Episode 711: Turkey Shoot (1982)

Oh you he is, folks, it's showtime.

People say good money to see this movie.

When they go out to a theater.

They are cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.

Everyone pretend podcasting isn't.

Boring done at all.

It is nineteen ninety five.

You are all one seen.

Hunting is the national sport.

People on the prey.

The world is ruled by a strict regime. They're going to make obedient little citizens out of us.

Who are society?

What do you mean?

Step on the line and they take it to the funny farm.

You could die laughing.

All you have to do is lead my guests on a chase for one day, little sport.

You could kiss, not necessarily, you might survive.

Come on, you big piece of shit.

You come me the one you can't break. I'm what you've been afraid of all your life.

I'm afraid of nothing.

You're afraid of failing.

Now a little flower.

Yes, I'm gonna taste your honey.

It is less the size of one's gun that comes or the school with which it's used.

Don't you kill him, Jennifer, He's my target. This is snatcha The hunt is over, Shoot on sight, Shoot to kill?

Where let me go here?

No way right?

When you don't leave me here, you pray.

Gravely wait, but you can't.

The hunters and the hunted, the quick and the dead. Oh shoot, who will survive?

The blood and thunder Shocker of the year.

Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White jew me once again as mister Andrew Netti.

Welcome, I thank you very much for having me.

Also back in the booth is miss Heather Drain Hella, Hella. We continue our Shctober coverage with a Patreon request from Ellis Kish. Turkey Shoot atleased in nineteen eighty two. The film was written and directed by Brian Trenchard Smith and stars Steve rails Back and Olivia Hussey. Has two victims of a totalitarian government in the distant year of nineteen ninety five. They are taken to a prison camp where they're tortured and eventually made to participate in the brutal

Would have been the nineteen nineties, sometime sometime in the nineteen nineties. I liked it. I've al liked it. I think I might have seen it once since and then it's when I watched it a couple of times for this podcast. I like it from just I like this till I really like this. I think it's got a great cast. It's apparently one of the most disreputable Australian exploitation films ever made, which is saying something, but it does what it does, and it does it well, and

And Heather, how about yourself.

I adore this movie like this, and this is one of those movies like the first watch the twenty minute mark, you're like, that's okay, this is good, all right, thirty minute you're like this is good. But at the time you get to the climax, you're like levitating because it's oh my god. It's every sort of sweet spot that one can have its. Do you love heads exploding? Yes? Do you love goat eyed freaks doing cno, professional wrestling movies of people? Yes? And yes? Do you do you

I am so glad you guys are on this episode because I am not a big fan of this movie so far. I'm hoping that through this conversation, I will become more of one because to your point, Heather, it's got so many things that I love. It's got Roger Ward, it's got this kind of women in prison feel. It's a people hunting people movie. I love people hunting people movies. You can read all about that in the new book Revolution in thirty five Millimeter, which was partially written and

Especially but close up, because you get those close up of those he's got coat eyes, and I love how they're like, oh, this is a freak. I don't think what kind of genetic tas I'm laving because it's like which imputation? Okay, you could be hair suit. That's a real life thing where there are people that were promoted as wolf people but they weren't actually wolf people. No, this guy's got fans, he's got goat eyes. He eats body, but it's he can body slam. It's I know it's fasting.

I think alf is fantastic. I mean, that's actually a guy called Steve Rackman and he was known as Steve's the Crusher Rackman. He was an Australian wrestler and he played the heavy in so many films and he's great. And I think to your point, to both your points, it starts off as a really solid people in prison prison film with all the tropes of the prison film, and then as soon as they're released into the wild for the Turkey shoot, it just goes completely batschit crazy

I think it's just the pacing of it sometimes gets to me. I think it's around like maybe about the twenty five thirty minute mark when they start to introduce the idea of the Turkey shoot, because they don't really

There are a bunch of rich, weird, queer assholes and that's that's the And that's the other thing I loved about this film. Watching it now, you realize, oh, so much of Australian culture was so queer and we just didn't have the language to sort of analyze it. You know, this Tito and Jennifer are both coded completely queer. You know,

I absolutely love them. Yeah, Michael Petrovitch is Tito and what's the woman's name.

Carmen Duncan. Yes, Carmen Duncan as the sadistic lesbian, the huntress. You know, I'm going to make you feel like you've never felt before.

She reminds me a lot of barber steel from caged heat.

She very much has that kind of energy. If this was a an al Adminson Berry see I'm sureman or something like that, it would be more busty, it'd be more day in Thoring, or my ideal would have been Chestey Morgan. Can you imagine? Why was there ever a woman in prison of every baby Chestey Morgan? Anyway, No, and with the deepest v cuts, she's someone was like full boomin when we first meet her, and you get really she's just like the sort of very decadent bisexual.

Somewhere someone has done Turkey Shoot fan fiction about all that stuff. Would they would they explore the sexual lives of the of the hunters in Turkey Shoot.

There's a line that she says where it sounds like, yeah, she and Thatcher had been together before, but he wasn't able to sexually satisfy her.

You're a difficult woman to satisfy, Jennifer, as you will know Charles.

Which is why he became the commander of the camp. The sublem like that if.

He was in an American camp, he would have like ammer, you'd have the big or the biggest truck where there's huge trucks and it's like a monument to like like a rets all dyfunction giant for a chuck with like double tires.

But they've done it. They tool around of these weird little June buggets. Oh yes, again, it's fantastic.

Yes, all the little vehicles in this, like the little.

Like a big shovel.

Yeah, it's like the little bulldozer that he drives around in. It just like tools around and I'm just like, that is the cutest little vehicle I've ever seen.

The same thing as the banana splits.

Oh yes, it's the banana.

Splits June buggy with the little digger on the front of it, also with the machine gun, and then at one point when he stops, he just picks up a bazooka and starts flying. This guy's got It's what I mean. It just keeps going and going and going.

I love the bazooka.

Again.

Anybody's ever been in like a hunting store, there's some gear there where. It's really is this really a sport? At this point?

