Another ozploitation pointer from Harry Windsor. Directed by Arch Nicholson from a script by Everett De Roche (Long Weekend (1978), Road Games (1981), etc.) derived from Gabrielle Lord's novel from 1980 which drew inspiration from the actual Faraday School kidnapping of 1972. And obviously Lord of the Flies.
There's not a lot to it. Somewhere out near the Grampians and/or Gippsland (the Buchan Caves) we meet Rachel Ward in a farmer's homestead, implausibly sleeping alone. She's the teacher at the local one-room all-grades school. After the customary horsing about by the kids four masked blokes get the action started with their sawnoff shotguns, hustling the cast into a rusty old Ford van. Things go as they must from there, incorporating enough gore and wildlife shots to meet expectations for the genre. Ward struggles with fractions but knows her high science. A very young Asher Keddie appears as one of the younger kids. Robin Gray's soundtrack is generally obtrusive. Essentially TV.
John J. O'Connor at the New York Times at the time: "Throughout, Miss Ward has the good sense to look as if she would rather be back in the mini-series The Thorn Birds." All the details at Ozmovies. "Mutton Dressed as Rambo." Ward lacks the conviction and dramatic range to pull it off. The novel has her character contemplating an abortion; "Without exploring, or perhaps suspecting, all the implications of its story, Fortress presents the most disturbing, pre-emptive strike of children against the older generation that Australian fiction has to show." But various aspects of it have many precursors. And a link to Mondo Exploito in 2013.
