High Rise Buffet - Q: THE WINGED SERPENT

Movies filmed in New York City in the ‘70’s and early ‘80’s are the best.  Setting a gritty and menacing scene in pre-Giuliani New York consisted of just rolling the camera.  There was no need to dress the set.  New York was gritty and menacing all the time, especially to people who didn’t live there.  As a kid growing up in a tiny Southern town, I remember being both scared and fascinated by New York.  If movies (and TV, and the news) were to be believed, there were winos and pimps on every corner, muggers and murderers down ever alley.  Everything in the city wanted to rip you off or kill you.  What was more amazing was that regular people actually lived in this alien world.  Kids went to school in tightly packed buildings all named with a PS, everyone shopped at tiny grocery stores run by one guy, people did laundry in the middle of the night in rooms with a hundred porthole washing machines.  Their apartments had buzzers and radiators and three or more deadbolts.  Everything was within walking distance, past all those dangerous corners and alleys, yet somehow, not everyone got murdered.  To me, New York City was as strange and exotic as a desert bazaar in a fantasy movie.  By the time I was old and brave enough to go there, that New York no longer existed.  The trash was cleaned up.  The rats were corralled.  The grindhouses of 42^nd Street were replaced by AMC multiplexes and Dave & Buster’s.  I have walked drunk through Times Square at 2am and have not been mugged or murdered once.  Not that I’m complaining.  I still love the city, but I yearn for a glimpse of the mystic days of old.  Luckily, I have the movies.  Through them, I can experience the grungiest side of the city without the hassle of being stabbed.  There are a handful of low budget time capsules that I love, but for me, the most quintessentially New York of all of them is Larry Cohen’s 1982 nutso monster movie, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT.

The Capsule:

It’s 1982 in New York City, and someone is biting the heads off innocent skyscraper window washers.  Someone… or something.  No, it’s just something.  A giant lizard-bird has set up roost in the towers of Manhattan, and no one is safe to walk the rooves.  Its appearance may also be connected to a string of ritual mutilations occurring in the city. Trying to make sense of it all is Detective Shepard (David Carradine) and Detective Powell (Richard “Shaft” Roundtree).  The key to the whole mess could be part-time crook and full-time loser Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty).  He accidentally stumbled on the nest of the creature dubbed “Q” (because no one can pronounce “Quetzalcoatl”) high in the spire of the Chrysler Building.  Being the sweetheart that he is, Jimmy holds out telling the cops about the location until he can get a big pay out from the city.  Will the cops be able to stop this prehistoric beast before the streets run red with the blood of construction workers and sunbathers? 

Q: THE WINGED SERPENT is a strange mishmash of a movie.  On one hand, it’s very ambitious—a giant winged monster attacks New York.  On the other, it’s very small—an intimate character study of a small time loser and other assorted New York weirdos.  It was produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, the B movie legend who developed other classic giant monster movies like WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, REPTILICUS, and FOOD OF THE GODS.  Q itself is mostly done with stop motion, and harkens all the way back to KING KONG.  Larry Cohen wrote and directed it though, and without studio interference, so it’s a trashy exploitation version of a giant monster in NYC.  There are lots of bloody kills, a bit of gratuitous nudity, oddball humor, and some fantastically flawed characters.  

