When asked about the more gory aspects of the Ozploitaztion sub-genre, the director of the new documentary film Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, Mark Hartley, recommends a 1982 film by Brian Trenchard-Smith called Turkey Shoot starring Steve Railsback and Olivia Hussey.
"The best death scene is probably in Turkey Shoot — there's a particularly good exploding body in that. It's where Steve Railsback gets to fire a sub-machine gun at point blank range at Michael Craig, who was a very experienced and famous English actor who, uh… Gawd knows what he thinks he was doing when he ended up on the set of Turkey Shoot in Australia.
"One of the more interesting things about Turkey Shoot [on the doc] was that while most of the actors hadn't seen these movies in years, Steve Railsback had just watched his the night before. So he was still living the nightmare of having that film basically end his career," Hartley went on. "He was huge before that — he was in Helter Skelter and The Stunt Man, and he was on the wave of becoming a big Hollywood star, and then he did this exploitation film in Australia. After that, all he could do, really, was work with Tobe Hooper."
Ouch. Obviously, there's no love lost from Hartley for Hooper. For more unedited, unfiltered straight talk from the Aussies, do check out Not Quite Hollywood. During the course of the interviews in the film, no one holds back on anyone else in terms of contradicting, calling out, and downright dissing their fellow actors and filmmakers.
It's not all negative, though. Much of the film is a love letter to the renegade, devil-may-care attitude of movies on the edge… Especially in the horror section. Unless you're well-versed in Ozploitation already, you're likely to discover several little-known gorefests which will have you headed for Amazon, eBay, or your favorite second-hand DVD sellers.
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! is playing at The Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles from 7/31-8/6. Director Mark Hartley will be there in person Friday 7/31, at 7:30pm and 10pm and Saturday, 8/1, at 7:30pm and 10pm. He said special, surprise guests are expected.
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Staci Layne Wilson reporting