When I was a junior in college, I took a month-long January course on sociology and science fiction. Our prof–a nice guy, on a visiting gig–was striving mightily for a laidback, easygoing vibe, and we must have spent maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the actual class time watching movies. One day, to discuss the relationship between social deviance and Foucauldian discipline, we were scheduled to watch A Clockwork Orange. But in the pre-Netflix, pre-internet stone age, you were subject to the horrible whims of the local video store’s supply. (And this was in a small town an hour from the nearest metropolis, the only-large-in-relative-relation Watertown… so, one video store.) And the morning our prof went to get Kubrick’s film, it was out. So he scrambled about the store, and happened upon a film called Escape 2000. The back cover noted star Steve Railsback (of The Stunt Man fame), set up a plot where in the future prisons take in all social deviants–thieves, rapists, but also commies, homosexuals–for a bleak system of rehabilitation.
We started watching. The prisoners each morning had to come out and chant “We are social deviants” (or something similar), while a big bald mustachioed badass guard shadowboxed in front of them, trying to make them flinch, and if they did he kicked the shit out of them. The prisoners took lots of showers, the women in particular apparently concerned about their hygiene. Best of all, the prisoners’ “rehabilitation” involved rich people paying to hunt them. One of the rich hunters–a particularly lascivious sleazeball–hunted with a mutant. That’s right: his weapon was a large mutant, and the rich guy commanded his mutant, when the prey was cornered, to eat off their toes, and the like.
I have to say this again: a futuristic prison movie where the prisoners are hunted by rich people, one of whom uses mutants as weapons.
The prof was unhappy, I think picturing how this might show up on his c.v. as he hunted a permanent position, and asked to turn it off in about 20 minutes. We said no, no, no, no. And I–well-known lover of sleaze–was in heaven. Even before a great number of heads were blown off by guns and bomb-neck-collars worn to keep the prisoners from escaping and, once, by an arrow that fortuitously smashes into and detonates a bomb-neck-collar. This was perhaps the greatest film class ever.
I bring all this up because just this evening I learned that Escape was originally called Turkey Shoot, and came out of a 15-some-year burst of sleazy genre filmmaking energy in Australia. (Director Brian Trenchard-Smith also did a film called Dead-End Drive-In, where in the future unredeemable prisoners are trapped in concentration camps formed around drive-ins, allowed to take in their vehicles and shown each night new sleazy films. Needless to say, this is now in my Netflix queue. I do not believe Trenchard-Smith’s whole oeuvre engaged with the ingenious innovations of future carceral systems, but it must at least be a passing interest of his.) I learned all this in a documentary that is not just a lovely gory exploitative ode to the kinds of films I tend to adore but a fairly incisive (if alas too concise) snapshot of film production in a specific cultural context and a riproaringly funny and wiseass portrait of a group of filmmakers.
I cannot recommend this highly enough. I just enjoyed the hell out of it. Favorite bits involve: the incredibly funny Barry Humphries (of Dame Edna fame) talking about a sex-comedy satire about how dumb Australians were (which, of course, became a huge hit with those same yahoo Australians), talking about how culture is like cheese, or why Picnic at Hanging Rock could have been even better if it had had more of those little girls in white dresses puking all over themselves; accounts of how awful Dennis Hopper was during the filming of Mad Dog Morgan; George Lazenby discussing the experience of agreeing to do his own stunt and being set ablaze; assorted car crash stories which make your hair stand on end. And so on: I could probably name many, many more wonderful bits.
Good lord I loved this movie. What fun.
Where is that dissertation about futuristic prison movies? It is a such a rich vein. The detonating neck collars appear in so many of them that it does beg the question of why the US penal system has not yet introduced such devices. In any case, if Mike’s description does not motivate you to run out and rent this, try the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcN68XFGoiI
Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Dead-End Drive-In has a glossy ‘eighties sheen that can be quite impressive — a lovely eye for the wide screen, lots of streetlights on rain-soaked streets, some precisely-calculated car mayhem, a synth-pop soundtrack that will be more accurate than carbon-dating for pinning down the age of the text. Meanwhile, it is also quite silly.
As we have all learned, in the near future as global crises erupt, roving gangs of quasi-punk “car boys” will plague Australia. The authorities, however, are ready. They will exploit the car boys’ love of drive-ins, luring the lads in for a show, then stealing their tires (or disabling their vehicles) to trap them in a huge, isolated, walled-in, drive-in concentration camp. There they will be able to form their own gangs and rivalries, use coupons to buy refreshments at the ‘fifties-inspired cafeteria, and–if female–shower frequently. Of course, slim heroes hate being told what to do, and he wasn’t really a car boy–he was a good boy who just loved cars–and so he will help motivate an uprising. Freedom!
This is nowhere near as garish and gory as Escape 2000, which is a shame; it replaces the more vicious sleazy stuff with a strange Grease/low-comic vibe — oh, there’s still quite a bit of car-smashing death, gratuitous nudity, the use of shuriken. But there’s more polish, it’s … well, nicer. (There’s a running joke early on a bout a guy with a power-saw just standing by the side of the road each night as our slim hero goes by, sparks flying as power-saw-guy cuts up a car, or a streetlight, or…) I think this passes for family-friendly in early-‘eighties Australia.