The opening clearly establishes it as a horror movie, and a juicy one at that.  It starts, appropriately, on the Empire State Building.  An annoying window washer is bothering some lady in a high level office as she is talking on the phone.  She keeps glancing back and fake smiling at his antics until there is a screech and a POV crash zoom into the washer.  The next time she looks, his headless body is pressed against the glass, pumping blood all over the window.  And it was just washed.  The monster is not only murderous, but also terribly inconsiderate.  There’s a reoccurring gag about how unlucky the victims are.  One construction worker complains about his stolen lunch moments before being snatched off the building.  His foreman is enjoying the poor guy’s sandwich as his bloody hard hat falls to the ground.  There is also a great bit of Cohen humor when an undercover cop, disguised as a mime, gets so scared when he sees the monster that he can’t scream, he just gestures in horror.  The monster seems to be an equal opportunity predator.  It dines on luxury high rise upper crusters as well as working class schmoes.  Gender makes no difference, either.  Q hauls off a topless sunbather in one scene, the next time it ignores all the women and plucks a condescending jerk (almost certainly a lawyer) out of a fancy rooftop pool. My favorite bit is not a kill, but the reaction of the people on the street as blood rains down from the passing Q and its prey.  No one can see it because the monster always flies against the sun, so the pedestrians totally freak out when they are randomly splattered with blood from the sky.  The reactions are so weird and improvised I’m suspicious if Cohen didn’t just hide the camera and fling fake blood on an unsuspecting crowd.

Since this is a Larry Cohen film, the monster angle is just the framework.  The real focus of the movie is the brilliantly peculiar cast.  David Carradine and Richard Roundtree are leading the hunt for the head chopping lizard-bird as Detectives Shepard and Shaft (okay, Powell, but I dare you to not just call him Shaft).  These are Cohen cops, disheveled (Shepard), hot headed (Powell), and not terribly effective at their job (both).  When pondering what happened to the window washer’s head, a disinterested Shepard says “Maybe it got loose and just fell off.”  The detectives shout at each other as much as they do any criminals.  It isn’t LETHAL WEAPON, they don’t become buddies.  Shepard pursues the giant lizard-bird angle (to the point of blatantly doodling it on a notepad while in a meeting with the police commissioner).  Powell wants a non-prehistoric suspect. 

Before the movie even starts, they were already trying to chase down a serial killer who skins and cuts out the hearts of his victims.  It seems like a weird, unconnected subplot at first, but it turns out to have an even weirder, possibly-supernatural-but-maybe-just-coincidental relation to the monster.  The murders are actually sacrifices to the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, intended on bringing about its return.  Now, I must admit, the timing is suspicious, but Q never acts like anything other than an animal.  It makes a nest (with a giant egg inside), it hunts for convenient roof dwellers, it can be hurt by regular old bullets.  As a predator, it’s impressive.  As a god, it’s pretty lackluster.  There’s no evidence the sacrifices have anything to do with it.  The weirdest thing is that the sacrificial victims all have to be willing, and they have all been middle aged, white businessmen.  Not the kind of people I would imagine volunteering to have their chests sliced open (while still awake) for an ancient Aztec god.  Was there some kind of Ivy League Quetzalcoatl secret society going on in the Sixties, like Skull & Bones?  Is that how they became successful?  It leads to a great climax, where the cult priest nabs one of the main characters and intends him to be the next sacrifice.  The priest is dumbfounded when the guy refuses to die willingly.  Shit, he never considered that.  He’s at the point of saying “Aw, come on!” when the police bust in.

More than the monster or the cops, the star of the movie is Michael Moriarty.  The sniveling two-bit crook Jimmy Quinn is not a hero, or even an anti-hero.  He has zero redeeming qualities.  He’s an abject coward, a horrible boyfriend, a casual racist, and complete sad sack.  Yet, Moriarty plays him in a way that is almost charming.  Quinn seems like a man who wants to do right, but doesn’t know where or how to begin.  Right is not in his skill set.  In a sole attempt to go straight, he auditions for a piano playing gig at the bar where his long suffering girlfriend, Joan (Candy Clark), works.  Instead of playing a standard crowd pleaser to impress the blue collar boss, he can’t help but start noodling away on some kind of freeform jazz scat that gets him the boot.  For Quinn, screwing up is instinctual.  When he is strong-armed into participating in a jewelry heist (at Neil’s Diamonds), not only does he blow it by walking out mid robbery, he also loses the loot thirty seconds later.  He discovers Q’s nest completely by accident, it just happens to be in the spot where he’s trying to hide out.  In any other movie, the main character would do the decent thing by telling the cops (who wouldn’t believe him), but Quinn sees it only as an opportunity.  He finally has something important, something people really need.  Suddenly, for the first time ever, Quinn is a big man.  He very clumsily uses the information to extort 1 million dollars from the city, taunting the cops and generally being a huge prick as the deal is being drawn up.  Being who he is, he manages to screw that up, too.  Only at the very end, when he’s at his lowest, does he make any effort to become a better man.  I’m sure it lasted about fifteen minutes.

