Who payed the critics

What a waste of my time!!!

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

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.

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.

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.

This movie feels extremely derivative - when I watch it, I get the feeling that I have seen similar scenes from a number of other movies - Bridge over the River Kwai opening, when the older inmates look a the new arrivals (early in the film), someone with coke bottle glasses which reminds me of Dustin Hoffman's character in Papillion, the somewhat sadistic camp head guard - Cool Hand Luke and, in particular, the little known "The Hill" - overall, predictable. Other than the nudity and the scenes of the F-111s flying around - it's really just a bit of forgettable fluff.Also, I have the supposedly uncut version - I did see this film on cable years ago, and frankly I don't understand what the additional scenes are that made up this 10 minutes. It may be some of the graphic violence, nudity and swearing.