TURKEY SHOOT

Set in the then-future year of 1995, a totalitarian regime rules over the entire world and so-called "social deviants" are sent to mass prison camps for re-education and behaviour modification. The new arrivals at Camp 47 are Chris Walters, an innocent shopkeeper arrested when trying to help a rebel who was chased into her store and beaten by the police; Rita Daniels, a suspected prostitute; and Paul Anders, a political dissident and pirate radio broadcaster who has escaped from several other camps. Camp Master Charles Thatcher subjects his wards to brutal, inhuman treatment; Chris barely avoids being raped by the sadistic guards Red and Ritter, and Paul is tortured for intervening. Their cellmates Griffin and Dodge separately plot escapes, but are unaware that their on-going attempts are surveyed by the guards. Ritter beats a petite woman prisoner to death on Thatcher's orders, and a male prisoner who tried to escape is forced to play a game of "football" where he pathetically races around leaking orbs full of gasoline while being beaten by the guards until Ritter sets the spilled gas on fire and burns the prisoner to death.

Every year, Thatcher and his circle of VIPs (portly Secretary Mallory, icy Jennifer, gleefully sadistic Tito, and Tito's beastly accomplice Alph) select five prisoners to be human prey in a "turkey shoot"; a deadly 12-hour hunt in which defenceless quarries are released into the nearby wilderness to be stalked and killed by the armed hunters. Paul, Chris, Rita, and Dodge are chosen to be the prey, told that they will be freed should they survive the time limit. Griffin is added to the group after starting a fight with Dodge in the dorms.

With a three-hour head start, the prisoners are sent out at half-hour intervals and quickly become separated. Dodge is the first to be caught, Alph breaking off and eating his little toe under Tito's instructions before chasing him down and killing him by beating him and breaking his spine. Thatcher toys with Paul by firing near-misses with a sniper rifle, forcing him to scale a difficult rock formation and preventing his scramble to find Chris. Paul manages to redirect Thatcher's pursuit by causing a rock slide, while Griffin jumps Red and takes his assault rifle, placing him in a trap that later kills him. He tries to mount a counterattack, but is pinned down by Jennifer and Thatcher and incapacitated with arrows before being run over and killed. Jennifer proceeds to stalk Rita on horseback, trapping her before raping and killing her.

Tito attempts to bisect Paul with the tractor shovel attached to the front of his buggy, Paul manages to get out of the way and Tito inadvertently kills Alph. Mallory and his guide, Chief Guard Ritter, track Chris through dense jungle into a sugarcane field. Ritter attempts to smoke her out by setting the field aflame, when Mallory stumbles into Chris. Before he can rape her, Paul jumps him and gets his gun, shooting him in the groin and escaping with Chris as he burns to death. The two run to what they think is the end of the wilderness, only to realise upon reaching coastline that they're on an island, and that there is no way out. Ritter catches up to them, but Chris cuts his hands off with his own machete and he bleeds to death. The two resolve to fight back, killing Tito and stealing his buggy. Armed with a mounted machine gun, they storm the camp and free the other prisoners.

The uprising leads to the RAAF scrambling a bomber to destroy the camp and quash the revolt. The prisoners raid an armoury for arms, fending off the guards while Chris destroys the communications centre and kills Jennifer by grabbing an explosive arrow and jamming it into her head, which then explodes. Thatcher attempts to lead a counter-attack, but is blown apart by machine-gun fire from Paul, and the prisoners flee into the jungle just as the camp is destroyed by a napalm airstrike. Armed with supplies, the now-rebels led by Paul and Chris make their way into the mountains.

Paul and Chris manage to outwit their pursuers, turning the tables on the camp's VIPs and escaping after a violent confrontation.

The ending delivers a cathartic reversal as the hunted become the hunters, underscoring the film’s themes of resistance and the human spirit’s refusal to submit. Through graphic violence and black humor, Turkey Shoot concludes its dystopian bloodbath by letting its survivors claim a hard-fought, if ambiguous, victory over institutional cruelty.