ESCAPE 2000 (aka TURKEY SHOOT)

[The Burgomaster]

I picked up the unrated director's cut DVD of this classic bad movie. According to THE PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE, Australian critics voted it the worst movie ever made in their country.

New World released this on video years ago, with more than 10 minutes cut out. Anchor Bay has now restored all the gore and violence.

Here's the story: Steve Railsback and Olivia Hussey are citizens of a totalitarian society. They are sent to a concentration camp that is run by a sadistic guy who likes to let his prisoners escape, and then hunt them down with a group of friends. One of the hunters has a "freak" companion that he says he "found in a circus." The freak looks like a cross between Sabretooth and Chewbacca (and wears a vest over his shirt).

The chief guard at the concentartion camp (one of the worst actors I have ever seen), grins, laughs maniacally, and cracks a whip (and it is very obvious that he never took lessons . . . he's no Indiana Jones, that's for sure).

Anyway, Railsback, Hussey, and a few other prisoners are released into the forest where they are hunted down. The hunters use rifles, crossbows, and machine guns. Amazingly, the hunters just sort of "show up" whever the prisoners are and start shooting at them.

The gore includes a stick being shoved into an eyeball, a body being cut in half, a toe being ripped off and eaten, hands being chopped off with a machete, a head being split open with a machete, a head being blown apart by a machine gun, etc. Without these scenes, the movie would be TOTALLY boring and useless. So I imagine that the original edited New World video release has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I recommend this to anyone who is in the mood for 90+ minutes of mindless "badness."

[Dunners]

a head being blown apart bya machine gun? Sounds interesting, do elaborate on the scene :)

Cant resist a good conversation on  talkin over B film  special effects.

[freelancePatsy]

I just picked a VHS copy of this at the local video liquidator...gawd, it's a real turkey! It's hilariously bad in spots.

My version has all the scenes mentioned as being cut out...I'm going to have to check and see who released the version I got.

Anyway, the scene with the head exploding uder machinegun fire is toward the end of the film...Railsback busts into the camp with a tractor/dunebuggy/construction vehicle that he stole from one of the hunters and begins freeing the prisoner.

They all begin to grab guns and fighting with the guards. The camp director begins leading a charge of guards across a river, right in front of the armed prisoners (the guards die and die and die...this film is nothing if not violent). Railsback takes up a machinegun from a dead prisoner and fires a burst, and the camp directors head comes right off (courtesy of a jump cut to an exploding gelletin head and torso). That's entertainment!

[Dunners]

damn thats goofy. dont you love how silly B movie special effetcs are?:)

[Chopper]

i was wathing this the other night with the commentary on. i thought it was interesting how the director was so honest with all of the film's shortcomings and how big of a turkey the film is. no pun intended of course.  ;)