Customer Reviews

Escape 2000

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My 1st introduction to escape 2000 was this uncut version and blew my expectations away! this has it all and then some. Anyone with distaste for the government ends up in a nazi style camp, where nothing good happens to them except being turned loose for a chance to escape while being hunted down like animals for sport. Steve Railsback is great as usual up against some nasty Aussie baddies and one half-man half-beast. Special features has director smith disowning the film but his descriptions and stories are hilarious. Prisoners are tortured, babes lose their clothes, a guy gets cut in half, and much more in this freakin' masterpeice! DVD picture is very good WS anamorphic and 5.1 surround sound

A/K/A "Turkey Shoot", I discovered this flick thru the great Aussie exploitation documentary, "Not Quite Hollywood". A great find, the film is a bold, shameless women-in-prison / futuristic-death-chase hybrid with virtually nothing but action. After about (literally) one minute of exposition, we are thrown into the scenario: three attractive young people are hauled into a cruel "re-education" camp, where they can either put up with brutal torture or plan their escape. They do the latter. The last half of the film is set up as a "Most Dangerous Game"-style death hunt. As the actors will tell you in the DVD extras, anything that was not an action sequence was cut from the script before shooting. That makes for a lack of motivation but an overabundance of fistfights, shower nudity, eye-gouging, bloody motor vehicle mayhem, etc. My best out-of-nowhere item in the film is the half-man/half-wolf "pet" one of the hunters owns... no explanation for its condition is given whatsoever! It is just dropped into the story without the bat of an eye. Love it. Made around the same time as "Dawn of the Dead", and with a similar vibe... chaos, violence, nihilism, despair, all set to a pulsing synth score. 4/5.

this was absolutelly amazing. I bought this with out knowing what this was or if it was good. The story is amazing the gore is awesome for the time, the acting is amazing, and lots of big explosions. But one of my favorite things is the soundtrack, its filled with lots of electronic synth, helps pull off the futuristic 1995 aspect. this reminds me if lloyd kaufman made a 3 million dollar 70's movie any troma fan would love or peter jackson fan.

Steve Railsback stars in this quirky sci-fi chase flick. It's reminiscent of more recent "mortal combat" style movies where several different characters square off against each other in battles to the death. The nefarious villains hunt the defenseless "fugatives" with high-tech and/or unique weapons of choice that fit their personalities. When I was a kid I played this very "game" with several of my G.I.Joe action figures. G.I. Joe in fatigues (Railsback and crew) vs.assorted action figures costumed in tin-foil and clay (pretty much like the baddies in this movie). There's the sinister hunter, the cyborg, the wookie/werewolf, and the evil temptress. In fact, I think the writer/director played the same game as a child. It is violent and stereotypical of this genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching!

Escape 2000 was released on video in the U.K during the early eighties, as Turkey Shoot, with a lurid cover design, and the prospect of some good old ultra violence, with just a dash of the in out in out, to mix things up. Not in the hacked up by the BBFC 18cert version that i first viewed, as a teen. So the chance to, after so many years get an unrated in 1.2.35:1 widescreen dvd is great news to me, just pre-ordered mine.
Plus being Anchor Bay they've managed to get the director to do a commentary plus there are interviews with cast and crew. Has to be worth the price of the hunt.....

I wish all the Aussie freak movies had this much twisted effort. Beware you may cause yourself damage from repeated viewing. Don't apply anything anybody says to your daily life or suffer bad. I love that Roger Ward.

Steve Railsback puts in an excellent performance in this classic Aussie schlock futuristic sci-fi yarn. A great supporting cast helps to create a terrifying totalitarian scenario.

Even Quentin Tarantino tips his hat to Escape 2000's director Brian Trenchard Smith and I'm not certain why after seeing this. The Amazon reviewers are very kind here. And since I saw this as a gaping hole in my viewing history I thought I'd see what Quentin and these reviewers saw here. I'm baffled.

Totalitarian society. Re-education camps. Hunting humans for sport. This is an amalgam of ideas thrown together and none of them are done justice. Maybe if I had seen this back during its original release I might have been impressed. I gather from the user reviews that the positive reviews are from those that HAD seen it originally. But for my dollar it hasn't withstood the test of time. This Aussie endeavor was released in 1982, three years after Mad Max, and the directing is pedestrian by comparison. True, there isn't much budget here but Mad Max couldn't have cost much more. And, as Mad Max was George Miller's directorial debut, the difference is even more striking.

There are holes all over the place. The hunters have obviously done this before but none of them handle their weapons with any degree of proficiency. The Steve Railsback character gets his hands on a weapon not once, but twice and chooses to leave them be. The Griff character gets the jump on his pursuer but instead of killing him he hangs him upside down from a tree and fashions an impossibly heavy and cumbersome booby trap that will kill him when his buds try to cut him down. This movie is full of crazy stuff like this.

There is so little sense here and the directing is so inept I just don't get what all the hubbub is about. If you need to fill in some gaps in your film history as I have, then have at it. If not.....skip it.

Being the first time that I have seen this on DVD I only had low expectations. What a surprise! This disc is fantastic! You not only get a pristine transfer of the movie,(and a great soundtrack job)but also some of the most entertaining commentary and features yet. What makes this disc special is that instead of congratulating themselves for making a film classic the filmmakers instead offer some hilarious excuses for their wretched film. The funniest of the interviews is with actress Lynda Stoner who slams the endeavor but skirts around the issue of her lousy performance. All in all: Great job again Anchor Bay. The movie is actually a pretty good exploiter so ignore the critics and get ready to have fun.