Deadly Prey

A while back I recently discovered a hideous b-grade movie named "Born A Ninja". After being treated with some terrible acting, camcorder in reverse "special" effects, and shoestring budget, I realised that I am a closet b-grade movie buff!

After this I knew I had to watch every b-grade movie ever.

When one of my friends brought "Deadly Prey" (affectionately known as "Danton") over, it was one of the funniest movies I had ever seen - without meaning to be.

This movie has to be one of the worst action movies ever made. There are so many plot holes, dialogue that doesn't make sense that seems to thrown in as filler, terrible "special" effects, pathetic props - it's just all round BAD.

But if you're like me, and derive pleasure from seeing bad actors on bad sets perform bad dialogue then you will have a great time.

Starting with the excellent opening chase sequence, with the toppled tree making many cameo appearances throughout the film, with a spectacular man making a convincing "Don't kill me" plead for his life, all the way to the final encounter when Danton beats a rambo wannabe to death with his recently disemboweled arm, these are such classic moments that are only possible on a b-grade film.

Who could forget such times when Danton impales a mercenary on a common twig, Danton has just witnessed a miracle! Or when countless soldiers don't hear Danton stab a fellow soldier in the chest from mere inches away. What about when Danton is hiding in the trees above Hogans head? Such a master of camoflague. How about when Danton uses the grenade launcher on the M60 to shoot down the helicopter, wow, that almost looks like an explosion from ANOTHER movie!

This movie has given me inspiration to dust off the old camcorder and make a home movie of unprecedented poorness, a d-grade movie, if you will.

If you have a few friends around, and you can still find it on the shelves, rent it, sit down with a few drinks and laugh your ass off.

Definitely a cult classic and highly recommended.

Although the plot of kidnapping humans for target practice has been done a million times before (and still is), no movie comes as close to the entertainment value of this. Here, bad army guys inadvertently kidnap Mike (unofficial middle name : Dramatic Casio Chord) Danton, a Vietnam vet played by male model Ted Prior. And after letting him loose in the forest armed with only a sawn-off pair of levi's and a particularly offensive mullet, Mike turns the tables on the most inept bunch of soldiers.

You will laugh! You will laugh again! You can feel the tension gripping you to the couch as the next bad guy positions himself into an easily ambush-able place. You will see Cameron Mitchell deliver his best speech ever. You will see tiny grenade explosions hurl people several feet through the air. You will never see a more lethal twig in your entire life or more effective camouflage from a handful of leaves. The one-man army action movies from the 80's (think along the lines of Commando/Rambo) may have been awesome at the time and despite aging, entertain today in the same way a piece of well-matured piece of cheese tastes more delectable than something eaten fresh from the dairy. Deadly Prey is no exception, the only difference being budget. And acting. And direction. But it's still something to relish. Most films like this are best enjoyed over a few beers. Here I would recommend a few crackers and a nice bottle of chardonnay to truly honour this cheesy experience. Cheers!

A group of para-military mercenaries kidnap unsuspecting people off the street in order to hunt them in the forest as part of their training regimen. The mercs make a fatal mistake when they unknowingly grab 'Nam vet and Special Forces-trained tough guy Mike Danton (Ted Prior), who proceeds to lay waste to their ranks. Also featuring Cameron Mitchell as the hero's father-in-law, David Campbell and Fritz Matthews as the chief villains, Suzanne Tara as the damsel-in-distress, and Troy Donahue (!!!) as a corrupt senator.

This is firmly in the so-bad-it's-good category, with a low budget accenting the film's overly ambitious aims. Prior is a sight to behold, with his muscle physique on display for much of the film as he runs around in jean-shorts and that's it, except for the occasional small tree branch he drapes on himself as camouflage. With his blond mullet haircut and a laughable intensity, he's very entertaining, if not actually for the intended reasons. The film is very brutal, with lots of killings, a sexual assault, and some dismemberment. It's produced so ham-handedly though that it's unlikely to offend.

