Deadly Prey

A very typical 1980s action flick where everything is so stupid that it’s impossible to look away. The premise of “one bloke with a knife against a whole army” is something that golden decade gave us many times, but Ted Prior in jean shorts has no competition. The part when he hides from an armed to the teeth military unit in a fallen tree about two metres high, I started laughing like I hadn’t in a long time. Those were movies, mate! (06.01.2021)

A frantic parade of the most clichéd action movies from the 1980s. This film has absolutely no story and everything that happens in it happens just because it's cool. The whole thing gives the impression that a couple of film fans with no talent whatsoever, but with a huge amount of enthusiasm, made a film into which they've crammed the coolest stuff they've seen in action movies. To make matters worse, they made everything a thousand times more exaggerated and a million times harder, and beyond what mainstream action movies could afford. Deadly Prey has absolutely no mercy for any of its characters, and most of the fights are pushed to an extreme, even a comic book extreme (the biggest highlight being the moment when the protagonist cuts off his opponent's arm and bludgeons him with it). The film manages to suck you in from the very first shot, in which the protagonist (a well-oiled ninja in shorts with a mullet) walks in front of the camera, strikes a He-Man pose and, for no reason at all, raises his rifle triumphantly above his head, whereupon the film's title appears. The main driving force is the boisterous performance of the film's director's brother Ted Prior, who delivers all his lines with a raspy, menacing voice that trumps even Christian Bale's Batman. Even the clumsy stunts (soldiers gingerly falling to the ground seconds after a grenade explodes, etc.), which are filmed with super-seriousness, are amusing. A must for fans of Zetko cult films. This film was a hard-to-find rarity for a long time, as it was never released on DVD. But now it's finally available on Blu-ray, albeit not in true HD quality. It's a transfer from an SD source, so you won't miss the nostalgic analog VHS feel. (18.09.2016)