Prey - La preda

A veterinarian (Sophie Van Widen) finds the tracks left by an animal that kills people result to be of a huge lion . As an enormous lion carries out a criminal spree in Netherlands . Then a wheelchair bound disabled man (Mark Frost) is asked for hunting it . He is a world-class hunter , competing several times in African hunts, however , long time ago , a lion injured him. Later on , a merciless wild hunt takes place . The beautiful veterinarian , her boyfriend (Looman) and the crippled hunter get caught in a dangerous adventure while the lion terrifying the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. As the giant lion roaming and lurking victims for a tasty meal . As three protagonists leading the city-wide hunt and confronting themselves one of nature's most fearsome predators which savagely attacking its preys , innocen humans .

Creepy and eerie film with chills , thrills , scary attacks and lots of blood and gore. Furthermore , adding some brief touches of black comedy .The enormous lion delivers the goods with hair-raising chills, full of scares when the huge creature shows up and suddenly attacks .The lion images are made by a mix of digital special effects , C.G. and was also built animatronic for the close-up frames, creating a well-made manually operated lion. While the scenes appearing running and attacking in full were made by computer generator such as the pursuit set piece through Amsterdam when the monstrous lion chases the delivery boy on the scooter by the river .

It contains colorful and brilliant cinematography . As well as atmospheric musical score by Dick Maas himself , as he regularly scores his own films , because not hiring an external composer allows him to save money for additional days of shooting . This grisly motion picture was professionally directed by Dick Maas . However , being his lowest grossing film as if 2016, though in China it got a big boxoffice . As Maas made a name for himself in far flung China as he sold his rights to a Chinese distributor , making in an over night hit in mainland China. Maas is considered to be one of the best Dutch filmmakers . His movies have high production values for Netherlands standards , usually including spectacular pursuits , blow up , known stars and uneven other Dutch directors his pictures are aimed at the international market. His first great success was the claustrophobic and tense The Lift , following Amsterdammned , Do not disturb , Quiz , Down , Saint , among others . And other successes in Flodder comedies as The Flodder in America , Flodder 3 and Flodder TV series . Rating 6/10 , acceptable passable and entertaining .

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.

I admire Dick Maas: he doesn't let a stupid concept stop him from realising his vision. Killer elevators (Der Lift, Down), a murderous scuba-diver in the Dutch canal system (Amsterdamned), an evil Sinterklaas (Sint): all fairly preposterous, but executed with plenty of enthusiasm and fun. Now add 'man-eating lion with ninja-like stealth' to the list.

Prey's 'mane attraction' is a 7ft big cat with a taste for human flesh, on the hunt in Holland's capital city. How it got there is left a little fuzzy. As is its ability to prowl the streets and parks of Amsterdam unseen or sneak on board a tram without so much as a 'hey, you gotta buy a ticket to ride, Aslan!'. No-one seems to notice the lion until it's too late. Not good for the citizens of Amsterdam, but good news for fans of trashy, gory horror - people get eaten left, right and centre, the lion leaving mangled body parts strewn all over.

The acting is atrocious - or at least the English dubbing is - but the film's characters are enjoyably daft, with special mention going to Mark Frost as the English big-game hunter Jack, who is called in to try and track and kill the lion: he's only got one leg and travels around in a motorised wheelchair, but that doesn't stop him from going face to face with the ferocious big cat, even sacrificing his remaining leg to help lure it into a trap!

It's probably a stretch to call Prey a 'roaring' success - the CGI used to realise the lion could have been better and the pacing is a little uneven - but Maas should take 'pride' in the fact that his film is still worth hunting down.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

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!

Uncaged is a nice re-make of everybody's favorite man eating shark movie. If you liked the one with the fish wait 'til you see the one with the cat. Thumb's up!