What Lee?

Why do you need an aka the Hunted Deer?

Heather? I hope you're not advocating against people's constitutional rights to warn a Bozuka.

Never. Never, I would never get political on the projection.

And good thing this movie isn't political either, not at all.

What did you guys think about Dodge? I want to talk about that character.

He's the redheaded guy who sort of plays that the lackey. Yeah.

Yes, but he's got those letter called Cosmo McKinley glasses, which is a reference only I would probably make on podcasts from Shock Treatment. He's got the rich O'Brien oak bottled and eating fish guts. You instantly want to see this guy die. He's such a kiss ass. He's so devious. If this was a comedy, he would be played by Rick Mayole.

I regret when he takes off his glasses because that he almost looks like a normal human being then, even with that crazy red hairdoo that he has. But I'm just like, no, no, keep the glasses on, my friend, because that is your look. You need to own it.

And he gets his towe eaton.

Oh god, I know Tarantino's a big fan of this movie. Is he you a fan of the toe eating scene?

Oh?

Gross, don't ruin this movie for me mine.

Apparently he's got that whole speech when they're beating up the woman, and he's got that all memorized and repeated that back to Trunchard Smith the first time they met.

I'm happy for Trenchard Smith that Tarantino's a fan, but we do just need to underline that some people did watch films before quit and Tarantino saw them.

I'm just hoping that Trunchard Smith wasn't an influence on Tarantino's choice to play that slave keeper in Django Unchained as an Australian. I mean, it feels like it's an osploitation reference, just that horrible accent he's trying to put on.

Wow, I'm glad. I never saw that.

You should be glad.

I'm like, I'll just watch the original.

My least favorite Quentin Tarantino film. Definitely up there with the Hype Light. But anyway, we're digressing now.

Yeah, it's a race to the bottom for me. Yeah, and I love Steve Rail's back. Having more Steve rails Back in my life is something that I really appreciate. And apparently he was getting so method that when he's in that cage at one point and they're putting weights on there. What's the guard's name?

Is it the Gus Mercuria character, because yeah.

Red Red? Yeah, which I kept thinking that Red was Dodge's name, and then Dodge was red but because of the red hair. But yeah, with Red putting all those weights on there, and he's being crushed under this weight inside of this cage, and apparently rails Back really wanted to play that method at first and like, no, no, put real weights on here, put real weights, and then eventually it was just like I can't even breathe. It's like you need to take those those real weights off there.

That's crazy Texan. I love Steve Rail's back now he the cast in this was such a delight and no shock. Steve Rail's back is fantastic in everything, and he's one of his guy's even needs in something for fifteen minutes. I love him. And Nico Mastarracus is the wind and I've been I think he's literally in that for fifteen minutes. But Olivia Hussey, it was such a such a delight. Yeah, I think very underrated. Was it Red that kept calling her, oh,

I like Gusperkurio a lot as Red, but I kind of wish that Victis had been in this movie in that role instead, because I just think that he plays a present guard the best. And talk about being coded queer, he was scoed queer in so many things, especially those Jack Hill films.

I mean that was one of the things when I watched it this time, I just thought, this is all all these character actors from my Youth came flooding back, and of course Gus Mercurio was one of those. He was just omni, the omni present, raspy voice of my youth doing ads for sweets, the rating boxing games. It was a big voiceover person in advertising, and he also

Yeah, And it's so much the better for that, because all of these guys are bringing so much to these roles and I love just how wild especially I mean Guess Mercurio back to him, he is just playing this to the hilt. And then you get somebody like Thatcher himself.

To your point, Heather, that's not that's not Linda Stander though, I think that does that. That's that's what. That's someone else. I can't remember what her name is.

But oh, that poor little girl. Yeah, she looks like she's fifteen. I don't think she is, but she's so tiny tiny. Yeah and yeah, now to your to your point, Mike, he he was giving me such Ox Baker adjacent energy, and there's I was like, I was like, why didn't we get an exploctation film with those two his brothers. They fight from different continents, they find out that their their brothers, and they fight crime or are probably cause crime to get the ankles they can't. We work in

Oh yeah, this is the Weathermen type of liberal.

Yeah, the yippies, yeah, which is kind of sexy. I thought this Vivie would be a great antidote to all of the really super right wing kind of exploitation villains that the US was making in the early eighties. I would take this any day over reds On No.

That's why I feel this fits way more into the women in prison stuff, especially those Jack Hill films where it's like these women are being abused and by the end they're going to have their revenge. They're going to

I think it is five yeah, it's five yeah, because that guy gets chucked in in the inn.

The other one, Bill Young is Griff is probably my favorite of these guys. Griff is great because he takes the fight to them, which.

I really like, and he's so smart.

Yeah, and then and then not only that, we've had the Turkey shoots, and then before you know it, they're scrambling jets to bomb the cap where all the prisoners have rebelled, and then he finds another way. I mean, I thought that was I mean, that's just stop footage obviously of af jet fighters, but I thought that was really clever. It's like, right, how do I actually, how do I actually make this film even more batshit crazy

Go back to that chest sat how big is that? Thank first I was like, what a weird little goth are God and then he the camera pans, You're like, ship, that's a chest set. Well, I've had a pyramid smaller than that. Chest sat so over the top, and I say, there's just a blissfulness and how over the top of this film goes because it's especially because it does start off so you have some seriouces. We've got like newsreel footage film and then all of a sudden we gotta go get shot.

And I love that.

I collapsed because they got their characters in a paramorray and you love Olivia Hussey and he gets shot in the day and then he burnt the live and you can hear him screaming, I shouldn't laughing. I still like a monster.

No, no, no, I think we know where you're coming from on this.

We know.

I mean that chest set is one of the many phallic things in this film. That's that you mentioned. I think, Mike that shot of Roger Ward's character where they're shooting him from below and then it looks like he's holding this giant dildo. That's extraordinary, sort of say, that's that's just before he's gonna Oh no, that's before he beats up that young woman.