The City, in all its grungy glory, is just as much of a character as the major players.  There are certainly sleazier depictions, MANIAC or BASKET CASE, for instance, but I don’t know of one that is both as sleazy and iconic at the same time.  This is because the movie’s key location, Q’s nest, is in the top of the Chrysler Building.  This structure is a legitimate architectural wonder, probably the best example of Art Deco style in the world, and it is second only to the Empire State Building as far as New York landmarks.  On the outside, the building is marvelous.  On the inside, it is a shithole.  At that time, the spire was totally unmaintained, and was filled with trash, plywood, and makeshift scaffolding barely holding it together.  When I first saw the movie, I was sure the internal shots were filmed elsewhere, but no, that was really what the Chrysler Building looked like inside.  There were huge openings on the sides that led to a straight drop, covered only by billowing plastic sheets. Moriarty has a scene right beside one.  If he had lost his balance, they would have had to make some hasty script changes.  Back then, that was New York in a nutshell, beautiful and ugly at the same time.

Q: THE WINGED SERPENT did quite well for its meager budget, and Larry Cohen went on to direct the equally fantastic THE STUFF (killer yogurt) and to finish up his IT’S ALIVE trilogy (killer babies).  He still keeps busy these days, mostly as a screenwriter.  Michael Moriarty continues to take bizarre Michael Moriarty roles (he recently played Hitler in HITLER MEETS CHRIST).  Richard Roundtree is still, and will always be, Shaft.  New York City has done well for itself in the ensuing years, having become cleaner, brighter, and more Disneyfied, but under all the LED screens and Segway tours, it retains its grimy charm.  Come for the shopping, the theater, and the museums, stay for the giant lizard-birds.

C. Chaka

Highbrow Ass Kicking: HAYWIRE

Action movies are often, unjustly, looked down upon for two things.  One is that they are generally thought of as lowbrow.  Just set the camera up, throw a bunch of guns, fist fights, car chases, and explosions in its direction, and call it a day.  Rarely are they applauded for their wit, composition, design, or style.  Action is also often thought of as a guy’s movie, the diametric opposite of a chick flick.  If there are women involved, they are there to be rescued or swept off their feet by the testosterone-pumped hero.  Or if you are still thinking lowbrow, they are just there for the sex scenes.  Then George Miller dropped a little wake-call in the form of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and blew away those preconceived notions with style, a female centered plot, and yes, car chases and explosions.  Before FURY ROAD, though, there was another prime example that action movies could rise above the stereotypes.  Steven Soderburgh’s HAYWIRE (2007) is the quieter, low key alternative to Miller’s epic, a luscious, sexy world of intrigue, brutal fight scenes, and an absolutely indomitably female lead.

The Capsule:

Mallory Kane (champion MMA fighter Gina Carano) is a 100% badass independent contractor (the kind that rescues people, not the kind that remodels your kitchen).  Just before she can cut ties with her smarmy boss, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), she accepts one last job from him.  It should be a friendly information exchange in Dublin, but after a double cross she finds herself framed for murder and targeted by her teammate (Michael Fassbender).  Kenneth seriously underestimates Ms. Kane, though.  After taking out her would be assassin and eluding an army of cops, Mallory makes it back to the States.  To clear her name, Mallory will have to keep one step ahead of Kenneth, her ex-associate Aaron (Channing Tatum), and the authorities, while unraveling a multinational conspiracy.  Before it is over, she will introduce her foot to many a face.

