Turkey Shoot (1983)

the leading man is my tpye

Overrated

Lack of good storyline.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

"Excess is what makes life worth living." That seems to have been the motto for the people behind this wild and crazy Ozploitation action flick. In a world of a not-too-distant future, the government seeks to keep everybody in line, forbidding people to say anything against them. Among those picked up is Paul Anders (Steve Railsback), who tries to reach others over the radio. Even completely innocent citizens like Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey) *will* get snatched if they so much as defend a person being beaten. They're all taken to "re-education" camps like the one we see in this movie.Five of the prisoners get picked out for participating in a "turkey shoot", wherein they will be stalked by the camp master (Michael Craig) and his cronies. If they can survive for a certain amount of time, they will supposedly earn their freedom.Director Brian Trenchard-Smith has said that he liked to sometimes explore serious ideas in wacky ways. And so it is with this umpteenth variation on "The Most Dangerous Game", in which political subtext mixes with pure, straightforward entertainment. And what entertainment it is. It's thoroughly trashy, extremely fast paced, and genuinely exciting. The heroic characters tend to get overshadowed by the effectively loathsome villains. Craig (whose character is not named Thatcher for nothing), Roger Ward as swaggering head guard Ritter, Noel Ferrier as Secretary Mallory, Michael Petrovitch as slimy Tito, and sultry Carmen Duncan as the depraved Jennifer all register strongly.Adding to the fun factor is the presence of a "circus freak" character named Alph. Played by Steve Rackman, he looks like a reject from an "Island of Dr. Moreau" movie, and tears off peoples' toes and eats them. The fact that he's here is no better way to say, "Look, this is one of *those* movies. Deal with it."The violence is so wonderfully potent that folks are doing themselves a disservice if they see the heavily cut American release titled "Escape 2000". Do yourselves a favour and see the original 94 minute Australian feature under the "Turkey Shoot" title. That way, you see all the delicious over the top splatter in all its glory.Supremely diverting for aficionados of trash from Down Under.Eight out of 10.

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.

Oh, man! If I ended up in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world, you can bet your bag that I'd have a hermaphrodite ape-man as a sidekick, so when a guy turned up on Turkey Shoot with some sort of toff Wolfman as a buddy, this film had me truly sold.It's kinda slow at first, this one, but once it kicks into gear its Ozzie magic all the way...In the future or something folks that don't agree with the government get sent to correctional camps to get slapped around a bit by grinning guards. Only in this particular camp, see, the head guy likes to gather together people that like hunting other people. Basically the film builds up to this hunt and then the gore begins! People are cut in half, folks have their hands removed, and in one particularly great scene, someone is shot so much they just give up and explode...It's not overly gory, but entertaining in a way. Daft, too. You can't whack a bit of daft gore - just ask Sky News! It took me ages to find this one and your not getting a copy...

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.