Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie (2013)

SUMMER, 1988. I’m 19, working at a crappy factory job. And since I’m underage, my nightlife is practically nil.

But then, while channel surfing one night, I come across a talk show. Well, it’s technically a talk show; it has an audience, guests, and a host. But the audience is near riotous, the guests look shell-shocked, and the host – with a loosened tie, wide eyes, and ever-present cigarette – is shouting self-righteous rhetoric at them when he’s not telling them to shut up. Or, in his oft-repeated catchphrase, to “Zip it!”

I had never seen anything like it in my life. And I was hooked for the rest of the summer.

Before there was Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, or even Glenn Beck, there was Morton Downey, Jr. For two years in the late 1980s, The Morton Downey Jr. Show drew in viewers looking for a fight. And with every episode, they got one, if not several. Downey was provocative, incendiary, controversial, confrontational, and often downright rude – and his audience loved it, frequently jumping to their feet in roars of applause.

Through archive footage, animated segments, and interviews with former colleagues, guests, and audience members, Evocateur tells how Downey skyrocketed to fame (some say infamy) and crashed just as fast. Directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger, all recovering Downey fans, do a good job balancing footage of Downey’s show with interviews and home videos. The middle meanders a bit and struggles to keep things compelling when not talking about Downey’s show, but things pick up with the discussion of frequent guest Reverend Al Sharpton – who, like Downey, knew the value of controversy and schemed with the host to keep things fiery and memorable.

While claiming to be a voice for the common man, Downey was actually a child of Hollywood (his dad was a famous Irish tenor, his mom an actress/dancer) and he was a family friend of the Kennedys. And like many pop culture personalities who put on an act, the misogyny of Downey’s TV persona bled over into his personal life (colleagues talk of physical confrontations with female guests and his own wife), and he soon became an egotist spiraling out of control: affairs, bouts of rage, rock star extravagance, climbing debt, and perhaps worst of all, believing his own hype.

Evocateur ends with the two events of Downey’s professional and personal demise: his infamous hoax when he (incorrectly) spray-painted a swastika on his face and claimed he was attacked by skinheads, and his death from lung cancer at 67. (The footage of a gaunt, hoarse, and humbled Downey in the final stages of his life is especially hard to watch.)

Evocateur effectively states the case that, for better or worse, Morton Downey, Jr. was the prototype of today’s television – the precursor to the fight-centric circus of raucous talk shows and reality TV. He deliberately provoked his guests. He knew the power of manipulation. He discussed topics on an emotional level, not an intellectual one. He attacked his guests with a ferocity never before seen on a talk show – creating an awkward, dangerous atmosphere that, nearly 25 years later, still permeates the television landscape today.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Evocateur is rated R for “language and some nudity.”
Language: Frequent use of four-letter words.
Violence: There are verbal and physical confrontations in clips from Downey’s show.
Nudity: A couple of Downey’s guests get topless.
Smoking: Nearly every frame of Downey has him smoking. He dies from lung cancer.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

I highly doubt she’ll like Morton Downey Jr. or his behavior on his talk show, but Evocateur is a compelling documentary no matter what you think of its topic. This could be one worth sharing with her…provided the kids are asleep or out of the house.

"Betsy Ross: Real American or Talentless Tramp?

That's next on The Morton Downey Jr. Show!!!"

Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
* Directors: Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger
* Screenwriter: Daniel A. Miller
* Stars: Morton Downey Jr., Herman Cain, Pat Buchanan, Chris Elliott, Gloria Allred, Sally Jesse Raphael, Alan Dershowitz, Curtis Sliwa, Richard Bey
* MPAA Rating: R



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Texas Chainsaw (2013)

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE has established itself as a true classic of relentless terror. But its many sequels, prequels, and remakes have delivered continually diminishing returns. This year’s Texas Chainsaw picks up where the original Chainsaw left off, with an opening sequence that shows the demented Sawyer family holed up in their farmhouse, surrounded by an armed, angry mob. The mob opens fire on the house and then burns the place down, apparently killing everyone inside – including the maniacal Leatherface, who wields the titular chainsaw and wears a mask of human skin.

Fast forward a couple decades, and we meet Heather (Alexandra Daddario), who learns that a grandmother she never knew has died and left Heather her mansion in Texas. Bringing along her friends Ryan (Trey Songz), Nikki (Lost’s Tania Raymonde), and Kenny (Keram Malicki-Sánchez), Heather heads to her grandmother’s mansion to finalize some paperwork. Turns out that inheriting Grandma’s mansion comes with a little snag: Leatherface (Dan Yeager) is alive and living in the sprawling basement, which he’s turned into his personal butcher shop.