Fellow bad movie lovers, gather round my brethren for here there be a classic!

This is the story of evil Colonal Hogan who is utilising kidnapped innocent civilians as big game in order to train his bloodthirsty group of mercenaries. All is going fine in this cruel pursuit to until that is one day his men make the BIG mistake of kidnapping one Mike Danton who turns out to have been formally trained by Hogan and who furthermore makes Rambo look like a wimp!

Armed only with a pair of cut off shorts, his mightily muscled frame, his wits and a rather fetching mullet our man now proceeds to wipe out every single one of his hunters in a myriad of wild and wacky ways including breaking their backs against trees, impaling them with twigs(!) spearing them and setting them up in some decidedly grisly traps!

Highlights in this? Damn, so many to choose from but check out our hero's girlfriend for a start who must surely rank as one of the most outrageously stupid women in film history! After seeing her beloved knocked over the head and driven away at speed in a truck does she ring the police as any normal, intelligent person would do? No, she instead rings her dad! OK so he was an ex police officer but really! To be fair her father doesn't seem much brighter either! Does he get back up? No, he goes to the military training camp all on his own!!! In fact this film is absolutely riddled with such daft plot contrivances as to render one utterly speechless! Take for instance the fact that whenever our man kills one of the bad guys he never picks up their guns(?!?!?!?) Oh well, he was so damn macho I suppose he didn't feel he needed them until the end!

Back to cool scenes again now though and you'll simply marvel at a plethora of utterly terrible fight choreography, a Styrofoam boulder attack(!), a thoroughly appetising scene of delicious worm chomping(!) our man hiding up a tree with no foliage about three feet above his pursuers and them not spotting him (this dumbfoundingly daft scene just has to be seen to be believed!) and my very favourite bit at the end when our hero slices off an opponents arm with his machete before beating the guy to death with his own severed limb!!! To top it all off our man then scalps him!!!

Simply ridiculous stuff and all the more hilarious for it!!! If you have any shred of self respect then you simply must get hold of this film by any means possible!

Wow, this an oddity, make no mistake about it. It's typical: One minute you're at your house with your lovely lady wife taking the trash outside, next you're knocked senseless by a pipe to the back of your skull. Before you know it, you're being forced to run topless and shoeless through a forest pursued by a bunch of mercenaries in a private army who are using you as training practise. Fortunately, you're more resilient than most, being an ex-military guy yourself and in an elite faction, at that. So, with your 80's blonde mullet and your abs the size of Canada, you decide to turn the tables on your pursuers by setting up all kinds of homemade traps that anyone who hasn't seen Rambo would fall into. Will you ever get out of there alive? Can you find the person responsible for your kidnap and beat seven bells out of the scumbag? And is there a way to make worms and rats over a campfire taste any better? All will be revealed (Well apart from the last one perhaps..)

Where do I start with a movie as bizarre as this? What could have been a run of the mill action film, is transformed into something else entirely thanks to the increasingly strange proceedings. Considering these are supposed to be trained soldiers, don't they get dragged into bushes and stumble over tripwires rather easily? And why the hell is the Commander sending his men to their deaths for the sake of catching just one guy? Also, what is the point in the role of the ex-police chief father-in-law of the hero? I could also bring up the unlimited supply of bullets, and the hilariously fake explosions, but that isn't what caught my attention.

No, what I want to talk about is the ending, which features much sadism and has more than one surprise death. This sudden bloodshed is combined with a wholly inappropriate love song over the credits, which makes it a very surreal experience indeed. In fact, there is almost enough weirdness here for it to qualify as a parody, if it didn't take itself so seriously.

However, in spite of all that it manages to entertain despite itself by giving us lots of juicy scenes of shootings and maimings. The death toll is extremely high too, so expect non-stop action involving everything from knives to missile-launchers. When it had finished, I didn't feel I had wasted my time, and even admired it in a way for concluding in such an uncompromising and unpredictable fashion. 5/10 from me, and certainly worth seeing..