Turkey Shoot

Despite watching Turkey Shoot (Escape 2000) whilst I was drunk i can admit that all Australians should be proud of this film. If the world can remember Australia for one thing it should be TURKEY SHOOT, brilliant acting from Steve Railsback and Olivia Hussey and a fantastic storyline about the future and how humans are used for sport in an insane game. I am suprised and frankly yes shocked this film did not win at least one award, for shame.

'Turkey Shoot' makes me proud to be an Aussie! There is something so gloriously stupid and cheesy about this movie that it utterly fascinates me!

Set in a future police state, the movie begins with three new prisoners being taken to a "rehabilitation" centre. They are Steve Railsback ('Helter Skelter', 'The Stunt Man'), Olivia Hussey (Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet'), and Lynda Stoner (err, 'Cop Shop'). The place, of course, is a seething hot bed of brutality, sexual frustration and yellow jump-suits. Pretty quickly we find out that our three newcomers are going to be hunted for sport by the Camp's leader, the enigmatic Thatcher, his sadistic colleagues, and a werewolf in a dune buggy.

I won't say any more as to not spoil your enjoyment of this long forgotten sci fi thriller. Australians will get more out of it than other viewers, as they will fully appreciate the supporting cast of soap stars, 70s TV personalities, and at least two 'Mad Max' actors. In fact, I cannot go without singling out the unknown, unsung hero of Australian cinema, Bill Young, who plays Griff here, and was also in another underrated Aussie trash classic 'Body Melt', AND 'The Matrix' AND 'Chopper'! If this guy has a fan club, sign me up!

'Turkey Shoot' - If you haven't seen this one you just don't know what you're missing!

Ozploitation. Exploitations colloquial cousin. During a period Ozploitation films where popular and Turkey Shoot is a notable success amongst some of the trash of the Australians attempts at exploitation films. It's fairly controversial 'The Most Dangerous Game' approach has helped it gain a fair amount of cult following over the years and all though it doesn't hold up in the slightest to later films with the same honourable human hunting intentions such as Battle Royale and more recently Exam it still holds up nicely as the definitive Australian approach to the subject matter.

Turkey Shoot takes place in a dystopian future, now past, where 'social deviants' can be re-educated and returned to society through concentration style camps. The films narrative starts by following the lives of three newly arrived inmates and their view upon the extreme violence and toil prisoners suffer throughout their stay, mostly beatings and depravity by a hugely entertaining large bold Australian with a handlebar moustache. In the second half of the film the camps owners, safari British style hunters, round up five one-dimensional, to the extreme, characters (we have whore, rebel, rebel mark 2, bad guy and vulnerable) and force them to participate for their possible freedom in a human hunt, staring themselves, called Turkey Shoot. When faced with the dilemma of what to do when hunted each character uses their own personality to forge different ways of dealing with the situation and in true exploitation style extreme violence bordering on hilarity ensues.

Brain Trenchard-Smiths direction is riddled with plot holes but the right ingredients are there; i.e. gore, nudity and some kind of circus freak werewolf guy. What makes the film and its direction good is that it doesn't treat itself seriously, there is no character development or even some kind of message or lesson learnt by the end of the film. It just wants to exist to entertain its audience and being a film exploiting violence make money. All the factors that would bother audiences in drama films don't matter in Turkey Shoot and can be disregarded as its honesty in being a technically bad film tells the audience that it wasn't made to win awards or be visually or musically stunning.

Naturally the acting is bad. But as all the characters only have one characteristic for the actors to act in the characters are appealing as comical relief from the films serious, even if not shown in the film, underlying story. The English actors are great in playing their roles as the bad guys in typical posh ascents to stress that they are 'better people' than the Ausies. The person that stands out most however is Roger Ward as Chief Guard Ritter, his enthusiastic approach to the violent sadistic character fits perfectly creating a highly memorable giant Australian with a handlebar moustache. This along with the werewolf placed in the film just to chew peoples toes and such are probably the most imaginative parts of the film and make it memorable over many other films in its genre.

Visually and musically there is little going on. The film is shot and edited nicely enough but sometimes its conventional style makes you think that the director could have done so much more. The aspect that saves its dull camera work comes from the variety of lush Australian landscapes ranging from the sandy concentration camp style centre to woods, fields of long dry grass and beaches. This helps the film as a whole always capture your interest and I'm in no doubt that without this kind of variety in the sets landscapes the film might seem very boring indeed. Overall Turkey Shoot holds up as an entertaining popcorn flick and with its blend of extreme violence and lovable characters (for the most part, villain-wise anyway) makes a entirely watchable exploitation movie. If you are a fan of the The Most Dangerous Game style situations it might boost itself to a must watch.

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

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!