Like the many Chainsaw films that followed the largely bloodless original, Texas Chainsaw piles on the gore – with Leatherface putting his trusty saw to use on several victims, including his own grisly not-so-magic trick of sawing a person in half. (Texas Chainsaw’s gore comes courtesy of FX master Greg Nicotero, who also worked on Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.)

But Texas Chainsaw is more than a story about a boy and his power tool; the sins of the past also come to light, as Heather discovers her connection to the Sawyer family – and uncovers the tragic demise of a family she never knew. Corrupt policemen, brutish locals, and small-town secrets start playing a big (if not bigger) role than the horror of Leatherface, and the film falls into some sort of horror/crime hybrid that dilutes any small shred of terror it succeeded in creating.

Texas Chainsaw director John Luessenhop should get credit for attempting a fresh approach to bridge to the original film, as well as taking the terror of Leatherface beyond the house of horrors and into the local population (police investigate the killings, and Leatherface chases Heather through a crowded town fair). But not even cameos by the original Chainsaw cast can save this latest lackluster attempt at keeping the franchise alive. Uneven, rarely scary, and hobbled by an awkward and unsatisfying conclusion, Texas Chainsaw is yet another sub-par installment in a film series where, nearly 40 years later, the first is still the best.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Texas Chainsaw is rated R for “strong grisly violence and language throughout.” So, no.
Violence: People are shot, impaled, bludgeoned to death, beheaded, dismembered, skinned alive, and ground into meat.
Sex/Nudity: Heather and Ryan make out, with Heather only wearing a bra on top. Nikki strips to her bra and panties on several occasions.
Language: Countless four-letter words. A couple mentions of “retard.”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Highly doubtful. Even if she’s a horror film buff, avoid this one and watch the original.

Hmmm...decisions, decisions...

Texas Chainsaw
* Director: John Luessenhop
* Screenwriters: Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan, Kirsten Elms
* Stars: Alexandra Daddario, Tania Raymonde, Scott Eastwood, Dan Yeager, Trey Songz, Shaun Sipos, Keram Malicki-Sanchez, James MacDonald, Thom Barry, Paul Rae, Richard Riehle, Bill Moseley
* MPAA Rating: R



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Sushi Girl (2012)

ON A DARK AND RAINY NIGHT, four men who botched a diamond heist six years ago reunite to celebrate the arrival of their fifth member, Fish (The Neverending Story’s Noah Hathaway), who was just released from prison and has kept his mouth shut about his partners in crime and the location of the diamonds. The celebration takes place during a sushi dinner, served off the naked body of a beautiful woman (Cortney Palm).

However, the celebration quickly turns to suspicion: The four men – leader Duke (Candyman’s Tony Todd), foul-mouthed hothead Max (Andy Mackenzie), recovering addict Francis (James Duval), and effeminate sadist Crow (Mark Hamill) – believe that Fish knows where the missing loot is. And they’ll stop at nothing to find out the truth.

Comparisons of Sushi Girl to Reservoir Dogs are inevitable and multiple. Much like Quentin Tarantino’s neo-classic, Sushi Girl takes place entirely in one central location; several of its criminals torture and mutilate a person to get information; suspicion grows that there’s a rat among them; their heist and its fallout are shown in flashbacks; and it all revolves around a missing stash of diamonds. Sushi Girl even ends with a Mexican standoff between several members of the crew, a la the final showdown between Dogs’ surviving criminals. (A twist following Sushi Girl’s standoff comes off more as “huh” than “wow.”)

Much like Reservoir Dogs, Sushi Girl’s singular setting could lend it to a stage performance – an irony, since the cast delivers their dialogue with such heavy-handed melodramatics it feels as if they’re playing to a theater audience. Nearly unrecognizable in the cast is Star Wars’ Hamill, looking like the love child of Kurt Cobain and Truman Capote. He really seems to be relishing the role, hamming it up without being a complete camera hog. (The cast also includes why-bother cameos by Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, and Danny Trejo (The Grind), all crammed into one five-minute flashback.) 

