The Prey

Even though my advancing years have altered my brain to think more about mortgages and what I might be having for dinner, I still hold a soft spot for the much maligned slasher subgenre from my youth. Sure, most of them were never any good - but for every 'Madman' or 'Final Exam' you always had a 'Halloween', 'The Burning' or 'Friday the 13th Part 2' - so even in its up and downs, they still managed to keep my (then) teenage brain engaged. Which brings us to this; 'The Prey' - one that had initially got away from my mid '80s VHS renting self but now with the advent of Arrow Video's blu-ray release, was time to give the old fella a spin. When teenage couples Nancy and Joel, Bobbie and Skip, and Greg and Gail arrive at North Point, Keen Wild national forest in the Colorado Rocky Mountains - they think they are going to spend a fun time hiking. However, when they are systematically hunted down by a crazed, deformed maniac whose only intention seems to murderize all and sundry, they soon learn their vacation plans may have to alter in order to stay alive. Cue the usual genre staple of horny teens, untrustworthy authority figures (yup, that really is ‘The Adams Family’s Jackie Coogan as a ranger) and diabolical lunatics (with an axe!) as the rest of the movie plays out pretty much exactly as you think it will… Being an annoying self appointed slasher know-it-all, I wasn’t aware of producer/director team Edwin and Summer Brown, but it seems their previous forays into cinema revolved around titles like ‘A Thousand and One Erotic Nights’ and ‘For the love of Pleasure’ - which, y’know weren’t my usual tipples so going into ‘The Prey’ I didn’t quite know what to expect. To be fair, its well shot with strong cinematography from Joao Fernandes (he of a slew of later Joseph Zito/Chuck Norris flicks) and the locations are certainly memorable. There’s no point in taking apart the lacklustre screenplay - which is typical of the genre but what really hurts the movie is the slow plodding pace that feels like an age to get anywhere, with little urgency or invention. The bread and butter of this genre are the kill scenes and although deployed by the late John Carl Buechler - they too aren’t especially evocative or interesting. Sure, its an okay movie but on the basis of it potentially being some long forgotten ‘gem’, you may need to look elsewhere… Luckily, the fine folks at Arrow have given ‘The Prey’ a right royal treatment with a wonderful 2k restoration which truly looks stunning (it always amazes me how low budget, older movies look great when added to blu-ray whereas new flicks shot on digital cameras always look so fuzzy with ‘strip light’ style colour palettes). Alongside this we get a brand new audio commentary tracks with Summer Brown, fans Amanda Reyes and Ewan Cant followed by all new retrospective interviews with the cast, which are in-depth and fun but I would have preferred them to be cut into one documentary if honest - the piece meal nature of the interviews slows down the flow of information and feels very flat in terms of presentation. You also get a Q&A from the 2019 Texas Frightmare Weekend, a trip back to the shooting locations with fan Ewan Cant and lead Debbie Thureson, VHS trailers and an audio interview with director Edwin Brown. Rounding out the presentation is the International cut featuring the ‘infamous gypsy' sequence and a composite cut of this and the theatrical cut. All in all, its a stellar release and kudos again to Arrow for a fine release all wrapped up in a very nice package. Sadly, its another case of ‘great release, but subpar film’ and strictly one for devout horror fans who absolutely have to every slasher movie in their collection. Others should be sufficed with a one-shot watch. 1 for the movie, but a solid 4 or 5 for Arrow’s attention to detail.

I owned this on VHS years ago and even then I remember not being very impressed with it. Buying it again, now on blu ray, my opinion has changed somewhat. It's nowhere near as good as The Burning, nor some of the earlier Friday the 13ths, but it really does have its good points. It's beautifully made and doesn't look cheap, which is a bonus, the script is completely by the numbers and the acting isn't dreadful, there are some scenes which do seem to drag on, and the gypsy flashbacks go on for far too long, but ultimately, it's never a complete boring movie to sit through. The gore is quite tame and the ending does seem slightly rushed. But overall, quite a nice addition to my collection. Catch it on a good day and just take it for what it is, an 80s slasher that has kind of earned its place.

Lots of shots of beeyooteefull nature (and raw old predatory nature too) interspersed with 3 frolicking young couples larking around interspersed with monster-eye view of the two things I just mentioned....The special fx are super lo-fi splatty splurty and good fun. The 'monster' made me think of the Goonies. Not bad.

