Prey

I've been waiting for this one to come to the States for a while. Originally released in 2016 and originally entitled ProoI a.k.a Prey. This Dutch creature feature has finally hit us and has been retitled Uncaged. It's a fairly generic title but its promise of satisfactory killer cat thrills is quite successful. The setup is simple as a killer lion attacks Amsterdam with a cast of quirky characters to try and help. The film is fun and gory but not overdone in any way. It's best watched with subtitles because the dubbing is a bit wonky. Although it never strives to be more than what it is, its definitely fun.

3.75/5

The story isn't that bad and killer lion are rarely uses in horror movies. The opening does a good job setting up the arrival of the lion and there's a couple of suspenseful scenes when the lion appeared. But the story is mostly weak because its pretty predictable and it mostly the characters trying to figured out how to stop it. Most of the plans are done by the side characters and most of the time it doesn't work at all. I also found the twist revealed near the end to be predictable and pretty obvious.

One thing I enjoyed in the movie is chase scenes where the characters are either running away or is hunting after it. I found those scenes to be enjoyable and suspenseful.

PREY (2016, original title Prooi) is the latest from Dutch director Dick Maas, whom you may remember from the 1980s and such films as THE LIFT and AMSTERDAMNED. Sadly his budgets have dwindled in the years since and inevitably there's been a drop in quality in his films, but his heart is still there and PREY is a story with a simple yet classic premise: a man-eating lion is let loose in the streets of Amsterdam and proceeds to go on a rampage of destruction.

As a fan of nature-runs-amok type films this was an irresistable premise for me, and yet the film itself is only so-so. It doesn't help that the version showing on Prime is saddled with an appalling English dub track which makes the whole thing feel like a quirky comedy. The characters are ridiculous, particularly the greate white hunter with his state-of-the-art wheelchair complete with motorised tracks. However, there is a lot of killing and a good amount of gore, which at least counts in this film's favour. The lion is pure CGI but I've seen worse.

You can't blame Dick Maas for not trying. This movie is probably not going to disappoint you if you're are a fan of his much older work. You might think Maas learned from his past mistakes, but his directing style is not going anywhere and it is still utterly horrible. The whole plot (or lack there of) is awfully slow, nothing really happens until the lion shows up and after that the whole film seems oddly paced. I won't go into details to avoid spoilers. The lion was supposed to be done entirely with digital effects, but because of the lack of budget they had to resort to animatronics, for which you could applaud the makers. Sadly, everything falls apart quickly. Whenever you see the lion, it's never believable. Not only because of how it looks, but also it's behavior. The action is entirely unsatisfying and the whole movie falls flat after the hour mark. The acting ranged from horrible to decent, which might add to the camp factor of the movie.

This movie was supposed to fall into the "So Bad It's Good" category, like most of Maas' films, but this genre is overrun by movies that made this an art form (look at the library of "The Asylum", movies like "Sharknado" and it's sequels). This movie doesn't get to that standard. What you do get is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be, a thriller, a horror, a comedy or an action movie. Selling a movie on just the idea of a lion going on a rampage in Amsterdam isn't something you can base a complete movie on this way in 2016.

It comes down to a nice try to revive the 80's bad horror movie, something Sam Raimi recently achieved beautifully with his Evil Dead franchise. But you need more self-awareness as a filmmaker to get this to work in this day and age.

The movie supposedly cost around 3 million to make, around three times the budget most other Dutch films are made for, so it's surprising the movie feels like a bad 10.000 dollar movie.

As stated before; if you like films by Dick Maas, you might enjoy it and feel the nostalgia coming over you. But wait for it to come to Netflix and watch it on a rainy Sunday, instead of paying for a theater ticket. For all other people; save your money and don't bother with this.

In case you live in The Netherlands (or the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, like yours truly does) and you're an avid fan of eccentric horror/cult cinema, well then you simply have to be an admirer of Dick Maas. He's pretty much the only writer/director of the entire Dutch region who dares to be different and even a tad bit crazy. After all, Maas is the hero who – during the glorious eighties' decade – brought us the phenomenal horror flicks "De Lift" (about a murderous elevator) and "Amsterdamned" (about a vicious murderer hiding out in the canal system), as well as the legendary black comedy "Flodder" (about an utterly demented dysfunctional family). More recently, in 2010, he also saddled up thousands of little Dutch children with incurable traumas by portraying Saint Nicholas (the local Santa) as a relentless monster. But the ideas behind his newest feature are perhaps the most grotesque and craziest ones of his entire career…

In "Prey", Dick Maas unleashes a male lion – evidently an exceptionally large and unusually aggressive species – in the city center of Amsterdam; to my recollection still one of the busiest and least rural capitals of Europe. One could go for the so-called "suspension of disbelief" in case the script attempted to explain that the animal escaped from the local zoo or from the private collection of a foolish millionaire or something, but no… The lion simply shows up in Amsterdam and damned if we ever find out who or what brought him there. The closest we ever come to a clarification is a dumb piece of dialogue: "In Eastern countries people still keep lions as pets, and when they escape they don't report it to the police!" Yeah sure…

But hey, let's at least try to forget for a moment that absolutely nothing in the script of "Prey" makes any sense. If you manage that, you're left with a completely over-the-top but entertaining creature-feature with a massive body count, tons of blood & gore, ridiculous slapstick comedy, a complete cast of imbecilic characters and a handful of cynical observations about the Dutch society. Throughout the opening sequences, Maas still attempts to pay tribute to "Jaws" and creates a moody atmosphere with ominous POV-shots and sinister music, but then he goes straight for trashy and mindless splatter fun. The lion munches his way through the crowded city without being spotted, so naturally the dumb cop and the cute zoo veterinarian have a difficult time alarming the press and the public. And yet, even when it's made abundantly clear there's a dangerous predator at large in town – that, by the way, already killed at least a dozen of people by then – the public still doesn't seem to be too panicky, as they cheerfully continue to walk their dogs at night, go to restaurants and hang around in the central park! Numerous sequences and plot twists are almost too ludicrous to describe, like when the lion gets on board of a city tram or when a crazy wannabe hunter and his retarded son are hired to ambush the animal in the park. The cute veterinarian eventually has to bring in her former lover, who used to be notorious hunter in Africa. A romance between a veterinarian and a hunter … Can it get any crazier? Of course it can, because the "fearsome" hunter turns out to be a driveling alcoholic Brit in a wheelchair!

"Prey" is a pretty bad but immensely entertaining B-movie in every sense of the term! The acting performances are already terrible when the cast speaks in Dutch, but when they switch to English they become downright atrocious. The gore and make-up effects are decent, but look a little too "digital" and – like the case in most traditional creature features – the lion is most menacing when it remains off-screen. I genuinely hope that Dick Maas stays as stubborn and eccentric as he ever was, and that he continues with making these insane movies. It's not because "Prey" gets a low rating (I just don't have another choice) that I don't love and respect this man tremendously!