HAYWIRE is a very rare beast, a full-on action movie that is dripping with style.  It is gorgeously shot, with graceful tracking shots following our heroine as she slips in and out of trouble.  The editing gives you room to breathe without sacrificing any of the kinetic flow.  The score harkens back to a silky ‘60’s spy movie, giving it a glamorous feel.  There is just enough humor peppered throughout to keep the serious script from getting grim.  Under all the elegance, though, is a thoroughly badass action flick.  There are all the things you would expect, car chases, shootouts, near death escapes, and absolutely bone crunching fights.  Soderbergh mixes everything together in one sexy, smooth package that subtly messes with your expectations.

The movie open sets the tone perfectly.  Mallory, looking cold and disheveled, is nursing a cup of coffee in a snow covered upstate NY diner. A car pulls up.  She recognizes the man in the car and is not happy about it.  Aaron drops into the seat in front of her, impatient and hung-over.  He wants her to get in the car, she’s adamant about not going.  Everything is civil until, without warning, he splashes hot coffee in her face and begins beating the shit out of her.  His actions are sudden and shocking; it feels like a scene of brutal domestic violence.  Except that the second Aaron’s assault is interrupted by the diner patrons, Mallory comes back at him just as fast and even more viciously.  She disarms him, overpowers him, and breaks his arm.  The take down is precise and unemotional.  Aaron isn’t the abusive boyfriend, he’s the guy who should have brought backup.  Even with a sucker punch and gun, he’s not in her league.

Soderbergh then flips another gender trope by having Mallory (politely) kidnap the wide-eyed good-Samaritan Scott (Michael Angarano) in order to get away.  She guides him through fixing the gunshot wound in her arm while she high tails it in his new car.  She assures him he’s going to be fine and tries to keep him calm, all while effortlessly evading the police.  She even saves him during an ambush shootout.  There’s no time for him to return the favor or kindle any romance, she dumps him off as soon as it is safe.  Slam, bam, thank you sir.  Her time with Scott is also used as a clever framing device for the story.  The movie slips back and forth in time as she drills him on all the pertinent details of her last few days so he can get her side of the story out.  

One of the cool things about the movie is that for the most part, the fact that Mallory is a woman is kind of irrelevant.  She’s a professional, first and foremost.  When her team comes together for her first mission, she confidently takes control right out of the gate.  She is the most experienced and capable member of the team, and no one bucks it just because she’s a girl.  Aaron tries to give her a little shit, but it’s more about tactics than her leadership and Mallory is quick to shut it down.  The mission goes off successfully, and she personally takes care of the loose ends (by way of a beat down).  After the mission, as Aaron clumsily tries to flirt with her, she grabs him by the belt and takes charge of that situation, too.  When Kenneth wants her for one last job, going undercover as the wife of British operative Paul (Fassbender), she balks.  “I don’t wear the dress.”  Only his pleading and the promise of a substantial paycheck for an easy job convinces her.

It turns out that she wears a dress quite well.  She and Paul make an adorable couple, slipping into a fancy soiree at a Dublin mansion to exchange information with a shady contact.  Her unease at being all dolled up and on display works well for her cover, making her seem like a slightly overwhelmed and timid American trespassing into the European high life.  Uncomfortable or not, she is still on the top of her game, and she senses something is up.  Once she is away from Paul, Mallory does a bit of sleuthing on her own and realizes she is actually there to be set up for a murder.  Paul is in on it, and Kenneth is the man pulling the strings.  In order to find out more information, Mallory has to play along and pretend she’s still in the dark.  Until they return to their hotel, when the game changes.

Mallory’s big fight with Paul has to be one of the all-time greatest cinematic fight scenes.  It starts with this amazing sense of anticipation.  Mallory and Paul are returning to their room, chatting casually, trying not to show each other’s hand.  Paul is pretending he’s not about kill her, she is pretending she doesn’t know what he’s up to.  As he gets the door, she is slipping off her shoes.  It’s hard to do a round house kick in high heels (presumably).  Paul isn’t taken chances, either.  He sucker punches her in the back of the neck the second he closes the door.  What follows is an expertly staged, incredibly brutal, no holds barred smack down.  Really well trained actors can make a fight scene believable.  Professional athletes like Carano can make a fight scene feel real.  They seem evenly matched at first, but even though Paul is clearly well trained, Mallory soon dominates.  She comes at him like a lioness.  Paul throws her into a set of glass shelves, Mallory responds with a vase upside Paul’s head (Carano apparently did that for real by accident).   Every hit he lands, she lands two.  He gives it everything he has, but Paul never had a chance.  Once he’s down, she finishes him with a bullet to the head, not giving him a second thought.  Her mind is already on the next move.