Well, then you get Gus Mercurio getting his franks and beans stuck in that zipper. When Olivia Hause zips up the zipper when his cock is out, I'm just like, oh my god, that's great. And that scream of pain and terror that he's going through is fantastic. Yeah, so much of this movie is how are people going to die? And how can we keep kicking it up every single time? So like Alf the dog Boy, the where I call

Oh my god, especially kids, your pans making you realize both hands and there's a shot of the other hand on the rocks and it's twitching a little. It's glorious. It's it's almost you felt when you were a kid and you're watching like early Gore films and you just get that like teenage rush of yeah, oh this is so gnarly. I this this movie kind of like lit that fire for me. In parts I was like, oh,

Again?

It's in a sport when you were using tech, and so it's like each person had a nice little kind of larn with their with their debts. In some cases, I felt I did feel a little bad for the wolf mutant hybrid. He collected that guy get to live.

You would become their mascot like Scooby Doo. Would you kill Secretary Mallory for a Scooby Stack?

Oh there's the fan fg with all of this queer coat of tark Rider literally threatens to say he's going to sodomize Steve bressbat.

That was amazing.

He was just like, come here, boy, I'm gonna fuck you in the ass. I'm like, what did you just what during the climactic fight of the whole movie. I mean that for me is like the big climax, even though to your point, Andrew, we're still like twenty minutes before the end of the movie, because we have yet to have the air strike.

That's why they had to have the air strike, because how can you one up all the stuff we've been talking How can you one up mutant dog people being bisected? How can you one up a guy? Which, by the way, do they have any do they have? You said frankin beans? Do they have the beats? Because Steve Rosveick says that the guards are canstrated.

Oh really, so it's just the frank in there.

I think it's just the But that was still harder. That's that's a man's a man's wiener getting second a zipper that's not fun. So you're getting all of this unless we just went full of flame for or symphony, you have to get to get the chats and the bombs. That is this the first instance, by the way of an action film of a bad guy threatening sodomy, because it made me think of that amazing scene of Roadhouse where that guy tells Patrick Swayze, I used to fuck

Roadhouse is the true romance.

Absolutely more so than true romance.

And I like that movie and I'm not sure if a sodomy has been threatened upon our main character before Turkey. Shoot, that would be a really good thing to look up.

Someone's going to pay, I say on that somewhere.

You know.

Well, I'm sure that I'm trying to remember the two guys from the Big Combo. It feels like they might have threatened somebody with that at one point.

Oh, I'm sure someone's got someone will let us know. That's the gift and the curse of the internet. If you fuck, don't worry, you'll know.

You'll just get a comment from Couchboy one five eight saying, not only was I angry about the way they talked about guns, but they also got a sodomy aspect wrong.

It's gonna say neck Beard one nine eight zero. But I think couchboy, that's even. They're very They're very they're very sympotic out Well, we'll.

Just get complaints as we talk about Thatcher and don't bring up Margaret Thatcher in the political arena of the UK at the time.

Yeah, the film, I say it all, and I guess somebody could say that it's a little on the nerves for having here to name Thatcher. But I mean we had the movie where guy gets shot in the dick. It's okay to be a little on the Norse.

Well, I like that whole Orwellian thing that they have at the beginning with the whole you know, freedom is work and these things, and then how he turns it around and it's just like, disobedience is treason, Treason is a crime. Crime will be punished, and it's like okay, and that they that they call all of these people that are in the camp deviates instead of deviants, but deviates, and I'm just like, well, the real deviants are all of the guards and the people that are hunting the

She's got into some sort of sexual problem. I think she was, you know, someone dobbed her in for being a sex work or something like that. I mean, we don't get a back We don't get a flashback story from her, and I think that that's got something to do with.

That My only real and it's not really a complaint. I wish we would have seen a little more of a character ocase that actress is so good and we see she's gone a light in her eyes early on of just trying to encourage Olivia hasse she's trying to comfort her, but she's also trying to You could tell this woman's had to suffer a lot of things to survive a lot of things by using what an old an old timer would call feminine wiles. And yeah, she yeah, I think she says, Oh, they said I was a whore,

I was.

I was very I was a little bummed by that. But yeah, and then it's oh god, and then you see that that reveal of her body that was gasling but appropriate, especially because it's like it does make me think of those old action like men's pulp novels from the fifties and sixties with all those great comfort or there's just like mutant ape men and they're fighting the Nazis, and there's like naked weapon. It's it's not quite that outraye, but it's close.

But that's because the first the first aspect, the first twenty thirty minutes of the film is all it's all just a solid prison film, isn't it. And it's got the various characters of a prison film. You know, You've got You've always got the prisoner who can't cope. You know, in every single prison film I've ever seen, there's been the prisoner that that can't cope. There's the tough prisoner they want to break. There's the sort of there's the is that redheaded guy. There's always the toady do you

Just that this isn't even the quote unquote prison camp, a re education and behavior modification camp. You know, your stay here will make you an asset to society. I mean, that's what I do really like about this, That trench of Smith is not afraid to go for that message and put that in here, and it's great. Is it

He does that too in the fight, saying at the very end where all of a sudden, it looks like there's hundreds of people involved in this set pace battle. You know, all these guards coming down the ridge into the river, and all the prisoners on the other side, and it makes it look like there's far more of them than there actually are.

When I say gloriously economy, like knowing the budget battles that he had to face with this and all of that there, you wouldn't know because it's if you're really looking for it in some places maybe, but he everything

Get that you share, And actually I don't think it mattered. I mean, I know they make all that fuss in the making of in the making of movie, you know, shorts that you sent us, the extras mic that you sent us. I'll watch those. I've seen those before. When they talk about the fact that they just had the

If I had made Brothers, rather than this being a ninety minute film, I would cut it down to like eighty minutes. I think it could actually move a little bit faster at the beginning. I think once the turkey shoot starts. Like I said, it moves pretty quickly, and then it's just that whole exercise and editing who's after who, who's dead, who's moving out to the other ones, who's teamy gup.