Sushi Girl director Kern Saxton (who co-wrote the script with the co-star of Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker) offers some wonderful tracking shots and tinges of dark humor. But he makes it hard for us to believe this group of drastically different and combative criminals would even agree on where to get lunch, let alone collaborate on an armed diamond heist. Derivative, gratuitous, and self-indulgent, Sushi Girl is indeed raw…but watching it feels like getting food poisoning of the eyes.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

No. Sushi Girl is rated R for strong bloody violence, torture, language, nudity, and brief drug use.
Strong Bloody Violence: Multiple people are shot, with blood splatterings a-plenty; one man has his hand cut off, and the bloody stump is shown.
Torture: Long scenes of torture, where a character is punched repeatedly, has his ribs broken, chop sticks are driven into his legs, and his face is ripped to shreds from a swinging bag of broken glass.
Language: A countless amount of strong profanities, racial epithets, gay slurs, and crude insults.
Nudity: A woman's nude body is shown in close-up and in long shots throughout most of the film (sometimes with strategically placed pieces of sushi covering the naughty bits).
Alcohol/Drugs: The men at the sushi dinner drink sake. A man snorts a line of cocaine.
Miscellaneous: A man vomits into a sink.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

She may be intrigued by the casting of Star Wars icon Mark Hamill in a way-against-type role, but the overabundance of tough-guy talk combined with the graphic violence and torture will probably turn her off.

(gulp) "Uh, I'm sorry sir, but your card has been declined..."

Sushi Girl
* Director: Kern Saxton
* Screenwriters: Destin Pfaff and Kern Saxton
* Stars: Tony Todd, James Duval, Noah Hathaway, Andy Mackenzie, Mark Hamill, Cyrus Alexander, Michael Biehn, Sonny Chiba, Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, Cortney Palm
* MPAA Rating: R



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Citadel (2012)

HERE’S A QUESTION for all the dads out there: Could you protect your child from evil if you were afraid of everything?

That’s the dilemma posed by the Irish horror import Citadel, where we meet Tommy (Aneurin Barnard), a young father afflicted with chronic agoraphobia after his pregnant wife is brutally attacked by a gang of hooded youths (children, to be exact). When the same gang starts terrorizing Tommy again, intent on kidnapping his baby daughter, he seeks help from a doubting yet sympathetic nurse (Wunmi Mosaku) and a vigilante priest (James Cosmo) to overcome his fear and destroy the gang for good.

Drawing from his own experience with agoraphobia following a violent mugging, Citadel’s first-time feature writer/director Ciaran Foy paints Tommy’s world as a bleak, grimy landscape of blues and greys (much like how Tommy views his life and his future). Foy does an effective job at balancing scares with cares, putting Tommy in the hands of Mosaku’s nurse just long enough to provide the viewer with a false sense of relief before throwing Tommy back into danger at the hands of the gang. (Also great: Foy’s use of Tommy’s old apartment number (111) and the recurring theme of threes.)

Looking and acting like Elijah Wood’s strung-out big brother, Barnard does a great job capturing the struggle of a new parent stricken with a crippling fear and topped with a coating of paranoia. Cosmo’s embattled priest, while quite the screen presence, is a somewhat uneven mishmash of profane wisdom, jarring frankness, and tough love. Also, his exposition explaining the origin of the feral children is muddled and dodges the obvious question: If this gang of children has been around for decades, wouldn’t there now be a few adults in the group?

Winner of the Midnighters Audience Award at the 2012 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, Citadel is nearly everything a horror film should be – “nearly” because of the third act, a showdown in the abandoned apartment tower where Tommy and his wife lived when she was attacked. This finale plays like a haunted-house action sequence and betrays the creepy, atmospheric tone Foy set in the first hour. The film also ends somewhat abruptly: one side wins, and almost immediately the credits roll.

As good as Citadel is, a word of warning to anyone who’s an expectant father, a single dad, or a parent of an infant: Before you know it, you’ll soon be wondering if you would have what it takes if faced with the same terrors as Tommy.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Absolutely not. In the opening scene, Tommy’s wife is viciously attacked by the gang; Tommy’s emotional breakdowns are harrowing to watch (though he’s oddly emotionless when taking his wife off life support); the hooded children are truly scary: they attack and kill several people, complete with graphic noises and bloodshed, either in shadows or off screen; Tommy’s baby daughter is put in peril in several scenes; one of the hooded children’s throats is slit, complete with spraying blood; there are many profanities.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

With a pregnant mother beaten to death in the opening scene, a gang of mutated killer children, and the ongoing threat of a baby girl being stolen by the gang, I can’t see too many mothers who would be willing to sit through Citadel.

"Candy-Gram."

