Prey

I have never felt the urge to write a comment on IMDb before because i either like a film and vote or hate it enough to enjoy it and vote and leave it at that. Until i met Prey, that is. This is the most inept piece of film making to come out of Australia since the good old 80s 10ba system was throwing us some trash. there is nothing redeeming about this film and at 76 minutes it has overstayed its welcome by a good 20 minutes. The entire cast is Australian but for reasons never explained, of the 6 people 4 of them are Americans in Australia (you know they're not really because the accents are atrocious). This film, and i call it that loosely, was developed with Film Victoria. How? Why? I cannot comprehend. This is a movie that is begging for a bit of T & A but can't muster the courage to be the blatantly exploitative movie it needs to be. For gods sake you can even see people swearing when the rerecorded voice is trying to cover it up. This is a testament to Australian film-making at the moment. no courage, no balls and no talent. No matter how flawed they may be, indie produced no budget genre fare (like Gabriel, Undead and The Dark Lurking)are at least trying to be a hell of a lot more than the sum of their parts should be, and for the most part they are succeeding. No wonder all these guys are trying to get to the states, and good luck to them i say!

Six obnoxious friends take a trip across the outback where they stumble across an ancient curse.

The utter confusion of Outback's opening scene, which features bad CGI serpents and a naff green-eyed zombie, had me concerned, but I knew that I had picked a total stinker as soon as the film began to introduce its unlikeable central characters using that tired technique of freezing the frame on each person as they are doing something that typifies their personality, applying a distressed filter to the still, and then stamping their name next to them in a grungy typeface. The use of that particular uninspired editing gimmick always sets the alarm bells ringing…

But that's just the start of what proves to be one of the most irritating, ill-conceived, poorly directed and generally unfathomable movies that it has ever been my misfortune to see. The novelty editing and directorial affectations continue unabated (split screen, grainy B&W filters etc.), director Oscar D'Roccster clearly under the impression that he's Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, or Robert Rodriguez, and the film only gets more bewildering as time passes, the true nature of the curse never being adequately explained.

One-by-one, the horrible characters are bumped off by unknown forces, the lead girl (Natalie Bassingthwaighte) gets sweaty, bloody, takes a shower fully clothed and changes her sexual orientation (!?!?), and the optional extra of a chainsaw on one of the 4x4s comes in extremely handy.

Yep, my title says it all and its what i said to a mate when i was watching it. You don't understand how bad this movie is until you watch it. its like a monkey found a football and said i can banging that. He's trying, he's getting the idea but as he goes he keeps falling off and jumping right back on not releasing that everyone watching is in tears of laughter. ah...poor monkey. This movie is the monkey. There are blatant attempts to make this international product by making 2 of the leads American. but their accents are so bad that the dog down the street started to howl in pain, i'm serious. but how's this for editing: 2 cars, 2 cars, 2 cars, 3 CARS, 2 cars, 2 cars. Yep the editor is numerically dyslexic(if thats not spelled right i don't care because the film maker sure as hell didn't) I didn't want my money back though, i never do, because i think of these movies as a cathartic experience. I do want people to know that we do make good movies in Australia, its just that our genre stuff isn't quite hitting the mark right now.

Somehow I was under the illusion that Prey was in some way based on an aboriginal legend... Funnily enough not one aboriginal person was to be seen throughout the whole film. It was by far the worst Australian made film I have ever seen. Not one redeemable feature to be seen and the CGI snakes just topped it all off. Audio quality was slightly better than a cassette recording from the early 80's, which was most helpful in muffling the atrocious dialogue that plagued this drivel from start to finish. Characters were the kind of stereotypes that give stereotyping a bad name, and the only soundtrack that could be mustered was the occasional Rogue Trader's track obviously donated by the hapless lead NatBass. For a budget of $4m++ the producers would have been better off putting the cash into an ING account and at least getting the interest on it - not to mention saving all concerned the embarrassment of having their name to the film. I can only assume that some of the positive posts on this site regarding Prey are the contrived efforts of those responsible for this diabolical abortion of a motion (as in bowel motion) picture. Avoid like syphilis.

For those who've questioned why or how this (likely the worst Aussie Horror film ever made) came into being - I would encourage you to find an in depth article on the ScaryMinds website. I'll give you the initial gist, in case you feel you've already wasted enough of your time on earth on this film. John V Soto did actually write the script the movie is based on, but the original Director (George Miller - no, not that George Miller) diverged significantly and it went straight into the gutter. The original script would actually still make a fine film; that's how different the product is from the blueprint. The Producers only had two options: 1) write the whole thing off and flush the investors money down the tiolet or 2) go with what they had and put a brave face on it. It was their money on the line and they chose (many say unwisely) the second option. Several of these sentences come straight from the ScaryMinds article and they get all the credit for them.