies are the hunters. The camp scenes reminded me of the many Naziploitation flicks such as Ilsa movies that were churned out in the 1970's, the hunt part has obvious comparisons with "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932). Turkey Shoot is considered to be an Ozploitation movie. In the UK the movie was originally released heavily cut under its original title but in 2003 Vipco released it uncut on DVD as Blood Camp Thatcher. This movie contains a lot of violence. On one hand a male guard savagely beating a female inmate was quite nasty but on the flipside some of the gore is quite laughable. A man has both of his hands cut off but the shape of them is clearly visible through his sleeves. One of the weapons used against the "turkeys" is a half-man half-wolf freak, played by wrestler Steve Rackman. This is one of those movies in which certain characters appear immune from machine gun fire, it is all very trashy but fun too. Amongst the international cast is Olivia Hussey, she starred in the horror classic "Black Christmas" (1974) and it sounds like they pinched a scary musical chord from that movie, only it sounds completely out of place here. Turkey Shoot is no classic but like one character says it "beats the hell out of network television". It sure does!

It is no coincidence that "Turkey Shoot" a.k.a. "Escape 2000" has a prison camp warden named Thatcher. For whatever reason the film played big in Margaret Thatcher's England. A nice assortment of women and men political prisoners are brainwashed and routinely tortured in Prison Camp 97. Although apparently an attempt was made to market this as "black comedy", it is really some sort of hybrid women in prison, hunted in the jungle combination. It has the required nude shower scene, along with lots of meaningless shooting and explosions. The actual turkey shoot pits armed evil types against unarmed resourceful prisoners. Although the whole thing makes little sense, there is plenty of over the top action, and for some unknown reason "Turkey Shoot" is strangely entertaining. - MERK

Turkey Shoot is an Australian remake of the classic (And many many many times adapted) The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and in this guys estimation is not only the best adaptation but better than the original.

It twists the original tale by making it about a world where "Deviants" are sent to a glorified penal colony. To entertain the wealthy they are set off into the wilderness with a 3hr head start hunted down and killed.

Personally I liked this angle, not only did it work in theory but it worked in practice as well. Instead of playing the suspense and tension card like the others it becomes a full on action film and surprisingly (Considering I'm not an action guy) it very much works in the movies favor.

Turkey Shoot is a fantastic piece of Australian cinema and had it not been for a couple of unfortunate flaws could have been a true classic.

The Good:

Interesting twist on the classic tale

Very well paced

All round likeable movie

The Bad:

Looks and sounds very dated

Couple of spots fell flat