Citadel
* Director: Ciaran Foy
* Screenwriter: Ciaran Foy
* Stars: Aneurin Barnard, Wunmi Mosaku, James Cosmo, Jake Wilson, Amy Shiels
* MPAA Rating: R


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The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

HIS NAME WAS DENNIS, and he was my best friend in 3rd grade.

One Monday morning, Dennis couldn’t wait to tell me about a movie he saw over the weekend: a horror flick called The Incredible Melting Man, about an astronaut named Steve West (Alex Rebar) who comes back from space after flying through the rings of Saturn, causing his body and mind to disintegrate, making him kill.

I had seen ads for The Incredible Melting Man in the paper, and the shot of the man’s decomposing face terrified me. But Dennis proceeded to tell me all the details about the film, from the melting man’s goriest kills to his ooey, gooey demise.

It sounded like the greatest film ever made.

Over the years, I began to hear just how wrong I was. The Incredible Melting Man is panned in virtually every review you read. It even got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in 1996. But it still gnawed at me that I hadn’t seen this film for myself. So recently I decided to try and watch it through the eyes of a third grader, and see if it would have been cool to my inner 9-year-old.


Dennis better pray I never see him at a high school reunion.

The Incredible Melting Man is excruciatingly bad. Less than ten minutes in, the cheesiness envelops you, much like the gelatinous goo swallowing up West, our tragic hero turned mindless monster. When he’s not busy ripping people apart, West spends a lot of time wandering across hillsides, sometimes with a beautiful sunset behind him.

The acting in The Incredible Melting Man alternates between wooden and melodramatic. As Dr. Ted Nelson, the man trying to track down West, Burr DeBenning is dreadful. He looks clammy and emaciated, and delivers every line like he was told his dog died just before writer/director William Sachs yelled “Action!”

Sachs’ script doesn’t help matters. Here are a few doozies from the dialogue:

“Steve escaped.”
“He what?”
“Did you get some crackers?”

“You mean he’s radioactive?”
“Just a little bit.”

“Don’t call me baby.”
“Ok, sorry, honey.”

The Incredible Melting Man’s score by Arlon Ober sounds like something from a ‘70s cop drama – right down to the dramatic “DUM-dum-dummm” when something “shocking” happens. The only reason, if any, to sit through the film is to witness the early work of Oscar-winning special effects legend Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).


Contrary to what I thought of Dennis’ word-of-mouth review, The Incredible Melting Man is not great. It’s not good. It’s just bad. It’s not even “so bad it’s good.” There are no scares. No suspense. Like the melting man himself, the film aimlessly lumbers from one scene to the next until it mercifully ends.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Incredible Melting Man is rated R, and for good reason:
Violence/Scariness: A nurse’s mutilated face is shown. The melting man tears off a victim’s head off-screen, then we see it tossed into a river, where it cracks open on a rock like a melon (the victim’s bloody, headless corpse appears in a later shot). The melting man rips apart and dines on an elderly couple. There are several scenes of the melting man, well, melting – all gooey with random body parts falling off. A potential victim chops off the melting man’s arm with a meat cleaver. A sheriff repeatedly shoots the melting man, who shows his appreciation by tossing the sheriff onto high voltage power lines, frying him. A major character is shot in the head. The melting man’s final demise is a gooey, crunchy mess.
Sex/Nudity: A model gets topless at a photo shoot in the woods.
Smoking: Three kids share a cigarette behind a house.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s got a soft spot for low-budget horror cheese, highly unlikely. The Incredible Melting Man is a bloody, gooey affair with little redeeming value.

But wait – there’s more!

Act now and get your very own Incredible Melting Mandle, made by Stexe of Futurechimp:

The Incredible Melting Man
* Director: William Sachs
* Screenwriter: William Sachs
* Stars: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Michael Alldredge
* MPAA Rating: R


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The Expendables 2 (2012)

IF YOU TOLD ME 20 YEARS AGO that Rambo, John McClane, and The Terminator were in the same movie, I would’ve pulled a muscle in my sprint to buy a ticket. But now that the men behind those three action icons have finally joined forces in this year’s The Expendables 2, the experience is hollow, anti-climactic, and two decades too late.

Not that Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger share equal screen time. Like the 2010 original Expendables, this is Stallone’s show, with Bruce and Arnold in supporting roles (though larger than their opening-and-gone appearances in the first film). Here, Stallone’s Barney Ross leads the same team of mercenaries – Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Terry Crews – plus two new team members: young sniper Billy (Liam Hemsworth) and weapons specialist Maggie (Nan Yu).

