I recently said to someone that I was planning to watch and review the Norman J. Warren movies, a comment they made in turn made me prioritise these viewings beginning with Warren’s 1978 movie Prey described as “an interesting little film”.
Norman J. Warren (probably a director you have either never heard on, or due to the wonders of internet search engines have found yourself here looking for information on the director) made very few movies 10 in fact during his career. During the end of the 1970’s as tastes in movies from the likes of Hammer Studios, little quirky directors like Norman J. Warren and Pete Walker came into their own bringing a very different type of horror to cinema screens, granted it was not all good, but it was most certainly different.
Prey is a most bizarre movie, with some of the worst acting I have ever seen in a British movie, and utterly ludicrous special effects, an off the wall story so bizarre that it sounds like your worst dream; combine this with what sounds a drunken old fool on an electronic synthesizer and what have you got? A winning, compelling and hilariously unintentional humour that can, for the open mind make Prey a real favourite for life.
Beginning with a couple making out in a car, both of which fall into unusual circumstances; the action soon movies to the lesbian retreat of Josephine and Jessica. While Jessica (Glory Annen) is more your everyday type of person Josephine (Sally Faulkner) is the sort of person that might very well bring a flick knife to a child’s birthday party. Josephine is also paranoid that her lesbian lover might be tempted if she ventures into the outside world by another, so you can imagine her joy when Anders Anders (Barry Stokes) ventures into their isolated retreat. While Josephine wants shot of Anders, Jessica want to help Anders who she believes to be “disturbed”. But Anders comes complete with baggage, and this baggage causes Jessica to look at things in a different light, while Anders is a terror all of his own, the worst horror has been with her all along.
I really don’t know where to start with this film, while the above synopsis of opening events might all very well sound normal, this is far from the case and I’d go as far as to say that Prey is one of the most oddball and unusual movies I have seen for some considerable time. Think alien cats, lesbians and an oil slick... Now hold that thought.
The best place to start is with Sally Faulkner, for some unknown reasons this actress still manages to find work 30 years after this movie, and more ludicrously she has acted quite prolifically during that whole period. With her over emphasised words, woody complexion, almost drunken flying off the handle at the least little thing (though her character is meant to be a bit mental), and animated make out scenes with her co-actress; she is the thing about Prey that brings the most amusement giving the ultimate head scratching what the fuck performance, you need to see it to believe it. The slightly better of the two female actresses Gloria Annen pretty much disappeared within 5 years of this movie being made. While Barry Stokes acted pretty much all the time for 10 years after the movie was finished, before disappearing into voice over hell; I’ll say little about the acting of Stokes, because his character is detached from everything we know, so you can’t really tell whether he is a terrible actor or deliberately trying to be awful.
In this world of dreadful and not so dreadful acting comes the ultimate predator, a half man half cat creature with the best plastic cat head I have ever seen. I’m a big lover of plastic cat heads, and this one is really special. In seriousness I do have to question why Warren chose to use this particular head, as I have a suspicion that even 30 years ago this would have been quite amusing. But maybe, just maybe Warren realised this, like many aspects of the movie I cannot help but thing that Warren is having a laugh at his audience. I have not ruined the story when I tell you that the cat head in question belongs to Barry Stokes, because less than five minutes in and you get to see him brandishing said cat head. What is highly contrasting however is that to go with this amusing cat head, you have pretty extreme gore as cat head in place (it only comes out at certain times) rips the throats out of his prey whether it is human or animal.
While I’m nudging the word extreme, I must move on rather hurriedly to some pretty risqué sex scenes, both lesbian and straight, fingers go places you know they go but don’t necessarily need to be reminded especially when the finger abuser is Sally Faulkner, it’s a combination you don’t even want to think about, let alone see. I’m rather amazed when conversations of extreme sex come up that Prey does not raise its head along with the likes of Straw Dogs, The Accused, and 9 Songs; maybe it’s because the movie is so far pushed into the “Cult” label that nobody has seen it. Whatever the case may be this definitely enters the realms of belonging to the brown mac brigade.
As the movie enters its third quarter there is the most unexpected, nay indescribable scene which mixes eternal conversations about cats and water, if you can call the thing that Stokes character stumbles upon water. This painful synthesised 2 minute scene/interlude makes for the most hilarious point of the movie. It’s at this very point that I realised that despite the terrible plot, effects, music, and acting that this ridiculous movie had made its way to be one of my all time favourite movies.
Prey is available on Region 1 DVD as an individual disc with no special features other than a trailer, alternately in the UK you can obtain it as part of a now deleted box set of Norman J. Warren movies, while the disc itself has no extra editions beyond the US disc, there is a disc of special features. I have based this review off the back of the US disc.
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