All director/co-writer Edwin Brown and co-writer Summer Brown had was about ten minutes worth of story and a trunk load of stock footage nature video - but, by God, they were going to make a movie out of it. The result is The Prey, one of the worst horror films to ever see the light of day. I have to believe these guys actually attended film school at some point - they couldn't possibly have broken every rule in the book of good filmmaking without having learned what all of those rules were to begin with. This isn't just a bad film - it's bona fide torture. If we forced even a single terrorist in Gitmo to watch this film, you would have liberals protesting such cruel and unusual punishment all up and down California within hours. We're lucky this piece of cinematic sewage didn't bring the slasher film industry crashing down around it. Six young couples go camping in the woods, only to have their dreams of fun and fornication cut short by some unknown man or monster. That's pretty much the whole story; aside from the lousy ending, this is all follow-the-numbers stuff you've seen time and time again. With more padding than the sum total of all flat-chested teenaged girls on prom night, the filmmakers manage to string the ordeal out for over an hour and fifteen minutes. Every few minutes, a video slideshow of animals in the wild breaks out - bears, centipedes, snakes, you name it. There's so much of it that I kept expecting to hear a voiceover from Marlon Perkins. Still, that doesn't extend the film nearly long enough on its own. What now, then? I know - let's cut to a POV shot from the killer's perspective every few seconds, and throw in plenty of shots of his shoes as he walks. Still not enough? OK, campers have to relieve themselves, don't they? Whenever an actor needs to do his business, let's include that in the story. We'll call it realism; it'll be great. What? We need how many more minutes? OK, let's show a couple of minutes of the forest ranger tuning a banjo. Hey, it's either that or more stock footage of animals. And how about we give that same park ranger one of the dumbest stories any of us can think of and have him tell that story to - how about you just surprise me, OK? Now we get to the parts of this film that had me wanting to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. Cue the night-time campfire scene. All six characters are talking a mile a minute, but you can't hear most of it - and that's actually by design. Unfortunately, the part we are allowed to hear involves the telling of the world's worst adaptation of The Monkey's Paw story. I could also make out a little bit of another character's mindless chatter, though - and lo and behold if I didn't hear it twice. Yes, folks, they actually recycled part of the same scene in an effort to further pad the film. I should have stopped watching at that point. Don't count on any blood and gore to make the film any more palatable, either - there ain't none. That's doubly unfortunate because you will desperately want to see every one of these annoying characters killed off as soon as possible. One of the actors is named Steve Bond, but I would swear he has a close familial link to the awful Timothy Van Patten. You have to feel sorry for Jackie Coogan, though; I admit his acting is horrible, but it's sad to see "Uncle Fester" go out like this - I'm pretty sure The Prey was his last film. At least he has some company in his misery, as he's joined by fellow The Addams Family alum Carel Struycken - I'll let you guess which part "Lurch" played. Bottom line: avoid The Prey like the plague - unless you're a bad horror movie masochist like me.

What is this? A horror film or a wildlife documentary So much stock footage of animals taking up the running time that I expected Dave Attenborough to hove into view

Great to see these 80s films get a release. I remember seeing lots on the cinema or on vhs. Love them or loath them, they dont make them like this anymore.

The Prey has a lot of "meh" attached to it. Old reviews are down on it. New reviews are down on it too a bit with caveats out the ears. I'm a big collector, so I have to own all old slashers. I was really disappointed in "The Chill Factor" despite the release being spectacular. I feared The Prey would be the same. Slow, boring, and without much of a pay-off. To a small extent, the movie doesn't deliver the heavy heaping doses of gore and nudity. There are kills. They are effective. The pace is slow in parts. There's way too much nature footage going on. Yet somehow, it still works. I was engaged the whole time. The atmosphere saves this one more than anything else, and that odd ending. Very unexpected. I was surprised. I get why reviews are very critical of this thing. But once I watched it and had the experience, I was very happy I made the purchase. I don't feel ripped off. The Prey is underrated, and now, back and better than ever. Lori Lethin is awesome. Now there's a real scream queen. Liked her in Return to Horror High and Blood Birthday as well.

Good product as always by arrow video but not much of a movie especially the theatrical cut with all the animal and insect shots I tried the theatrical cut and the international version I just couldn't get into the movie into either version ,I love slasher movies and some of the lesser known ones but wish I'd never purchased this one , I'd read one review comparing it to Just before dawn but that movie is far better than this one , The Prey has the odd effective scene but overall the movies parts are better than its whole

Die Blu ray Veröffentlichtung von Arrow ist wie immer Top, schickes Retro Cover, gute Bildqualität, es gibt nichts negatives. Arrow ist wie eh und je eine Top Adresse für Sammler von Klassikern. Im Grunde sollte man auch dankbar dafür sein, dass es ein Film den wahrscheinlich kaum jemand kennt überhaupt auf Blu Ray geschafft hat, Ohne Arrow wäre das wahrscheinlich kaum passiert. Die Liste mit 80ziger Slashern ist unendlich lang, viele Filme habe es nie nach Deutschland geschafft, der harte Kern sind vielleicht 100 Filme, darüber hinaus gibt es noch hunderte. Wer weiß schon genau was sich für Perlen oder für Rohrkrepierer dahinter verbergen. Ich persönlich freue mich über jede VÖ. Allerdings zählt „The Prey“ zu den ganz schlechten Machwerken. Leider! Schlechte Darsteller, miese Tricks, schlechter Soundtrack, null Spannung. Lediglich ein paar schöne Naturaufnahmen gibt es zu bewundern. Ein paar Nostalgie Punkte gibt es für das 80ziger Flair, ansonsten ist der Streifen nur ganz hartgesottenen 80ziger Fans zu empfehlen die gern sammeln und vielleicht manchmal mehr Wert auf die Qualität der Veröffentlichung legen, als auf den Film selbst.

Cover e custodia completamente distrutte. Una vergogna.

once of the best horror movie of the 1980