But she can't do that because then you would lose all that wonderful double on tundra between cut between Tito and Jennifer over the weapons, which takes at least about fifty minutes when they're all they're looking at her gun balances nicely holds well, you know, and then there's there's her playing with her the cross crossbow bolts and all of that sort of stuff, which is just glorious.

Oh god. And just Natua makes some calm, like some little double on tinder about the thing the word he uses, but basically that a chamber is too large and there.

And is that when she said, and she says, it's not the largeness, it's what you do with it. It's like, you know, yes, absolutely, we love that, love it.

And agin, god, he just he just they're insulting each other. Yeah, it's just so great, especially because there these are the people that are judging others for being deviot. Meanwhile they're totally different people are going after a different game, even though we see them pick each person this is my game, this is Yeah, they don't. They don't when it comes out to it, they don't give a share. It's just

We have no idea who Tito or Jennifer even are. They're just they're these two sort of weird queer euro trash, weird you know, people who've just been parachuted into the cap to hunt people. She's got her lovely little you know, her riding cap on, and she's got a riding uniform on her horse with the crossbow like she's about to do dressage.

Isn't that crazy a makeup she's got. At the beginning, I'm just like, holy cow, lady, that's a that's quite a look you got going on there. And then they cut right before she finally, you know, attacks her prey, and I'm like, oh, I think she was leaning in for a kiss. And then they cut away from that, and then the next time you see the girl, Yeah, it almost looks like she's got the arrow jam down her throat.

I think it's it's coming out of a cheek.

Yeah, that it's that it's actually doing that. But I was just like, oh, that looks almost like an oral thing you've got going on there. And yeah, I'm so glad when she gets her come up. And so the come up and says in this movie are pretty great, especially Tito getting the machete right through the head.

All of all of the come up, You're right, all every single come up and it's just so special. It's singular for each for each person. And also you mentioned her leaning here for that kiss and her I think I feel I almost made feel bad for that tricks. I'm like, if she's already got her tongue half way out, it's like Arno jurging in flesh for freak in his time when he starts trying to like kiss the sutures and it's just hell. But this is the guy who's

It's not working, Barren, But I love this.

Movie so much, just do. And this was a film and you hear wh people do this with Slashers where they're like, oh, the kills, the kills, and it's truth. I don't really go that route. But with this film, I'm like, we get like the whole booby trap kill with the multiple like the it's like multiple spikes, got the exploding arrows, that again a guy burning alive while after being shot in the granal region. I can't think about the movie that it has the Twain meet like that so much.

Yeah, that poor guy near the beginning with those two big balls filled with gasoline.

But the other aspect of this film, which is funny too in that respect, is it's all it's like that. You know. It's like that Great State in the Austin Powers movie where Scott sort of says, but you're going to feed him, you know, d Dr Evil has captured Austin Poweer. You're gonna feed him? What? You just to gun bank shoot him dead? You know. Everything in this film is so unnecessarily complicated, you know, And that's what

I have a gun in my room. I could go up and we could shoot him together. It would be fun.

One of the greatest lines from that film. That film does skewer Bond films and a lot of those action films quite well in that respect for sure.

Yeah, I'm about to talk about moon Baker this weekend and talk about a movie that just was such the embodiment of the James Bond camp and all the things that Austin Power. It's just reveled in so much. I mean, the second wasn't it, The second one where they go to space, the second Austin Powers, I mean that is so yeah, a moon breaker.

But it's also that that Austin Power is shot where the guy is gonna get getting run over by theer.

He's my favorite.

That reminded me of the scenes with that tune Buggy. You know, it's that is.

My absolute favorite out of any of Austin Power is that two minutes.

Do you know what's so great about that scene is there's a cut scene. There's a cut scene after almost every guard death in Austin Powers or cut scenes for those, I should say, And it's going back and seeing the family of the guard and just like, oh, it's something happened at work today, your father's not coming home and it becomes a big SoSE moment with like the music swells, and the mom and the son who's now without a father are there completely you know, destroyed. I love that.

They're having drinks for him and Rob Low's proposing a toast for him. Yes, it actually goes to another point which I've been thinking about a bit because I mean, Turki Shoot. We've laughed about the violence and all that, because people talk about these films as being you know, revolved, as disreputable, but they're not as violent as the average superhero films, you know, I mean where where the violence is so dehumanized and you don't really see it, but you know, hundreds of people are getting.

Killed, hundreds sometimes thousands of millions. You look at that Man of Steel where he it's I think the guys from We Hate Movies are like that's seventy five to nine to Eleven's all happening between all of the different buildings being destroyed by Zod and Ursa and None and Superman himself.

Whereas this is just killing fascists basically, well, some of the prisoners get killed too, but this is just killing, you know, these weird fascists.

Not to have that great Hordarowski interview, WHI Jonathan Ross rees, I love violence, but yeah, it's it's when people complain made these complaints. I'll wait, you've realized this is a storytelling, and we violence is everywhere, violence is in our is in everyday life. And and if a film, maybe the film is having this obviously the more cartoonish aspect of it in some ways, I'm obviously, but that's okay. It's

In my opinion.

I love I love that. It's it's just reputible to waste money and make a shitty movie.

Heather, is that your Ted talk? I would pay cash money to hear that Ted talk from you.

Thank you. My Ted talks are very strong. I try to have to wear it by welcome.

The Mini you should be on the moth instead. I guess it goes back to the whole Aristotelean thing of Catharsis. You know, like, why do we like this stuff? Well, it's great to see these fascists being killed. Yeah, okay, we like you said, we see some prisoners killed as well, but it just makes us even angrier about the fascists. So yeah, this is great. I'm okay with bad people being murdered in movies, especially after you see them doing bad things over and over again.

