The Prey (1984)

I really like this subgenre of slasher, the one where a group of mostly youngsters go hiking and fall foul of a redneck/mutant/psycho in some glorious scenery in an american national park. There are quite a few good ones like for instance Just before dawn and The Final terror. The Prey on the other hand is quite likely the dullest one of them all.

It's not like it's an outright bad movie. The direction is fine, the scenery is nice and there is a bit of the ole gore and nudity. The problem with the movie is its pace, it moves like a drugged snail on a carpet full of glue, there is at least one hour before anything remotely interesting happens. We do get some desperately needed mayhem towards the end but the movie is dead in the water by then, killed by long and boring scenes of walking and talking. Then there is the final nail in the coffin, an extended flashback of the events that caused all this. It plays out like a pornflick, a lot of boobs and uninteresting sexscenes which isnt so strange since all the actors in that scene are actual pornactors like John Leslie and Eric Edwards (one quick look at the directors resume explains why, three out of his sixteen movies are straight porn). The movie never recovers after that, you already lost all interest for what is going on.

The Prey isn't some crappy cheesefest like Dont go in the woods or The Forest, it's even worse. It's a competent but really damn boring movie which I frankly wouldn't buy if it was released on a restored bluray. Ok, I probably would. But not right away.