The Newman's are in South Africa and when the dad is going to work, his new wife takes the kids on safari with a tour guide. They soon find out that there are vicious lions all around and when their tour guide is killed, they have to try and survive on their own.
I'm a big fan of Animal Planet and watching nature shows because even though I'm often not that interested at first, these shows often tend to draw you in, and at the same time they're somewhat relaxing to watch. Maybe because they deal with animals and nature, and not with stupid people. For a while there, Prey felt a little like some nature show rather than a proper horror movie, only problem though was that I actually wanted to watch a horror film and not some mix between the two. Couldn't they have featured supernatural lions or ghostly monkeys or something like that, at least that would've made it different, because now it just felt like a soap opera that took place in the wilderness with a touch of kinda boring and predictable horror added to it.
Sure, the violence was sometimes pretty graphic, but it was obviously not enough to save the film. You see, this family that are the Newman's are having some problems; the dad has married some new woman and his daughter, who's an irritating little brat, doesn't like that at all. Right from the start you know how it's gonna end, that the daughter and the new wife will live through terror together and so find each other and be friends and all that crap.. I mean, what the hell. You know that they're gonna bond and on the way there, we'll hopefully see some cool kills. Well, the kills were actually not that cool, at least they're not worth 92 minutes of your life.
 
I guess Prey is somewhat of a creature feature, but on the other hand, I'm not sure lions count. It's actually even hard to really call this a horror movie, it's more like a bad thriller about a vacation gone wrong for this dysfunctional family. Scares are nowhere to be found and while it may have a little suspense, it's not enough at all for it to even remotely work. The thing is that the premise of Prey is not good to begin with and it's very hard to take it like a serious horror film since it's more like a family drama with some nasty attack scenes every now and then. Maybe not for kids, but I don't think it's for horror fans either.. to be honest I can't tell you who it's for, people with shitty taste perhaps?
On the good side of things, there's no CGI in the movie and that's something I'm always thankful for. But what it comes down to in the end is that Prey is just another mediocre "horror" film that is way too predictable, that features some poor acting and doesn't have much to keep ones interest up the whole way through. The scenery is of course very nice and I loved that the tour guide only was in the movie for like 3 minutes or so. But these are such little things and does not make up for all the dull situations the movie will put you through.
Prey may have a few cool scenes to offer, but just watching lions wandering around and stalking their "prey" gets kinda boring after a minute or two, no to mention one and a half hour.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: Darrell Roodt
WRITING CREDITS: Beau Bauman, Darrell Roodt
GENRE: Thriller, Horror
CAST: Bridget Moynahan, Peter Weller, Carly Schroeder
COUNTRY: USA, South Africa
RUNTIME: 92 min
RATING: 2/10
Prey Website/IMDB Click here
Prey Trailer Click here
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