We say far what we say about you know, probably about what seven or eight people get killed in this film, very terribly. But I saw Deadpool the Wolverine recently, and I mean got the violence in that film, and just that the anonymous consequence free violence of that film is extra I quite enjoyed it, but it was extraordinary. And that's every single superhero. It's there's no consequences, there's no showing of the violence, but people are dying.

The funny thing about Deadpool and Wolverine is that both of those superheroes their power is regeneration. Like that scene where Deadpool is killing all of the other Deadpools and then they all get up and just kind of shake it off and they're ready to fight again. It's like, okay, yeah, there.

Yeah, but consequence free violence in films, that's what I'll actually object to that. I really disliked that.

Yeah, for on so many levels. There's a level, but it's also well, you've just kind of like taken the teeth out of your story. You've defamed it. It'd be like Alf without his fans or his top hat or his I love the time, and it's all vast. He's a little he's a little lad, and we love the little lad. It's the tale as old at time. Because

Well. It also came i think at a point in Australia's because you know, there were those two streams of

Them at that because I just feel like independent, so them people should all come to cover. It's like everybody, you're old. Everybody's basically fighting the good fight here. That's like that in so many countries that because it's like how many sort of art house people over here would turn down their nos be like oh, whether it's adult oh, that's just born out. That's evil Missus Jones's art house. It didn't play in an art house, so that's why it's classes here.

It also it takes on a specific resonance in Australia because we're a small secondary market and we're always struggling for cultural relevance and for and to punch above our white and to be seen as a serious cultural force. This is certainly in the seventies and eighties when Australian filmmaking was just starting, so it was very much seen as through that, through that lens of advancing a serious look at Australia and Australian themes and all that stuff.

So I didn't realize that because I knew this movie had a lot of different titles, but I didn't realize that the Escape two thousand version that was released here in the States on VHS was actually a lot shorter, and maybe that was doing what I was hoping it would do. It's only seventy eight minutes thirty seven seconds, as opposed to at least a solid ninety for the

What did they cut?

I wish I knew, but I hope it's better than the cars that eight people versus the cars that eight Paris, which is just an abomination. And that's like an hour long compared to like an hour and a half. They really butchered that thing.

Boy, that's disreputable. I know, I fear it. Seems like anytime a film like this gets cut, it's usually going to be the nudity and violence all the funds.

But this is an American release, so maybe they just played that up. Who knows we do love our guns?

Did they duble in American voices?

That would make a lot of sense if they did that too.

I mean, that's awful. I hate that shit me too. I hate it. I hate dubbing in general, but especially where it's you demiances. If everybody's speaking English, it's an accent, it's we have accents in our fucking country. They're gonna dub heath Hall where everybody sounds like they're buck Owens is like, see like he's Frank's at oddre or soundry. Jim naghbors that would be a good release to get at this. I have the severan release of this.

Yeah, I think that one's still in print, but I think the the osploitation classics are out of print, or at least this one is. But I wish it wasn't me too.

We know how much these things go up in value.

Well, especially if it's got a slipcover to it. I mean that piece of cardboard is going to cost a lot of money.

Those are probably like the you know, people like shooting each other ever sneakers in the eighties, people probably liked doing that, getting in night fights ever slip ever.

Wow.

Something I will have to track down now is the Escape two thousand release of this film, just to compare it. All Right, We're going to take a break and play a pair of interviews. First up, we'll hear from ritter himself, Roger Ward, and after that it is writer director Brian Trenchard Smith. And we'll be back with both of those right after these brief messages.

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I wanted to talk to you about Brian Crunchard Smith and Turkey Shoot specifically, but I'd love to know just how because you worked with them several times, and how was your experience working on Turkey Shoot.

I knew Frenchard before he made Man from Hong Kong, before he even started making films. I met him, so we were friends and we did a few documentaries together, and then he told me about this form he was trying to get up called the Yellow Peril, which happened to be eventually The Man from Hong Kong, about a year or so before he got to going. So we did that together and then we did other things later.

To shave his head. He said, okay, shave your hair. You just find yourself a thousand bucks with now a thousand bucks.

That shave my head. And just as well because the pilot never went The pilot that I did for the series never did go off, so I was lucky to do that. But Tony Tony works or lives in America mostly and he does very UnAustralian films and this one of them. He does unique films and I quite liked working with him. He's good of a tyrant that I quite enjoy working with him. But yeah, we worked in eighty one and it was until through the July, mid July we worked. We had David Hemings doing second unit

Oh Olivia Hussey, Olivia Hut.

She was really nice but a bit off the air, poor kid she was. She's married to Dean Martin's son, Dean Martin Jr. He was a pilot in the Air Force. But they're just divorced. But she was remarried to a Japanese guy, a Japanese guitarist musician. But she still seemed out off the air. And a couple of times she said to me, I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Was he like, can North squeeze nn. It's not that she said, I just don't want to be here on this she's a bit weird

Do you have a good time. It feels like you're having a very good time. From as a viewer.

My first fat shooting, like the day after I had my head shake, was in a They took me out and David Hemmingt did the second unit. Brian was working the main unit. So David took me to this river and Steve Rowseback and Olivia were supposedly being chased by me by characters, and they had to cross this river on a log and she was pleading at the lad and Steve Raose was doing the like the Jaws music. The dast up that, but he was quite happy on the log that I had it wade through the bloody

And cut. She went to tough.

Maybe he said no, don't count to god. I got my hands out of the way in time. But the floody machete come down on it. Oh my god. She was off the air that they did it did the game later, but David willed the mechety. Later on they did a close up. They couldn't have a handle of the chevy guy, but she was really off the air that kid.

You mentioned the pilot that you were doing at the time, and it feels like, just looking at your filmography nineteen eighty two, nineteen eighty one, you were really busy because you were doing the Pirate movie around the same time too.

Yeah, I did the Pirate movie the same year. I did well if you kept Lady Stayed Dead the same year. I did a lot of films that. Yeah, yeah, the pilot, but I would have liked to have done that pilot. It was it was a planet a cop, quite a good cop, good character. I remember Terry Burke, he's a director. You may have heard of him. Terry Birke's wife, she was a Japanese girl, and she saw the pilot and she said to me, oh, you become a star. You'd be some star, said he I've already a star, thank

Out of baby, and I light my fire.