Mallory is the only female character in the movie, and the story really boils down to how she deals with the men in her life.  Some, like Scott and her dad (Bill Paxton) want to help, but can’t offer much.  Some, like the high ranking company man, Alex (Michael Douglas), and his associate Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas) say they are sympathetic, but have their own agenda.  It’s even complicated with Kenneth, the man who definitely wants her dead.  He claims the setup was only a business opportunity (“the motive is money, the motive is always money”), but a big factor seems to be that not only is Mallory leaving his employment, she also recently dumped him.  When he’s posing as a government agent to get information from Mallory’s father, he asks him if she’s ever mentioned anyone named Kenneth, and he is clearly upset when her dad says no.  Underneath all his covert schemes and power plays, he’s really just a jilted boyfriend nursing his pride.  Earlier, when he’s briefing Paul about his target, he warns, “Don’t think of her as a woman.  That would be a mistake.”  I got the feeling he was trying to convince himself as much as his hired killer.

Gina Carano was new to acting at this point and caught some flak for her performance.  Some thought it was flat, but I think it’s perfect for her character.  Mallory is a reserved, buttoned down, disciplined person.  She doesn’t make small talk, she doesn’t show her emotions.  Her professional fighting experience gives her an incredible physical presence.  Carano fits right in with stoic action icons like Eastwood and Bronson.  Her best acting is nonverbal.  She has incredibly expressive eyes.  I totally bought her as Mallory.  

Much of the success has to do with the remarkable direction of Steven Soderbergh, well known of movies like SCHIZOPOLIS (1996), BUBBLE (2005), and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIMENT (2009), among others.  Everything about the film is unbelievably tight, no excess, no filler.  Contrary to the title, Soderbergh is in control the entire time, handling the editing and cinematography himself.  It’s all his vision.  Sound design, art design, costumes, and stunts are all flawless.  The fights are shot wide and clean, allowing you to appreciate what is actually happening.  The movie is essentially a masterpiece.  Tragically, it wasn’t a huge hit.   There is some speculation (by me) that this disappointment was the reason Soderbergh retired from film directing, for three years.  Gina Carano has gone on to other high profile roles in FURIOUS 6 and DEADPOOL, though nothing quite as ass-kicking as Mallory Kane.  In a perfect world, she would have gone on to be the new Bond.  I mean Mallory Kane would have become a franchise like Bond, not that Gina Carano would take over the role of Bond.  That would be silly.  We all know Emily Blunt should play the next Bond.

C. Chaka

Embrace Your Limitations: TURKEY SHOOT

These days, studio blockbusters can have budgets larger than small countries, CGI can generate anything under and over the sun, and scripts can be remolded by a dozen screenwriters.  Every whim is within the director’s grasp. The results can still be uninspired.  Sometimes the key to really good filmmaking is not getting what you want.  Sudden roadblocks require creative thinking to get around, and can push a director down interesting new paths he or she might never have ventured otherwise.  Everyone has heard the stories of how Spielberg was forced to hide his malfunctioning shark through most of JAWS.  His workarounds re-wrote the book on suspense and produced an untouchable classic of cinema. Obviously, not everyone faced with the limitations of budget, time, and/or resources is going to turn it around and come up with gold.  A lot of films never overcome those challenges.  But even a failure can produce strange, unexpected fruit, and those oddities can be enough to make a movie stand out.  Take Brian Trenchard-Smith’s 1982 Australian sci-fi bloodbath, TURKEY SHOOT, for instance.  