The Expendables 2 opens with a spectacular attack and rescue sequence (despite cheesy CGI blood sprays and poor ADR). This ultimately leads Ross and his team to bad guy Vilain, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, who’d be more intimidating if you could understand half of what he’s saying. Vilain and his small army plan to steal stockpiles of plutonium from an abandoned Russian mine and sell to the highest bidder, but not before Vilain kills one of Ross’ men. Judging from the pecking order of the cast, you can probably guess who it is (rhymes with “Shmemsworth”).

No one’s looking for high art in the Expendables films or the blow-‘em-ups of yesteryear they hope to emulate. But The Expendables 2 is dumb and ridiculous even by ‘80s standards. Cheesy one-liners elicit more groans than laughs, there are hackneyed references to the stars’ classic action characters and their catchphrases, and every other scene seems to be our heroes walking in slow motion to the “dum-da-da-dum” score by Bryan Tyler.

Essentially, The Expendables 2 is an exercise in missed opportunities. Li disappears after the opening sequence, Mickey Rourke (who had the most poignant scene in the original) does not appear, Van Damme and Lundgren never square off in a possible Universal Soldier rematch, and Chuck Norris’ cameo is pointless and uninspired (he’s basically the Mighty Eagle to the Expendables’ Angry Birds).

And yet again, not one member of Ross’ original team (despite the overwhelming odds) is killed or even seriously injured. Stallone and co-screenwriter Richard Wenk could have really upped the audience involvement by bumping off someone like Statham, Li, Lundgren, Couture, or Crews and made us thirsty for Van Damme’s blood. We can only hope that if the rumored Expendables 3 happens, Stallone and the filmmakers will take a chance and show just how expendable these kill-‘em-all characters truly are.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Expendables 2 is rated R for “strong bloody violence throughout,” and they ain’t kidding: shootings, beatings, stabbings, dismemberments, and immolation, to name a few. In addition, many, many things – from bridges to tanks to planes to buildings – are blown up, crashed, or demolished. Strangely, there is very mild use of profanities (though one use of “retard”).

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Highly, highly unlikely. Between the awful dialogue, bloody violence, and aged action stars, I think she’ll feel that what’s not expendable is 103 minutes of her life to sit through this.

Yay, we won! Orange whips on me!

The Expendables 2
* Director: Simon West
* Screenwriters: Richard Wenk, Sylvester Stallone
* Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, Scott Adkins, Yu Nan
* MPAA Rating: R (strong bloody violence throughout)


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21 Jump Street (2012)

MOVIES BASED ON OLD TV SHOWS are always a gamble. For every successful adaption like The Fugitive, there are countless misfires and failures: Bewitched, Wild Wild West, The Avengers (no, not that one; this one), and The Dukes of Hazzard, to name a few. The challenge is whether to bring something fresh and different to the property, or be faithful to the original.

Luckily, the filmmaking team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) chose the former with 21 Jump Street, a radical and hilarious revival of the late ‘80s series about young undercover cops specializing in youth-related crimes. Here, two young policemen – nerdy Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and dumb jock Jenko (Channing Tatum) – are sent undercover as students at a local high school to bust a drug ring led by the charismatic and popular Eric (Dave Franco).

On the first day, Schmidt and Jenko accidentally get their undercover identities switched, sticking shy non-athlete Schmidt in the drama club and track team, and academically challenged Jenko in advanced chemistry. They soon find things have changed since their high school days: intellectualism, activism, and the environment are in, while bullying and mocking overachievers are out. And so begins a reversal of fortunes as Schmidt enjoys the immense popularity he never found in his high school days, while Jenko learns what it’s like to be ostracized and insulted by the “in” crowd.

But back to the funny, which 21 Jump Street delivers in spades. The riotous jokes come at a rapid pace – so quickly that you risk missing a gag because you’re still laughing at the previous one. (The two funniest scenes: Hill and Tatum trying unsuccessfully to make each other vomit after taking a drug, then later tripping on the same drug while trying to do various school activities.)

Hill and Tatum are one of the best odd-couple pairings in recent movie memory. And while Hill is funny as expected, the comedic skills of Channing Tatum are a revelation. Put this man in more comedies. After his emotionally stunted performance in The Vow, his turn in 21 Jump Street is a monumental redemption. Running closely behind in the laughs department is Ice Cube as Hill and Tatum’s hilariously profane police captain.

