Turkey Shoot (1983)

the audience applauded

A Masterpiece!

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I first saw this movie over thirty years ago, and if not for the frightening subject matter would have passed for a very black comedy. The film is set sometime in a dystopian future, where 'deviants', those who oppose the New World Order Government are sent to concentration camps. Camp 47, is such a camp in this movie and is ran by a cold blooded sociopath named Thatcher (who undoubtedly would have been tried for war crimes in other circumstances), and his equally cold blooded guests.For the first half of Turkey Shoot, our hapless trio of Steve, Lynda and Olivia (who apparently was really miserable during filming) are subjected to all sorts of tribulations, including witnessing two horrific executions, attempted rape and Steve Railsback's character, Paul Anders is placed into a cage where his musculoskeletal system is put under an enormous strain.This film is violent, it is gory, and yes, some F Bombs are dropped. Not for the faint hearted. Some characters are more sympathetic than others, particularly Rita (Lynda Stoner), Chris (Olivia Hussey and Paul (Steve Railsback) Bill Young's character Griff deserves an honorable mention here as well. Given today's climate, however, Turkey Shoot is a cautionary tale about how the world could end up like this and camps such as Camp 47 could exist.

In a totalitarian country, any subversives, undesirables and "deviants" are sent to a prison camp to be rehabilitated and reeducated. The camp is run in fascist fashion, with guards torturing and killing prisoners for sport. Their pinnacle of the guards oppression is an event where a select band of prisoners are set free in the surrounding bush, to be hunted by the guards and special guests for sport - the Turkey Shoot.Quite trashy with very low production values, but you know this going in - this is, after all, a B-grade exploitation movie. However, Turkey Shoot is pretty bad even by that genre's standards.Basic, lame plot. Really not much too it. There is some intrigue about how the prisoners escape their ordeal, but it becomes quite predictable, quite quickly.Some incredibly stupid, implausible scenes - the writers and director weren't even trying to make things seem realistic. For example, man has his legs crushed by a bulldozer. Blood magically starts gushing from his chest and mouth. Now I'm no doctor but that seems medically impossible.Then there's the performances. They're largely of the ultra-hammy variety, with the actor who played the whip-cracking chief guard particularly bad. However, Olivia Hussey puts in a good performance, especially considering the script and direction she had to work with, and is about the only good thing about the movie. She looks distinctly out of place in this movie, being a decent actor and having starred in movies like Romeo and Juliet and Death on the Nile. Her career must have been in a massive slump for her to agree to appear in this.

Turkey Shoot (1982) * 1/2 (out of 4) Released as ESCAPE 2000 in America, this Australian production is yet another take off on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. This time out political prisoners are sent to a camp where they're going to be turned "normal" but the boss man realizes that there are too many prisoners so he offers a group their freedom if they can escape him as a hunter. Two such people (Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey) decide to take the challenge. I had never heard of this film before watching the documentary NOT QUITE Hollywood and there's no question that the clips in that film made this seem a lot more entertaining than it actually is. I think fans of cult movies will probably find some entertainment here but those expecting a lot of exploitation are probably going to be disappointed. For starters, the film lost thirteen-minutes when it was released in America and we've been told that it was the violence that was cut in order to get an R-rating. Even in its uncut form this film really isn't all that violent so I'm wondering how true this is or if perhaps it was a bunch of the boring dialogue sequences that were trimmed. There's some nudity thrown in with a couple shower scenes but the highlight or campy moment of the film belongs to Hussey who takes a shower with her clothes on! What violence we do get mainly happens towards the end but there's really none so memorable that you'd recommend the film on that alone. Another problem is that at 93-minutes the film goes on way too long and in reality it runs out of gas around the fifty-minute mark, well before the actual game begins so there's simply not enough energy or excitement to carry the film. Railsback and Hussey are clearly just in this thing for the money but both of them seem to be giving it their all. The scene stealer is without question Roger Ward as the lumbering abuser. TURKEY SHOOT is a pretty bad movie that has gained a cult following over the years but I think most are just going to see a boring action picture with more hype than anything else.

