ESCAPE 2000' MAKES 1984 SEEM PLAYFUL
Miami Herald, The (FL)
October 12, 1983
Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
On its very eve, 1984 continues to fascinate filmmakers with visions of the city as jungle and government as hyper-fascist. Sadly, the filmmakers thus fascinated have not included many of our more prominent artists, and the resultant films have been uniformly bad. Escape 2000 is the latest -- note that the fateful year keeps getting pushed up, the real 1984 not seeming likely to fit the bill at all -- and possibly the worst.
It is 2000 (or maybe 1995 -- movie and press-kit information are at variance on the issue). Nonconformists, known officially as Deviates, are packed off to Re-Ed camps for a long stretch of behavior modification. The Deviates are the good guys, of course -- one woman's offense seems to have been the fact that she ran a shop that sold cheap crystal -- and the government folks are very, very bad.
How bad? The head of the camp plays chess with foot-high pieces, and stages an inmate-hunt to amuse visiting dignitaries. One of the VIPs is a fat rapist; another is a homicidal equestrienne. Day-to-day harassment of the inmates is conducted by a huge bald man and his associate, who limps and carries a bullwhip that he is only occasionally able to snap. A loudspeaker sets the tone: "All Deviates assemble immediately in Center Compound." On their arrival, male and female prisoners are ordered to take showers together, and one woman is forced to clean fish.
Escape 2000 is about how the new arrivals manage to stage a revolt and spill a prodigious amount of blood; limbs are severed on several occasions, and at one point a vicious mutant bites off a man's small toe.
These proceedings are badly staged, badly performed, badly filmed and badly dubbed. Those with long memories and sharp eyes will detect the presence of Olivia Hussey, once luminous in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968), now appearing pinched, weathered and largely without talent as one of the
Deviates. The film is otherwise of no interest.
Movie Review
Escape 2000 (R) No stars
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CAST
Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Noel Ferrier, Carmen Duncan, Lynda Stoner, Michael Craig
CREDITS
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Producers: Anthony I. Giannane, William Fayman
Screenwriters: Jon George, Neill Hicks
Cinematographer: John McClean
Music: Brian May
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A New World Pictures release
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Running time: 80 minutes
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Vulgar language, nudity, brief implicit sex, violence and gore.
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In DADE: Apollo, Omni, Trianon, Roxy, Marina, Movies at the Falls, America, Tropicaire Drive-In; BROWARD: Movies at Pompano, Sheridan, Coral Springs Movie Center, Lakes, Movies at Plantation, Lakeshore Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In; PALM BEACH: Boca Mall, Cross-County, Delray Drive-In
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