A platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan become trapped in a cave and are hunted down by a deadly creature the locals call Karnoctus.
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Wuchak
5
By Wuchak
**_Meh slasher in the woods of SoCal_**
Three couples intend to enjoy a weekend in the wilds of California, but become prey to someone, or something, that doesn’t want them there.
Shot around 1980 but not released until 1983, “The Prey” is a backwoods slasher inspired by “Friday the 13th” and similar to the contemporaneous "The Final Terror” in that it was also filmed in the sticks of California and delivers a similar viewing experience. By that I mean decent-but-nothing-great (or even good). Yet both are significantly superior to the lousy "Don't Go in the Woods" (1981).
There’s nothing wrong with the filmmaking; the sylvan cinematography features lots of nature footage and is a highlight. Also, the ‘monster’ (Carel Struycken) is effective, but he doesn’t appear until the very end. This leaves the bulk of the runtime involving the activities of the campers and a couple of rangers, but their story just isn’t compellingly told. In other words, the heart of the movie is dull. It doesn’t help that two of the three females are second rate, physically speaking. Blonde Gayle Gannes is fine as Gail, but the director evidently didn’t know how to shoot women (no pun intended).
The film runs 1 hour, 21 minutes. I suggest avoiding the longer version that runs an additional 15 minutes, which is burdened by the unnecessary backstory on the antagonist along with some tame sex frolics of camping Gypsies. The flick was shot at AstroCamp campus in Idyllwild, SoCal, which is just west of Palm Springs. It looks like second unit work was done at Half Dome in Yosemite, which is 380 miles north of there.
GRADE: C