And this poor Joe he Fred is a.

Blundy many're your body man. He left and we never saw him again. But I'm not help the kid candle. I'm telling you that now we got rid of the poor bagger.

Yeah, I know.

Was saying that the budget was slashed tremendously and that was one of the big problems. It sounds like they didn't put that betting money back into the pool.

Maybe they didn't. Did he mention the betting money?

No, he didn't tell me that story. No, that was fantastic.

He may not even known about it because he gipt been remarried, and he gept been married the first time. He was in love with his beautiful wife and he was still with and he didn't didn't socialize much. We socialized a lot. He's the previous and finished. But on that he was very much in love with his beautiful wife. But didn't see much of him. But what I just looked in to see. Oh yeah, when I mentioned that they put explosives in the river, that guy was a wild irishman.

He looked.

He linked in cares and he just came out from island. He was a bit of an explosive expert because they used him on the river. They paid him a fair money, a fair amount of money because he saw a party that night his property. He said, I've got a big party at my property, and I come along. And he catered well and all that. But there were some like an outhouse, an outside toilet on the property in the in the middle of a paddock. He said, oh, there's a toilet over there. But most of us just went

Then god damn, what the goddamn.

Well's going on here? It's this bloody experted bte it for a joke, except the point was up with false wolves and everything, and blew the blooding apart when anybody went. It just happened that got the carrier of the only one that used it. But he was quite a crazy guy. They're a bit crazy up there in northwest there, but he was an irishman on top of it, so it added to it. But I was quite happy doing the show, and I liked that fight scene I did with the

Yeah, you and Hugh keys Burns are probably my favorite part of Man from Hong Kong. I know that movie's got so many great things to offer, but just you guys together as the cop buddy kind of thing. I was like, I wish they spun off a whole series of movies with you too.

That were suggested, and we would have love that. Yeah, we were a good double. I like that. He's a great guy to work with it. I'd work with him in Style as well, and that one Madam Hong Kong, but it was a toightly different character and in Madam Hong Kong was good. Yeah, so I enjoyed that film. Yeah.

That was the thing I like about Brian's films is it just feel very fun and it feels like he's having a good time making them, You're having a good time acting in them, and I just enjoy watching those.

Yeah, he's a boys on boy. He love action on a bencher.

Yeah, be working on these days because I feel like he never slowed down.

Yeah, I did a film last September in Cann's North Quaint Fans signed Flash. We did Turkis Shoot and I've just I've won two acting awards for that since then, just for that film alone, and on the strength of that. The director is writing another one but next April, which he hasn't finished his script yet, he said he to me, but he tends to thirty pages another thirty. It's a very good script. They're both horror films. To what I did before is a horror film called Zombies Versus the

I can't wait to read those. I hope we can talk again once those come out.

Yeah, I love Justin did a good job with the intro, very good, and but yeah, I quite enjoy that that first memoir has gone to the making of Mad Max. It's called Becoming fee Fee so lead up to me playing Mad Max. And then the next one is all about my sojourn after Bad Max. I went out the season to it all around Europe and Paris and Brussels, England, America, trying to flog another film that I wrote, Will Take

Do you still get paid a thousand dollars to shave your head?

Yeah? Actually every film after they wanted me to shave my head, and I said, I'm sorry, but there's a criteria. It's going to cost you a thousand bucks. And it's funny enough when my agent told the producer that was going to cost him a thousand should what I can remember when rude your work for a thousand back season, that's what they say. Now when I say, look, it's not across a thousand book.

Oh jeez, I'd trying to port that.

Oh sorry, you want to get it? So I do. I prefer to have hair. I'd like to have hair, but everybody wants me bald. My wife works me bald. Every time my hair gets a fraction of her stubble. She worked me to shave it. So I can't win.

Do you tell her it's going to cost her a thousand dollars.

Yeah, I try that. I didn't vigure that I'll have to give her the thousand to give it to me. You yea. Even my daughter says, I prefer you with the bald head and the verstache. Dad. Even my daughter perfers me like this.

I don't know why, mister Ward. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you talking to me about this.

Good Thank you.

Thanks Mike, before we even start to talk about Turkey shoot. I'm so curious how you decided or how you got into the movie business, just because you have had such an interesting career.

I've been very lucky with my career and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker after seeing Albert Hitchcock's Vertigo on its re release in England when I was thirteen, double pilled with it. Rory Calhoun Western four Guns to the Border with Nina Fosch, whose name was given to this pronunciation quite a lot in Hollywood,

To Australia, I was working as a news film editor at Channel ten Sydney, having cold called one day and presented my reference.

I think I can be reasonably persuasive when I put my mind to it, and I had a good interview with personnel officer who was recovering from an armed robbery at the television station, a payroll robbery which he and his assistant were tied up. The seven thousand dollars dollars was stolen, the thieves were eventually caught. I think about four months later I was interviewed by him. I don't know whether any of these strange coincidences had any bearing

But where were you as far as your career when it came to Turkey Shoot?

Turkey Shoot actually initially was a setback to my career and is now actually considered to be one of the more interesting films that I made. It's funny how things turn out. But in nineteen eighty two when it came out, it was reviled by critics and did great business in the drive in theaters of America and sold to Roger Corman's New World Pictures, where it actually it grossed over a million dollars on a basically just to drive in double release, which was not bad, pretty good from Australian

My staff that.

Unfortunately, we lost a third of the bus and it had to come out of the below the line. And this happened during pre production, and no fault of the producer was because government changed the tax incentive regulations and so the extraordinarily generous one hundred and fifty percent of your tax liability if you invested it in an Australian feature film had to be theatrically released and qualify to

Was it shot under the title Turkey Shoe because there are so many titles to it that I've seen over the years.