The Capsule:

In a dystopian future, objectors to the authoritarian rule are labeled “Deviants” and shipped off to Re-Education camps.  Some are true dissidents and revolutionaries like Paul Anders (Steve Railsback).  Others, like law abiding Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey), are rounded up simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Both Anders and Chris find themselves in the brutal Camp 47.  As hellish as the conditions within the camp are, the tyrannical Camp Master Thatcher (Michael Craig) has even worse plans for them.  Thatcher combats overcrowding by staging “turkey shoots” for society’s degenerate elite, with the prisoners as the prey.  Hunted through the jungle by vicious guards, well-armed sociopaths, and even nastier surprises, Anders and Chris will need a miracle to survive.

TURKEY SHOOT is a strange movie, no doubt.  It’s a satire at heart, much like Paul Bartel’s earlier DEATH RACE 2000.  Trenchard-Smith doesn’t go as over the top as that, but he does keep the performances bombastic and the set-ups outrageous.  The first half of this film is essentially a prison movie, with all the sleaze and violence that comes with that genre.  The sleaze is a little more egalitarian in this crazy future world, at least. There is a shower scene, as required by all prison movies, but like STARSHIP TROOPERS, it's co-ed.  Overall, there isn’t much strife between the prisoners.  I wouldn’t call it solidarity, the inmates are too busy keeping their heads down, but they aren’t trying to shank or abuse each other, either.  The worst of the batch, Dodge (John Ley), is merely an opportunistic douchebag.  If it weren’t for the sadistic guards, it would be a pretty progressive prison.  

The guards are a nasty bit of work, having free reign to harass and torture the inmates.  They put the prisoners through elaborate and difficult challenges (their version of “the box” has a huge weight that the prisoner must hold up or be crushed).  It’s kind of like that TV show, Survivor, but with death at stake rather than idols.  One of the worst is Red, a limping, predatory scumbag.  He targets the timid Chris right out of the gate, continuously raising the threat of sexual violence.  Luckily, the movie is more interested in sticking it to the man than wallowing in the sleaze.  When Red makes his move in the shower, Chris turns the tables (and zips the zipper) on her would-be rapist.  The movie is satisfyingly punitive against misogynists; two lascivious bastards get shot in the dick, others get similarly ignoble fates.

The biggest baddies are running the place.  Chief Guard Ritter (Roger Ward, Max’s boss in MAD MAX) is a psychopathic brute with a luxurious moustache and a penchant for beating people to death for no reason.  This is the guy in charge of keeping the other guards in line, which is saying something.  Above Ritter is the ice cold Camp Master Thatcher.  Tasked with “rehabilitating” the Deviants, he espouses the camp’s contradictory motto: Freedom is Obedience, Obedience is Work, Work is Life (the unofficial motto: If you have time to lean, you have time to be hit in the neck with a rifle butt).  Thatcher is a classic control freak.  He deals with even the slightest disobedience with a disproportionally severe reprisal, often with a benevolent smile on his face.  He would have the world believe his actions are for the prisoners own good, encouraging their realignment with Society, but his real interest is breaking wills and bodies beneath his heel.  Thatcher has higher ambitions than just torturing malcontents, though, which is why he has arranged the prisoner hunts for a bunch of wealthy and influential sleazebags.

Once we get to the MOST DANGEROUS GAME portion of the movie, the villains get even more colorful.  The hunters are the type of amoral, decadent bourgeoisie that are easy to despise.  They are all extremely one dimensional, the only character evolution is in the depths of their depravity.  Still, it makes their inevitable comeuppance that much more satisfying.  Secretary Mallory is a slimy, simpering politician who sets his perverted eye on Chris.  He uses Ritter to shield him through the dangers of the hunt, but wants the kill all for himself.  Jennifer is a cunning socialite with a woman-hating streak even wider than the boys.  She’s a weapons designer, but her personal preference is a custom crossbow with explosive bolts.  My favorite baddie is the sadomasochistic big game hunter, Tito.  It’s not Tito himself that is so great, although he does drive around in a cute little bulldozer and has a quick draw bazooka.  The best thing about Tito is Alph, his hunting companion/pet.  Alph is a werewolf in a top hat.    If I wasn’t in love with TURKEY SHOOT yet, Alph sealed the deal.  He is the most insanely left field thing in a movie that starts out way, way in left field to begin with.  And he is played totally straight, at least compared to everything else we’ve seen.  The only explanation given is that Alph is a freak, and Tito found him in a circus.  Don’t question it, just enjoy his back breaking, toe-eating antics.

