Let’s talk about Prey—a movie that not only makes The Blob look like Citizen Kane but somehow manages to marry lesbian melodrama, alien predation, and the worst-case scenario for a vegetarian’s dinner party. If you’ve ever wondered, “What if The Fox by D.H. Lawrence and a Vampire’s wet dream had a baby that went straight to DVD in 1977?” well, have I got the film for you.
Plot: The Least Menacing Alien of All Time
So here’s the thing: the plot of Prey is a bizarre mess that seems like someone was trying to adapt a Doctor Who script on a napkin during lunch. A carnivorous alien named Kator crash-lands in rural England (because where else would an alien predator land, right?). His mission? To evaluate humans as a food source, because why bother with all that bureaucratic red tape when you can just go straight to eating? His first move? Disguising himself as a weirdly mysterious man named “Anders,” which sounds more like a failed ’90s sitcom character than a predator from space.
Kator’s mission is simple: kill people, absorb their DNA, and provide his alien overlords with a proper assessment of humans. But oh, wait—there’s a lesbian couple, Jessica-Ann (Glory Annen) and Josephine (Sally Faulkner), living in seclusion, and naturally, the alien has to disrupt their “homoerotic seclusion,” as one critic might put it, because nothing says “alien horror” quite like sexual tension in the countryside.
The alien’s body count starts with a couple of unsuspecting lovers in a car, and we’re off to the races with—what else?—a series of unremarkable killings and bizarrely anticlimactic moments. The alien’s predation is less terrifying and more like watching a super awkward first date where both parties are just way too uncomfortable to do anything. Instead of horrifying us with tension, it slowly becomes a slow-motion game of cat-and-mouse where you’re left wondering if the alien forgot to bring the snacks or just decided to phone it in.
Characters: A Soap Opera of Misguided Sexual Tension
As for the characters, they’re less layered and more like cardboard cutouts with pasted-on facial expressions. Take Josephine, for example, who embodies the tough lesbian with a gun archetype so perfectly that she’s probably the only person who could make alien hunting seem like a dull Tuesday. Meanwhile, Jessica-Ann seems to be playing the role of the passive girlfriend who’s more interested in her homegrown vegetables than in the imminent threat of being eaten alive by a shape-shifting alien.
Then, of course, there’s Kator, our alien antagonist who can shapeshift into a human form but somehow lacks the edge of a predator. Instead, he comes across like a socially awkward guy trying to crash a women’s yoga retreat. When Kator isn’t busy awkwardly standing around trying to look menacing in his human form, he’s killing random victims in the most underwhelming ways possible—like a bad audition for Doctor Who where no one got the memo that aliens are supposed to be scary. When the alien does go full predator, it’s less Vampire’s primal lust and more like a bad game of hide-and-seek.
And don’t get me started on the character of Jo—her possessiveness and bizarre jealousy over Jessica-Ann feels more like a plot contrivance to inject some drama than an actual character trait. The woman spends more time trying to out-alpha the alien than she does in actually addressing the real issue here: the alien is hunting people down, and you, dear Jo, seem to be too busy with your passive-aggressive one-liners.
Atmosphere: The “I’m in the Countryside and It’s Really, Really Awkward” Factor
If there’s one thing that Prey can’t seem to get right, it’s atmosphere. Set in the idyllic English countryside, the film’s attempts at claustrophobic horror fail in spectacular fashion. Instead of evoking a feeling of dread, the setting only serves to make everything feel more awkward and out of place. The slow-moving plot is punctuated by random cutaways to shots of the lesbian couple tending their vegetables, which is probably the least threatening thing you could focus on when an alien is presumably in the area.
For a film that’s supposed to induce fear, the countryside is hardly the right place for it. The tension just doesn’t build. You could be watching a documentary on How to Grow Organic Carrots and have the same amount of dread and suspense as you do here. The cinematography is as flat as a pancake that’s been left out in the rain too long, and the visual effects are so underwhelming that they could have been borrowed from a high school sci-fi club project.
I get it—low budget, rural England, all that jazz. But at least Jaws managed to make the ocean a terrifying place to be. This film makes rural England seem like a place you’d fall asleep after too many cups of tea. The only thing scarier than the alien is the thought of spending 85 minutes trapped in this weird suburban nightmare.
Sexual Tension? Or Just Bad Scriptwriting?
What the movie really serves up is an awkward mix of lust, jealousy, and predation—a mess of conflicted sexualities where no one can seem to figure out if they’re supposed to be terrified of the alien or jealous of the lesbian relationship. The film attempts to make a statement about the intersection of sexualities and predator-prey dynamics, but it mostly ends up looking like a weird fever dream where everyone’s just too sexually repressed to care about the alien—until, of course, the alien starts to eat people. If anything, the horror seems secondary to the odd, misplaced emotional baggage everyone is dragging around.
The film seems to forget what it’s actually about. It’s a creature feature, but it spends so much time focusing on the relationship drama that you almost forget there’s supposed to be an alien on the hunt. The alien is just an accessory to the real drama, which is the sociopolitical mess of the women’s relationship dynamics. I mean, come on, if I wanted to watch a dysfunctional love triangle, I’d throw on a soap opera, not a movie about a shape-shifting alien who kills people in the most unconvincing ways.
Conclusion: Just Watch Alien Again
In the end, Prey is a confused jumble of science fiction, horror, and unintentional comedy that somehow manages to stumble through its run time with the grace of a three-legged horse. The performances are fine, though nothing to write home about. The alien looks about as threatening as a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner. The plot, if you can even call it that, is just a bizarre mess of sexuality, jealousy, and underwhelming predation. It’s like watching a documentary about alien hunters who are bored out of their minds.
Would I recommend it? Well, only if you’re in the mood for a movie that can’t quite decide what it wants to be—whether it’s about the human condition or the alien condition, it doesn’t matter. Either way, you’re stuck watching a weird, awkward film about an alien who can’t decide if he’s here to eat you or just ruin your relationship.
