Well if you're of an age where you grew up watching horror films from the last 15 years or so, I would imagine that most of the early 80's slashers hold little to no interest. This was a time when after the money making successes of Friday 13th and especially Halloween, it seemed that cash registers could soar by making a low budget film. To be fair the popularity of the slasher at the time probably died out in 1981-ish, with a few exceptions, but most have seen some interest revitalised due to the die hard fans of this era. Now if you're discovering the album of 80's slashsers, you will of course come across this but my guess is you won't return it to many times. You will probably find much more of a seductive pull with much better made examples such as My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, The Burning etc. Still this does at least follow most of the Slasher rules and so you have the typical factors at work: A prior tragedy/event which sets off the killer's motives, the campfire ghost stories, the bitchy girl who has sex and then of course is punished, tight shorts on early 20 something guys with curly hair, the final girl who has a concerned look throughout, the cameo of a former popular actor who is strengthening his pension fund. Most of these films are of course tripe but there are plenty where at least the interaction between the victims can be quite fun but here it's just not quite camp enough. Still, the very end at least contains a surprise and whilst these films always leave you with more scratching of the head questions, it is short, to the point and if you can fast forward through the far too many animal scenes, reasonably OK after a few beers.

I watched this film in 1992 on the suggestion of one of my friends. Since I am a big fan of 'Backwoods Horror', I decided to give it a try. The film began and I thought I was about to witness another Friday the 13th. It was after 30 minutes, when I realized that they shouldn't have released it as a slasher. Here is what it's all about.The film begins with the stock footage of 1948 Northpoint wildfire, then it cuts straight to 1980, where we see a couple Frank & Mary enjoying their camp out. Moments later, Mary is shocked to see Frank's decapitated body and is brutally killed too. Nobody knows who did it. Then we come across 6 teenage campers Nancy, Joel, Greg, Gail, Skip and Bobbie heading to the woods. On the way, they meet forest ranger Mark, who asks them to watch out for the bears. As the teenagers go deeper and deeper in the woods, they become more isolated from the outer world. Little do they know that something horrible is lurking at an arm's length. The police department is investigating the disappearances of Frank & Mary and seeks help of the forest department. The senior forest officer Lester Tile may have clues regarding the disappearances at The Northpoint.So did you enjoy the story? You may have, because I never included a single wildlife footage in it. This could have made millions if it were shown on Animal Planet. The plot has no unique value and the actors are some of the worst and dumbest in the stock, who fail to develop themselves during the course of run. I mean you never get empathy for them, and even after spending around 81 minutes with you, they all die strangers. The film is full of unrelated and forcibly included stock footage, whose color scheme doesn't match with the actual film. The only good footage I remember is of a snake working hard to swallow a frog. This footage underlines the movie title 'The Prey'. Watch it only if you are big fan of backwoods horror, otherwise this has nothing new to promise.