21 Jump Street also benefits from a supporting cast that knows comedy, including Ellie Kemper (Bridesmaids) as an overzealous, hypersexual chemistry teacher and Rob Riggle as a crass gym coach. (Also watch for cameos by original Jump Streeters Johnny Depp, Peter DeLuise, and Holly Robinson Peete.)

The laughs in 21 Jump Street take a back seat during the middle of the film to advance plot and character development, but they don’t stay dormant long. And that’s the beauty of Lord and Miller’s ability to balance hilarity with heart, profanity with personality. This is the funniest R-rated comedy since the original Hangover or Hill’s earlier hit, Superbad. See it now.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Nope. While hilarious, 21 Jump Street contains substantial drug use, brief nudity and sexual situations, and almost non-stop profanities. In addition, several people are shot (one person grossly loses his manhood), hit by cars, or blown up. Oh, and Tatum vomits on Hill. Don’t ask.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

My FilmMother and I watched 21 Jump Street together, and she laughed as much as I did. If your FilmMother’s cool with the R-rated aspects described above, I’d say this is definitely one you can share together.

"Ow, stop it – my nurple can't get any purpler!"

21 Jump Street
* Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
* Screenwriter: Michael Bacall
* Stars: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, Ice Cube, Dax Flame, Chris Parnell, Ellie Kemper
* MPAA Rating: R


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Turkey Shoot (1982)

AFTER WATCHING FILMMAKER Mark Hartley’s fantastic documentary Not Quite Hollywood (about Australian exploitation films of the ‘70s and ‘80s), I came to one conclusion: I had to see Turkey Shoot.

In a near-future (“1995”) prison camp where inmates are set loose and hunted for sport, Turkey Shoot stars Olivia Hussey (Romeo & Juliet, Black Christmas) and Steve Railsback (Helter Skelter, The Stunt Man) as accused radicals who are sentenced to the camp and rely on each other to survive the conditions – and ultimately, survive the hunt as they become the “game” the camp’s leaders plan to track down and kill like wild animals.

Based on the scenes in Not Quite Hollywood, Turkey Shoot looked to be a ridiculously over-the-top flick filled with action, cartoonishly graphic violence, and ample amounts of gratuitous nudity. If only it were that awesome. The titular “turkey shoot” (hunting the prisoners for sport) doesn’t happen until 40 minutes in, and things are slow until then. Even during the shocking act of man hunting man, the action is lacking and the pursuits far from exciting.

 
Hussey doesn’t get to do much besides act like a damsel in distress (save for a few acts of savagery in the film’s climax) and Railsback is passable as the smirking antihero. But the most memorable character is Ritter – the bald, towering, sadistic guard played by Roger Ward. From the first time we meet Ritter, as he beats a woman prisoner half his size to death, we know he’ll show no mercy to anyone who doesn’t follow the rules of the camp.

Not Quite Hollywood made Turkey Shoot look like a balls-out, gratuitous, violent free-for-all worthy of Trashterpiece Theatre. But the frustrating reality is that it isn’t until the final minutes that Turkey Shoot brings the crazy, with people run over, cut in two by a bulldozer blade, getting their hands chopped off, and more – all in graphic, hanging close-ups that helped get the film cut by 10 minutes before it could be released in US theaters.

Turkey Shoot may have been shocking in 1982, but 30 years later it’s no more than a time capsule of its era…and a poorly stitched-together hybrid of prison camp exploitation and grindhouse violence.

Fun facts:

• Based on cast interviews from Not Quite Hollywood and its own DVD commentary, Turkey Shoot was a nightmare production. There were major cuts in both the budget and the shooting schedule, and the cast was put at risk many times (allegedly, some were shot at using real bullets for authenticity).

• Composer Brian May (not the Queen guitarist) created Turkey Shoot’s synth-heavy soundtrack. He also created a soundtrack a year earlier for another brutal, futuristic Aussie export: The Road Warrior.)

aka Escape 2000, Blood Camp Thatcher.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

No. Way. People are beaten to death, burned alive, dismembered, shot, run over and, in one deliciously cheesy scene, a head is splattered via an explosive arrowhead. There are also copious amounts of male and female nudity, and continuous profanities.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s fan of grindhouse, exploitation, or cult films, I’d say no.

Hey! That was my last JujyFruit– give it back!

Turkey Shoot

* Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

* Screenwriter: Jon George, Neill Hicks

* Stars: Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig, Lynda Stoner, Roger Ward

* MPAA Rating: R

 

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