Vile Prey

This is extremely low-budget. The camera used is not even on the same level as movie mode on any today's smartphones. Very dimly lit, slightly fuzzy and story is just torture porn(Think if high school kids created their version of Hostel or Saw). There is no story here, just enough dialogue to justify the next torture scene(aka porn except torture instead of sex). I can enjoy a good slasher, horror, monster movie, this is not that.

For a smaller budget film, the budget restraints rarely showed. Well acted and very good practical effects. The story moves along swiftly and while the shock factor is high, should be highly enjoyable for true horror fans. Would like to see a sequel come from this and for some of the plot elements get flushed out more. It's a very dark piece but suited well for the genre.

I rely on reviews for most indie films I watch these days. Not so much that I won't watch low rated films, but enough to know what I'm getting in to. In this case, the rating was over 5 at the time of this writing (August, 2019) and the review I read wasn't bad. Sadly, I didn't click on the reviewer until about 10 minutes in to the flick, and yep...he/she created the account the day the review was made and has had zero activity since. That typically means someone associated with the film made the entry, especially since the review didn't fit what the film actually is.

From the moment the opening credits rolled I knew it was low budget. That's never a problem, as I've seen countless excellent films made on micro-budgets. Then, the first scene opened:

• it was filmed with a decent HOBBY/HOME video recorder. Shaky, obtuse, and grainy.
• no lighting used, other than the ambient lighting from what's in the apartment (where the scene takes place), leaving shadows, dark images, and muddy profiles.
• no sound work or added mics beyond the ambient mic on the video recorder. This made for extremely poor sound, rendering speech muddled, boomy, and inexplicable at times.
• the dialog and script was nearly all cliché and pieced together as if pulled straight out of other movies, but with no semblance of flow. "Where's your god now?" - " Not on my watch." Things like that.
• the acting was horrible. Two characters delivered lines as if reading through a script for the first time...stutters and all.
• multiple gun shots. Between the echo and the fact that real blanks weren't used, they sounded like caps.

End scene

Ok. So, maybe it's just the initial scene, and it'll get better. It didn't. I simply couldn't hang past the 20 minute mark as there was no way the entirety of the film would be any different than the initial scenes. The blood used onset was miscolored, had the wrong viscosity, and pooled in the wrong places. If this was the only problem, I would have continued, but every other facet of the film was simply terrible.

I hate writing bad reviews, as the director and "crew" obviously treated this like they were making a real movie. It just so happens that the acting, directing, film, sound, editing, and lighting were horrible. Other than that, it was a great film.

I loved it. I'm confused by these other reviews, but I'd just suggest watching it for yourself! The acting is quite solid with the exception of one, or two others. It was a great start for some of the talent involved, and provided work for the ones who have been in the business longer. It had a world premiere screening at Nightmares Film Festival in Columbus, Ohio in October of 2016 where it was nominated for a handful of awards. Not too shabby, from where I sit. And just why would you use another person's opinion (whom you don't know) to make a judgement of taste or quality without trying it for yourself, first!

I liked Novotny's style. The underlying theme of corruption creates criminals, criminals create chaos and chaos leads to more corruption and it's a vicious cycle is apparent. There was good acting by Kevin Winstead and so so acting by others but it was ORIGINAL which is more that i can say for most movies. The special effects were great considering the personal piece was wacked off- I didn't see that coming.

I look foward to seeing what this writer/director comes up with next. This was dark, gross and had nudity which is what any good horror movie must have in my book :-).

I say grab some popcorn and enjoy the entertainment. The ending wasn't expected.