Wednesday Bad Movie

Number 161 of a Series

I first saw this one on Turner Classic Movies and never caught it since. Now a (bad) version is streaming on YouTube. From 1985 it is Fortress, featuring that indescribable Rachel Ward. Details are from Wikipedia.

• Rachel Ward as Sally Jones
• Sean Garlick as Sid O’Brien
• Rebecca Rigg as Narelle
• Robin Mason as Derek
• Marc Aden Gray as Tommy O’Brien
• Beth Buchanan as Leanne
• Asher Keddie as Sue
• Bradley Meehan as Richard
• Anna Crawford as Sarah
• Richard Terrill as Toby
• Peter Hehir as Father Christmas
• David Bradshaw as Pussy Cat
• Vernon Wells as Dabby Duck
• Roger Stephen as Mac the Mouse
• Wendy Playfair as Old Woman
• Ed Turley as Old Man
• Elaine Cusick as Mrs. O’Brien
• Laurie Moran as Mr. O’Brien
• Nick Waters as Detective Sergeant Cotter
• Terence Donovan as Detective Sergeant Mitchell
• Ray Chubb as Publican

This is an Aussie film, and I expected everything to be full Australian, but the opening scene shows one of the students shooting a fox. Foxes in Australia?

Anyhow Sally Jones is a young, single school teacher at a small country school. She is seen corralling nine students in the full age range. A new day starts, and the students are doing usual student things. There is a big bully guy picking on a girl. Anyhow, one youngster looks out the window, and he reports seeing cartoon characters outside. The teacher advises him to get serious.

Surprise! Four armed men wearing comic character masks invade the school and take the students and the teacher away in a van. Ransom is the obvious plot.

Everybody is forced down a hole in the ground, where they are left trapped after the kidnappers roll a huge rock on top of the hole.

The rock covering the hole is an indication the men have left the site, so the prisoners begin to formulate plans. Oil lamps made from soda cans filled with oil and using shoe laces for wicks illuminate their prison. It is noticed there is a draft blowing the lamp flames. There must be another entrance. Sally and one of the boys explore, and they discover an escape route. We get to see Rachel Ward stripping down and entering the pool.

So they all make it out, and they spot a farmstead in the distance. Salvation! No. After a long trek they arrive, only to find the kidnappers have taken over the farm and are holding a husband and wife hostage.

So, they are prisoners once more, and things get violent. The kidnappers get physical with the wife, and the husband intervenes and is killed by a shotgun blast. The hostages are herded into the barn, from which they hear screams and another shotgun blast. They have killed the wife.

Locked inside, they hear violent voices and another shotgun blast. They figure the gang is now down to three.

The hostages begin to think and to plan. They lure one of the gang inside and ambush him. The big bully boy kills him with a blow to the head with a piece of lumber of sorts. The shotgun goes off, and one of the boys is wounded.

Again they are on the run, and the reach another cave in the side of a cliff. They conclude running has only gotten people killed, so they determine to make a stand at the cave. Hence the title of the movie. If this is beginning to remind readers of Lord of the Flies, then you are not alone. I was thinking this and so were others. Read the Wikipedia entry.

Sally ventures out to track down a teenage girl who is trying to make a break. One of the gang gives chase, and she pushes him into a pit they have fortified with spiked sticks. He dies a horrible death.

The remaining kidnapper is the one previously wearing the Father Christmas disguise, and he completely loses it on seeing the younger man so savagely killed. He charges into the cave, shotgun blazing, and the boys overwhelm him and stab him to death.

And it is all over but the police closure. Two come to the school to question about what went on. Sally pulls them aside, away from the students, and she talks with them. They explain they found the men’s bodies, but there was something unusual about the bodies. They have been curiously mutilated.

Before the ending titles roll we see bottles on the science shelf containing curious specimens. I always guessed they cut the men’s organs off and preserved them as battle trophies. Lord of the Flies?

The print was apparently ripped from a VHS tape and is poor quality. I was unable to find a hard copy of the movie for sale.