Boy, I'm telling you right now, if you do not like your movies with lots of red meat and sadism, then just skip Brian Trenchard-Smith's TURKEY SHOOT. According to all involved, there was more in the script that was discarded by the producers, the work schedule shortened, budget cut, and the actors were miserable(good portions of the script tossed out because of budgetary restraints changed the entire movie according to Lynda Stoner) having to star in such a gratuitous film as this. Why is such a lovely creature as Olivia Hussey doing in a film such as this? I asked myself that during the big shootout finale as prisoners and guards engage in gunfire as the revolt commences with Steve Railsback driving a terrain loader as Hussey is firing a machine gun. Hussey firing a machine gun is just bizarre; such a fragile, elegant woman, who had somehow found herself in Austrailia acting in this movie, I wonder if she fired her agent after this.Major Spoilers AheadAnyway, Railsback finds himself the star of TURKEY SHOOT, a renowned prison camp escape artist chosen along with three others(Hussey, Lynda Stoner, and John Ley)to be hunted and if they are able to avoid certain death after a period of time will be granted freedom. This group is soon joined by Bill Young whose demise is quite grisly as he's shot by multiple arrows thanks to Carmen Duncan's aristocratic sociopath, Jennifer, before being crushed under the van of warden Charles Thatcher(played by Michael Craig who orders executions, orders, and commands dead pan, only a sinister grin to convey his bloodthirsty nature, particularly evident in one scene where he could easily dispatch Railsback's Paul Anders, caught out in the open, but lets him go, with plans to have more fun before shooting him). You have homosexual Tito(Michael Petrovich)and his "pet", a half-man/half-beast named Alph(Steve Rackman who just looks ridiculous)who stalk joyfully John Ley's scrawny and weak Dodge. We get a nicely wholesome scene where Tito sics Alph on Dodge where he progressively beats the little man to a pulp shortly after ripping off his pinkie toe and eating it! Don't worry, Alph gets his when Anders stabs him in the eye with a broken stick from a tree, moving out of the way as Tito accidentally cuts him in half with the terrain loader. Oh, and Jennifer, who playfully had left Stoner's Rita(after much chase using her arrows with explosive tips)mutilated and butchered, gets a dose of her own medicine when an arrow thrusted into her throat blows her face off. And, Thatcher, well, he had Anders right where he want him, and, in letting him go, gets his just desserts. It's the "highlight" of the film(next to another scene I will mention shortly)where Thatcher gets his head taken off with Anders' machine gun. Roger Ward has the hammiest role as a towering bald menace, Chief Guard Ritter who certainly delights in killing and maiming(one of the more memorable scenes has his head guard destroying a petite short young woman, Thatcher using her as an example towards the others to behave even though she had did nothing wrong). Ritter makes the unfortunate mistake of leaving his machete stuck in the sand while in fisticuffs with Anders. Soon Hussey's Chris Walters is able to stop Ritter from shooting an unarmed Anders by chopping his hands off.Look, this is the kind of movie for fans of blood and guts, dismemberment and explosions, where everything is so over-the-top and beyond the realm of decency that if you enjoy seeing all that I have listed in detail above, then TURKEY SHOOT is for you. I personally found this hilarious and entertaining because of how Trenchard-Smith pushes the envelope and hits the viewer with so many moments of "Woah"(like when Tito gets the machete buried into his skull, flopping into the terrain loader as he bleeds out, or when a trap involving sharpened stakes impales Gus Mercurio's guard Red with his stomach spilling out)that I just sat back in astonishment. There are no boundaries here. The futuristic plot concerns a totalitarian society where the youth are sent to concentration camps in some twisted agenda of "conforming to society's demands". The hunt consists of the higher classes(those who can afford to pay to play or hold powerful positions), with an advantage of having weapons and vehicles(Jennifer rides a horse!), chasing after prisoners(the lower classes)they treat no different than vulnerable animals, prey to be slaughtered, simple as that.