Turkey Shoot is a 1982 ozploitation movie. When you see “produced by Antony I. Ginnane” and “directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith”it always gives one a feeling of confidence. At least the movie is unlikely to be dull.
The setting is a totalitarian future Australia in which absolute social conformity is enforced. This is a movie that seems much more chilling today than it was in 1982. It’s all very Orwellian, complete with very Orwellian slogans. All dissent is forbidden.
Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey) is a very ordinary woman who finds herself suspected of wrongthink and is sent to a re-education camp. The camp is run by the sadistic Charles Thatcher (Michael Craig). His political boss is Secretary Mallory (Noel Ferrier) whose sexual tastes seem to be more than a little outré. Mallory takes an immediate interest in Chris. She is terrified. That excites him.
The main protagonist is Paul Anders (Steve Railsback) who is convinced he cannot be broken. Thatcher intends to break him.
Also caught up in the net is Rita Daniels (Lynda Stoner). She’s been accused of sexcrime.
Anders is awaiting a chance to escape, as is Griff (Bill Young) who also believes that Thatcher cannot break him.
Life in the camp is an endless round of brutality and humiliation.
Thatcher is putting on an entertainment for a couple of important people. One is Mallory. The other is the very rich very sophisticated and very depraved Jennifer (Carmen Duncan). The entertainment will be a hunt, with five prisoners as the prey. The prisoners are told that if they are still alive and have not been captured by sundown they will be freed. Maybe it’s true, poor Chris desperately wants to believe it’s true, but it seems very unlikely.
The hunters are Thatcher, Mallory, Jennifer, several of the camp guards and a circus freak. I have no idea where he came from but he adds an extra exploitation element.
Most of the hunters are armed with guns but Jennifer prefers a crossbow. She likes to kill her victims slowly.
There’s plenty of graphic violence and gore and a very nasty sadistic tone. There’s some nudity as well, because this is after all an exploitation movie.
The action scenes are lively and energetic and over-the-top, as you’d expect from Trenchard-Smith.
The characterisations are all wafer-thin but this a straightforward violent action movie so who needs characterisation? The acting is mostly cartoonish which suits the feel of the movie. Olivia Hussey seems out of place in this movie but her performance works in the sense that she’s playing a woman who finds herself in a situation in which she really is hopelessly out of place. The standout performer is Carmen Duncan as Jennifer. She’s deliciously wicked and perverse.
This is not a women-in-prison movie as such but will probably have some appeal to fans of that genre.
The Umbrella DVD (they’ve released in on Blu-Ray as well) offers a very nice transfer without any extras.
This was approximately the 10,000th screen adaptation of Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game. The best of these is The Most Dangerous Game (1932) although Seven Women for Satan (1976) is definitely worth seeing as is Herb Stanley’s completely off-the-wall 1968 Confessions of a Psycho Cat.