Yes, it was a script written by three rations that had been optioned by John Daly of Mdale. It was called Turkey Shoot You. Was set in the nineteenth thirties where in a Deep South I was a fugitive from a chain gang, cool hand loop kind of thing common Dad and some of the local gentry get together, deside to have a little hunt. Prisoners are expendable and release

Anyway, I grew up in the States, so I'm aware of what was going on in eighty two here in the US, as well as a little bit of what was happening in the UK. And you've got the character Thatcher, what was going on in Australian politics at the same time. Was it that also leaning more towards the right or embracing the right like we were doing here in the States.

In the UK, No, I think we were really more embracing the left through Bob Hawk, i'll be, former trade union leader who then became Prime Minister, and he didn't give about a number of useful social reforms. The Labor government that had briefly made some difference in the early seventies was thrown out in seventy five and took till eighty three for labor to get in. Anyway, it was there was part of the political thinking in the film, and I developed it to to rewrite with two new

Tell me about the remake and tell me about how that happened.

Yes, I what did I have to do with the remake? I was never asked to remake it perhaps should have been, And when I heard it was happening, I didn't have any rights to it. Of course I was paid out eventually. It took a legal letter, but I was paid, but I was not sent a script. But then eventually I was asked, can I please put your name on it as executive producer? And we have so little money maybe I'll give you a thousand dollars or a really nice

The thing that always gets me with this movie is the mutant, just the appearance of what some people would call the wolfman when he shows up, and I was just curious, if you can tell me a little bit more about that.

I yes. Originally the mutant was written to have like a semi prosthetic arm that it could be so he'd obviously been mechanically altered in some way he was going to be. He was written to be a sort of challenged to the prosthetic makeup department. Bob mccarrum excellent makeup artists who were distinguished a number of films, both in Straight Out of New Zealand and elsewhere. He came up with the makeup effects, and look how well he created

I would love to know a little bit about some of your writing projects, because I know in twenty twenty two, if you're a fan of Brian Trenchard Smith, you are in for a treat, because there was both The Adventures in the B Movie trade and then I want to say that Alice through the Multiverse came out that same summer as well. Is that correct?

It came out before b B before Okay? Ah, right, Alice through the Multiverse is a time tripping, paramorbal female driven adventure with the twenty year old history student whose psychological issues combined with maybe paramormal activity to cause her to bounce back and forth between her fifty century ancestor, who was the daughter of a rural executioner, and her present day self, a history student with mental health problems that is somehow caught up in an international assassination plot

I studied your file, rig I can make it all go away. Sleep now when you wake. All you gotta do is play Turkey shoots the game and you were the turkey.

Just who is our new turkey?

He's Rick Tyler, just freest former Navy seal Courk Marshalls three years ago for massacring women and children Navy Seals Marine for pussy a Hurrah.

The game has three levels, and hidden in each level is this box. Open all three boxes you win your freedom, run out of time, and you're eliminated. Eliminated sounds a lot nicer than dead, but that's what we're talking about. Level one has four shooters, but double that amount introduced each level.

Their job is to hunt and kill you. Of course, you can return the.

Favor all you see it.

I can tell you things you don't remember.

You can't kill those kids, your friend.

It is imperative to the security of this nation that Rick Tyler will be silent.

Yes, sir, you are game changing. Rick, the audience love you.

You realize he's planned this whole thing. He wants me to get to it. Hold on, I'll see you on the next level.

It's game.

All right, We're back and we were talking about Turkey Shoot. And as I always say, any good movie deserves a really bad remake, let's talk about Elimination Game aka Turkey Shoot aka most Extreme Elimination Challenge. It is possibly one of the poorest directed, edited, acted, and shot films that I've seen in a long damn time. Though I know Andrew, you messaged me off show and told me how much you enjoyed watching this, And you know I don't blame you.

Yes, as I refer to a Turkey Shit, really that two thousand and there's very few times Mic where I think ill of you, but making me waste an hour of my heart, I'm never going to get back in my life watching the two thousand and fourteen version of Turkey Shoot or Turkey Shit is one of them, absolutely one of them.

And then did you watch this movie?

I feel bad now because you made you didn't May I guess you didn't make you were like Andrew, I have a mutant wolf man and a dandy. It's like a dance that will come for you if you don't watch this. I couldn't do it. I'm sorry. I like you and I've potted together for how many years now fifty out at the weird Eyelanders. But I couldn't do it. I'm sorry. I couldn't. I couldn't do it. It's like it's like when it was like when Chris or beloved Christatue. Our good friend asked me if I wanted to watch

But what you sign hither is that there's some things you won't do, oh one.

One hundred percent. I don't have many. I'dn't have many, love it's but this, I just this was one of them. And also why that's the thing when you see a shitty remake, Why.

And Apparently the makers of this were really big fans of the original because they got back some of the actors from the original, including Roger Ward. But even the woman that played Jennifer's back in it. I think she's like the President or something.

The President. She plays the President, President Shila Faw.

Yeah, just they got her, put her in front of a green screen and just said go nuts. Because this movie is so poorly directed. I just want to talk about one scene, one scene in particular. I went back and I rewatched it today just to make sure that I wasn't seeing things, and it was really about what I wasn't seeing. There's a moment in the film where Dominic Purcell, who plays our main character, and it's just the one character. There's not three characters going on here

Great.

He's in the shower and he's looking straight ahead and then cut to a guy who is it. The lighting is the exact same, it's this blue light and he is facing to the left, and then they cut back to Dominic Purcell, and I'm like, is he looking at this other guy? Where is this other guy? And then they cut back to the other guy again and it looks like he's got a knife in his hand, and I'm just like, does he want to fuck Dominic Purcell? Like are they in the shower together? Like what is

This is I've messed out.

Oh you've dodged a massive bullet, shitty reality TV aesthetic, nasty, ugly facile. It actually made no sense. The plot made no sense to me. And it's actually hard to fuck up a people hunting people film, I think, because it's basically fairly simple, and even the crappest people hunting people films makes sense because you've got someone who's been hunted by a group of people. But this sort of this was actually sort of more. I mean, because there's two

The Butcher of Bakersfield.

