A woman and her step-kids trapped in a safari car in the territory of lions who soon make it their business to get at them. The plot sounds similar to Savage Harvest, which, while more over the top, still achieves much better what it sets out to do than Prey.
PROS - Real edge-of-your-seat stuff at times, and the climax is quite unexpected and satisfying.
CONS - These characters seem to lack proper reason. When you're short on water and it rains, and you've got bottles, most people would try to fill the bottles with rainwater. Not these people. And the way they get into the mess is also one you can't really help but blame them for.
This makes Prey a pretty mismatched film. It has some exquisite lion filmwork, and some terribly cheesy scenes when we really need to believe in the lions' menace. 5 out of 10, purely for the cinematography, but if you want a good and thrilling movie about man-eating lions, see The Ghost and the Darkness. If you need an alternative to that, 1981's Savage Harvest is a reasonable choice.
PROS - Real edge-of-your-seat stuff at times, and the climax is quite unexpected and satisfying.
CONS - These characters seem to lack proper reason. When you're short on water and it rains, and you've got bottles, most people would try to fill the bottles with rainwater. Not these people. And the way they get into the mess is also one you can't really help but blame them for.
- In The Ghost and the Darkness, we really believed there was something about the lions that had them ravage the railroad construction site in Tsavo. In Prey, however, nothing is really preventing these lions from seeking other prey. A smart hungry lion would recognize that to just wait around a jeep is not a good idea.
- Shaky camera. It works in certain forms of cinema, but not here. The filmwork on the lions often suffers due to the hand-held camera, because it goes all over the place. Thankfully these moments are the exception rather than the rule. No, the foremost problem is...
- The death scenes are completely unrealistic. Here, The Ghost and the Darkness still wins out. Nothing about the way the lions kill people in Prey looks even remotely believable. As in, splatters of blood splashing up from the ground as if someone popped a balloon full of red liquid. A victim's bloody hands scraping the car window when the lion is attacking him from behind. That kind of non-realistic.
This makes Prey a pretty mismatched film. It has some exquisite lion filmwork, and some terribly cheesy scenes when we really need to believe in the lions' menace. 5 out of 10, purely for the cinematography, but if you want a good and thrilling movie about man-eating lions, see The Ghost and the Darkness. If you need an alternative to that, 1981's Savage Harvest is a reasonable choice.