Turkey Shoot (1983)

Wonderful Movie

good back-story, and good acting

Admirable film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

This movie is really not bright, not clever and even very naive. It tries to show "brutality of future totalistic camp" but it pales in comparison to harsh reality of real communistic and Nazi camps. In comparison to them this camp looks like holiday resort (except maybe for the "gasoline football").As a show that could teach the viewer something about survival it sucks hard. Basically, the "heroes" do almost everything wrong. The movie may act a a tutorial "how not to survive the turkey shoot". How a man can, for example, to lose firefight against the bow equipped woman when he has automatic rifle with a scope? He never tries to "camp and snipe" which would be probably the most efficient solution here. He never even tries to cover himself with suppressive fire. He just plays a target. Uh.These "heroes" do almost everything wrong - they try to run from the car on open area. The "hero" tries to run from a guy with a rifle with a scope on a rocky waterfall (yes it was pretty but you can hardly invent more stupid solution when there are woods all around). The heroes seem to be unable to stay still when the enemies are around so even if they try to hide it never works.The woman hero has enough time to enjoy relaxing bath instead of using mud for camouflage - and of course not a single hero ever trues to actually use any camouflage so they run in yellow pajamas in mostly gray and brown area. In communistic countries there were basic lessons for kids how to move in the environment unnoticed so I guess that every 10 years old would have better chance to survive the hunt. The heroes seem to like open spaces and running here in pairs hand in hand as they would be playing in the kindergarten.So - the movie is less than useful as a realistic lesson how to survive the hunt. It is just nasty, unrealistic and incoherent fun. Not particularly bright, violent, incoherent but somehow watchable.

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

Welcome to the year 2000. The world is in a totalitarian state, and as a result those who do not agree with society are sent to rehabilitation camps scattered across the world. These camps encourage their guards to treat their prisoners as hostiles. From shower rapes to violent games in which the inmates are tortured to death, these camps are the last place in the world any of these "social deviants" want to die. When Camp Master Thatcher wants to have a good old fashion turkey shoot he, and some of his villainous friends select inmates to hunt. Who will survive the hunt, and what will be left of them? I picked up this movie randomly after reading the back cover. Blind buys are risky and most of the time you're left with a sour taste in your mouth. This was not the case with this exploitation classic. While the film does have it's downfalls (soundtrack, explosions, and some of the acting) it's a highly enjoyable film for those that are seeking out a simple and fun movie.