Compared to the villains, the heroes come off a little bland.  Steve Railsback plays Anders with his typical intensity (I’ll always remember him best as the abductee nutball Duane Berry from The X-Files).  He’s a fine foil for Thatcher, the unbreakable malcontent fighting for a revolution.  He, like the villains, is a little one note, though.  The big surprise is what a badass Olivia Hussey's character becomes.  Chris Walters (possibly the least interesting action movie name ever) goes through most of the film acting like a frightened rabbit, but she still manages to [spoilers] chop off Ritter’s hands to save Anders, blow off Jennifer’s head with her own explosive arrow, and mow down dozens of camp guards during the insurrection.  Anders is thrown a bone by getting to chew up Thatcher into pieces with a  machine gun, but it turns out Chris is the Most Dangerous Deviant around.

The best thing about this movie, werewolves aside, is that we are unceremoniously dumped into a dystopian future already in progress.  Stock footage of public unrest plays over the opening credits, then – pow – we are in the back of a Re-Ed van with the new batch of Deviants. No voice over, no text crawl, no nothing.  Anders and Chris have short backstories, but they don’t really explain anything other than Don’t Fuck With the Man.  Clearly, an authoritarian government is in control, and it doesn’t take any shit.  We don’t know if it is global or regional government or how the world got into the state it’s in.  We don’t even know the year (they say it in the trailer, but not the film).  It’s similar to the original MAD MAX, where the audience is left to fill in the blanks.  Where MAD MAX had a society gradually disintegrating into lawlessness, though, TURKEY SHOOT’s fascist world is fully formed and totally in control.  

The original script did explain things.  The opening of the film was supposed to be all about life in the 1984 (the book, not the year) style society.  The second act was to be the camp, then came the turkey shoot.  Before everything could get going, though, Brian Trenchard-Smith had both the financing and the shooting schedule cut.  He had to drop the opening and expand out the second and third acts.  There is still a bit of cheeky social commentary to be found (the ultra-conservative Camp Master shared the same name as the UK Prime Minister, after all), but Trenchard-Smith had to ramp up the action, sleaze, and gore to make up for the shortfall.  It worked out fine, in my opinion.  We’ve seen oppressive futuristic governments before.  What we haven’t seen is a werewolf in a top hat.  

If ever there was a movie that begged for a sequel, it’s TURKEY SHOOT.  The end of the movie finds Anders and Chris victorious, having liberated the camp and put down all the baddies, but there is a definite feeling of “what now?”  There’s still that soulless, unspecified totalitarian regime to overthrow.  Unfortunately, we’ll never know happened.  TURKEY SHOOT was not a success when initially released to dumbfound audiences, only gaining cult status years later.  The closest it came to a sequel was the 2014 remake, not directed by Trenchard-Smith, and not seen by me.  It looks all grim and serious.  I’m willing to bet there is not a single werewolf in it.  I was momentarily intrigued by the poster, which I thought showed an awesomely miscast Steve Carell, but it turned out to be Dominic Purcell instead. Missed opportunities.

Trenchard-Smith went on to introduce the world to Nicole Kidman (and her original nose) in BMX BANDITS, continue his dystopian satire theme with the brilliant DEAD END DRIVE-IN, and eventually make the schizocinema fave NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2.    I doubt any of those movies ended up the way he first envisioned them, and it is probably for the better.  Let’s hear it for limitations.

C Chaka