The Prey [Blu-ray]

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.

Really no complaints about Arrow's restoration work on "The Prey". They typically do no disappoint.I can only award 3 out of 5 because I wasn't impressed with the film itself.I am a huge lover of horror and exploitation cinema. Slashers can be a mixed bag, and I never dive in with outrageous expectations.That being said, "The Prey" failed to deliver in my opinion. The last ten minutes were fun, and the killer's makeup work was interesting despite clearly copying some of the features of a young Jason Vorhees, only this guy is about 6 foot 11".I dunno, too little too late is how I felt when the credits began to roll.I'll still give it space on the Arrow Blu shelf despite it's obnoxious cast and plodding pace.

Arrow Video releases another stellar release! I’ve never heard of this film, but when I heard it was announced to be released from them, I did some research and knew I had to check it out! Might not be a slasher film that everyone knows of, but if your in the mood for a slasher flick to watch besides the usually franchise films, I’d recommend checking this one out. The features alone and restoration Arrow Video did for this release is incredible, & will be one I’ll revisit every now and then!

the only reason im giving this even 3 stars is because i thought the special effects were decent and thats all i found likeable about this film. Id say maybe 30% or more of the film is legit cutaways of nature,animals and bugs which just seems half assed because when we do actually get to see the main characters in this movie there almost ZERO meaningful dialog between them. Im not sure if the director had much in the script for the casts dialog but my god it just seems incredibly unfinished. This movie is pretty much a bad version of friday the 13th

This is truly a weak movie, it's not cheesey in the way of horror movies like Blood Rage or Evil Ed. Both titles that were put out by Arrow, for example both Rage and Ed are fun movies in this genre and have the classification to be class as Campy. With The Prey it seems to try to fit in as a serious Horror Movie as Friday 13th, but doesn't add to the excitement nor fun. This a one time watch for me and a waste of money, next time I will watch any movie that has mixed reviews at such a low level as this on Amazon, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes on YouTube. I will advised you do the same.

Avoid the extended cut like the plague. It adds WAY too much extra footage of the gypsy backstory. Sometimes, less is more!The picture and sound are great. I've been waiting for this movie for a long time. Glad to see Arrow did a top-notch job on the transfer.

Hardly a Blu-ray quality picture on either one of the two discs that both have Blu-ray silkscreened on the tops of them.

Whacky lost gem that gets the royal treatment from Arrow. Made for TV originally, but produced and acted well. Great fun slasher in the woods! 👍🏻

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.

Ululations from the mystic void! After owning the VHS-rip for many years it is with tremendous, pre-entering the Gladiatorial ring excitement that I watched the immaculate Blu-ray of this most sanguine slasher. Directed with a rare heartfelt, wide-brained finesse, suggestive of a William Girdler or fellow celluloid centurion Don Dohler. Outside of the outstandingly impecunious visuals, it is in the multifarious confabulations of the envelope thrusting screenplay where 'The Prey' begins to tear away, eyes slavering, lips blethering into the uncharted realms of terrific terror taunting. The winsome denouement is as elusive as Jayne Mansfield's bust in 'The Girl Can't help it' (1958), the ensemble acting is no less refined than Nick Zedd's infamously sedate 'They eat Scum (1979) and the uniquely perpendicular plot hares through all three unprecedentedly singular acts like a deadly martian virus. The sublime originality is boundless, nipple-twistingly exquisite, so exhilarating the premise I am led, quite literally, with madly-staring brain to think that SF grand master Philip Jose Farmer had a filigree hand in the luminous scripting. Hey, dad! Dexterous, limber, agile, 'The Prey' got dramatic locomotion like a peyote-crazed prairie centipede, and this Technicolor triumph got electric excitement like Clark Ashton Smith got imagination. So, outside of the wildly subjective rantings of a forlorn mentalist, is the galdarn film any good? Any Good? Can Merle Haggard write a sweet sad song? Did Philip K Dick dream of electric screams? Did forgotten riff-mongers Muzza Chunka make the very best decision by calling their album 'Fishy Pants'? Arrow did do righteously, Dudley do-right by me with, this, their gore-geously glistering, full-spec release of 'The Prey' (1979) And that's all the plain speaking you need. 'The Burning', 'Friday the 13th' and 'Howard The Duck' all came many years after Edwin Scott Brown's trail-mixing, backwoods classic, 'The Hills Have eyes' and 'Von Ryan's Express' came long before 'The Prey', and, that, amigos, is something I will have to deal with on my own. There are salient moments in a chap's life, the melancholy moment he puts down his Airfix Focke-Wulf Fw 191, turns to regard the Evo Stick and takes his very first life-altering huff, and, in a no less evangelical manner, 'The Prey' may well enrapture your sedentary life for the 97 mins you expose your think matrix to the calamitous circuitous celluloid confection that is 'The Prey', shot in 1979, released theatrically in 1984 and remastered in 2019, I genuinely feel that this extended maturation process can be appreciated in much the same way as a 18 year old single malt, or a three day old Garibaldi biscuit.

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.

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.

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.