Yes, yes, Dominic for who the fuck is Dominic Purcell.

He is mostly known for being Dracula Blade three and being the guy who was stuck in prison during Olive prison break, well prison break until they broke out of the prison, and then the show just fizzled. Like nobody's business.

Everyone deserves paycheck, everyone's got to make a living. I don't want to, I certainly don't want to criticize anything to do with any of the Three Blade films, but he was terrible. It was terrible. It made no sense. It all the ram rob the Marksmen that ridiculous character ram rob them. Why didn't you just call him, you know, call him anal intercourse or something like that.

What do you what do you know?

Don't bother coding it, just come out and say it all the other shitty characters. I think it's also you can always tell when a film is going to be crap when they call something neo neo Alcatraz, which was this sort of I suppose a bit of a nod to the Guantanamo Bay ABU Gray. It looked ugly. It was just it was just terrible on every level.

They tried to sully the good name of Charlie Verick because Anthony Ganen is back as President Charles Verick. I'm just like, for fox sake, guys, what really breaks my heart is so this was directed by John Hewitt, written by Belinda McClory, who also is in it. She's his handler. And Melinda Belinda McClory, she was switched in the Matrix and I love her character, but not in this, not in this.

I got to say, it really annoyed me the way that everyone spoke in American accidents, even when they were you know, they were all astraight, and it didn't. It didn't work, I thought, Belinda McClory.

Yeah.

She was in a film, a really weird Melbourne sort of cereal cop cop investigating a serial killer film called red Ball. Oh.

I remember red Ball in.

Nineteen ninety nine that John Hewitt did. John Hewett also did this version of Turkey Shoot that we're ragging on at the moment. She was in the Matrix film. She was in two really good Australian true crime shows in the nineties, one called Janus and one called Phoenix. I

She was also in one called The Book of Revelation, which we're actually going to cover next year.

What's that I haven't heard of that.

It's an interesting one. It's an erratic mystery. Basically, these women I think they kidnap.

Oh.

Yes, the Book of Revelite. Yes, yes, they kidnap a guy and sexually abuse him and release him. I've never seen that. I've never seen that film. I've got it on DVD somewhere, I must. Yes, and the Kokonos.

I remember watching that years and years ago for an article I was writing and actually really liking it, so I threw it down the schedule for Dirty December twenty twenty five.

Dirty, You're theming in months now? I like that even more so.

Yeah, Well, I just was like, well, we got Conspirators of Pleasure and Story of Oh. I'm like, yeah, these are all going in one area please, and then it'll be a very fun November for me next year, so I don't have to you know, I'll be a missed family holidays, but having a much better time watching these movies.

Also, do you think the movie would have been better if they just called the character anal intercourse? The marts it.

Says, what was it trying to be? Just a sort of shitty reality TV film. I don't know it lacked any of the final I know it's strange to sort of say that Turkeys. The original Turkey shot has some finesse and some playfulness to it. But it does, and it's like, let's take all that out.

There was a movie with Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones called The Condemned. It was another people hunting people movie. I went to see that piece of shit at the movie theater. It was ten times to one hundred times better than an elimination game. And like I made that joke about most extreme elimination challenge. When you call it elimination game, I picture two guys on toilets staring at each other and trying to shit faster. The new reality show.

Would have been a better film.

Oh my god, I hope there's not fanfic for that.

Just don't see it. Don't waste your time. Watch something, Go and watch, Go and rewatch something, Go and do so, go and don't do Just go read a book over a walk, tell your partner you love them, do something else, but don't watch this film. That's my that's sorry, And I'm glad that Brian Trench and Smith may Adola as I think he was an executive producer. Don't want to criticize that, but just an absolute pace of staving shit.

We're going to take another break and play a preview for next week's show. Right after these brief messages, thank you for.

Agreeing to make this documentary. Mnis Rucker Rouse with Trucker.

That's my wife, Darlene.

She's a real looker, ain't she? What is your contribution to society as Truckers? A contribution to society? Twenty eight years of my life. I've been working on this poetry.

It's lonely up there on the road.

You gotta love where you can.

I love Darlene.

I'm not saying you don't love your wife.

Yeah, it's hard to being on the road.

Hellone, it looks a lot lacker because Darling's much pretty.

Your wife not doing it for you anymore?

Do you want to show you how I do it?

Do you think you're like your masterpiece when you're Jonathan master Piece?

I like the ring of that.

Pay attention.

You're not taking advantage of her, are you sure?

Rucker?

Trucker?

That's right. We'll be back next week when they look at the film. Rucker. Until then, I want to thank this week's co host Andrew and Heather. Heather, what is the latest with you, ma'am?

I actually, since we were talking about Austria and cinema, I'm going to mention an essay I did somewhat recently for the Blu Ray release of Midnight Spares and if I let's see if you're up for there, the nineteen eighty three Australian film directed by Quentin Masters, and it is a wild ride that is wild as Turkey shared, but it's a great it's a great film and it has David arc here, so I feel like this is David Argue, a heavy keeps lotting he is in this film,

What's going on in your world, sir?

You know I'm rolling a law. I have a new book out which I've co edited with New York critic Sam Degan, Revolution and thirty five Millimeter political violence and resistance in cinema From the Art House to the grind House nineteen sixty and nineteen ninety. And that book is out through PM Press or it's wheeling its way out to the world. I believe pre orders are going out. Mike, you have an essay in US.

Not only do I have an essay, and I've got the cop I've got the book right here.

So you might want to pick that up. Otherwise you can if you want to hear my read my various thoughts on things. I have a sub stack under my name Andrew Netty, which you can you can subscribe to or not, It's up to you.

Well, thank you so much folks for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at Weirdingmaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.

All deviates assemble immediately in center compounds. All deviates assemble immediately in center compound.

All deviates assemble immediately in center compounds, all debates