Finding ways to marshal in a clueless group of younglings into a new environment has always been a challenge for Slasher films. Fans expect their cattle to saunter off into new and refreshing locations so, somehow, the death sequences (undoubtedly the focal point) will be heightened; resulting in a conventional Slasher fare that's frequented and re-packaged as per request by money-hungry higher-ups. The Prey is not too far off the mark of what one should expect when a group of young people face a psychopath in the woods.The film takes us to a remote area in which immediate help is unavailable. The story hones in on a group of 6 impressionable youths that are eager to trek upon the grounds of North Point; a vast reserve of land that's well known for its rural locale and disengagement from civilization. When two kids go missing the local police Sgt. senses something amiss and tracks their location. Armed with a tranquilizer gun and knowledge of an event that occurred in North Point 37 years prior, he plans to resolve the disappearance and the mystery of the location.The Prey was shot over the course of two weeks in Utah in 1978 but was not distributed until 1984. It should not be within one's practice to criticize a film based on the amount of time used to create it; luckily we can perform a sound critique anyway. The actors are rather "green" in this affair but thankfully not laughably bad – at least not to the low standards I've set for actors and actresses alike (look at my review for Lucker the Necrophagous or The Nail Gun Massacre for proof of this). The initial aspect that audiences will be faced with during a viewing of The Prey is the lengthy build-up that's meant to establish a basis for character development. Allotting 40 minutes out of an 80 minute run-time is a ludicrous and drawn-out plot embellishment for a sub-genre that doesn't demand such frivolous details. Let's face it; apart from more sophisticated and intelligent endeavors, film-goers don't watch Slasher movies for the purposes of a character study. Fixating on these particulars, when compounded with a sub-level feature, removes any hope of excitement from the viewing audience. It's a sad day in history when a horror film fails to deliver and manages to produce an image of boredom to whomever crosses its path. Preferences exist between different individuals on what is deemed "horrific" but The Prey wastes half of its duration padding the length until something provocative happens. The majority of the dialog is pointless and holds no bearing on the film's outcome and several scenes serve no purpose whatsoever! The amount of time wasted on executing this nonsense is unreal; nearly unfathomable if I hadn't witnessed it personally. One question I'd love to ask the creators of this project would be: If you do not have enough material to immerse the audience in the experience you're providing then why are you making a film? I simply don't get it. The experience can only be likened to a child's failed science experiment on the most basic and primitive level. Does an advanced government program exist that allows primates to operate video equipment? I didn't think so until now.In conjunction with the oh-so generous time spent on filler are stock segments of animal and insect footage – I've seen this sly maneuver before in Italian exploitation films – it's the epitome of laziness and more practically, lack of a budget. Apparently the director thought it would be fancy to include images of snakes, lizards, owls, and various insects – even including footage of an armored centipede and huge tarantula. It's such a silly concept to envision the latter existing in the United States since these creatures are indigenous to rain forests. Who were they trying to fool? I'm not a nature expert but I know enough to establish certain wild-life habitats. Any fond memories that you've shared as a child will be taken-aback after you've witnessed the film's finale. I suppose for trivia enthusiasts I should mention that Carel Struycken plays the role of the monster/psychopath. For those of you who've seen the three Addams Family films from the 1990's he played the role of Lurch. So, what kind of pay- off should viewers expect from The Prey? None. Zero. Anyone caught defending this film with the amount of shameful distractions contained within should seriously re-evaluate things. Then again, quite a few titles in my treasured collection some might consider atrocious as well. It all depends on what you can handle but speaking from experience and the high volume of horror I consume on a regular basis I speak with confidence when I say that casual audiences will detest this feature. I'm so obsessed with horror films that I'm a step below being medicated for it and even I hate The Prey. I haven't earned this merit badge for nothing'!

Oh yeah, this one is definitely a strong contender to win the questionable award of "worst 80's slasher ever made". "The Prey" has got everything you usually want to avoid in a horror flick: a routine, derivative plot that you've seen a thousand times before (and better), insufferable characters and terrible performances, a complete lack of gore and suspense, fuzzy photography and unoriginal locations and – most irritating of all – the largest amount of pointless padding footage you've ever encountered in your life (and that's not an exaggeration but a guarantee!). Apart from the seemingly endless amount of National Geographic stock footage, which I'll expand upon later, this film is shameless enough to include a complete banjo interlude (!) and two occasions where characters tell dillydally jokes that aren't even remotely funny! The set-up is as rudimentary as it gets, with the intro showing images of a devastating forest fire with OTT voice-over human screams. Fast forward nearly forty years later, when an elderly couple out camping in that same area get axe-whacked by something that breathes heavily off-screen. This ought to be enough information for you to derive that someone survived the fire all these years ago and remained prowling around ever since. Enter three intolerable twenty something couples heading up to the danger zone with exclusively sex on their minds, unaware of course they are sitting ducks for the stalking and panting killer. "The Prey" is an irredeemable boring film. Apparently it was shot in 1978 already, but nobody wanted to distribute it up until 1984 and it isn't too hard to see why. In case you would filter out all the content that is actually relevant, this would only be a short movie with a running time of 30 minutes; possibly even less. There's an unimaginably large of nature and wildlife footage, sometimes of animals that I think don't even live in that type of area, and they seem to go on forever. The only thing missing, in fact, is the typical National Geographic narration providing educational information regarding the animals' habits. Animals in their own natural biotope are undeniably nice to look at, but not in a supposedly vile and cheesy 80's slasher movie, for crying out loud. The last fifteen minutes are finally somewhat worthwhile, with some potent killing sequences and fine make-up effects on the monster (who turns out to be Lurch from "The Addams Family" movies), but still silliness overrules – the scene with the vultures is too stupid – and the final shot is just laugh-out-loud retarded. As mentioned above, "The Prey" easily makes my own personal list of worst 80's slashers, alongside "Appointment with Fear", "Berserker", "Deadly Games", "Don't Go in the Woods", "Hollow Gate", "The Stay Awake" and "Curfew".