A Presa Humana

This was better than an empty dessert. By that I mean, I went into this thinking it would just be an average, silly, exploitive film with gratuitous nudity and not much of an original plot. I got the nudity and a lot more substance. Yes this theme has been done before but there were many surprising twists and shocks that usually are taboo in films like this. This was a psychological thriller for sure . There was the cliché. The usual suspect, the well to do pillar of the community , and of course negative traits of hookers and strippers. The usual fare ,setting the plate , for an all familiar film. The tension was there, check. The twists were there, check. Fine acting, check. The ingredients were there and then some. The movie, I felt, did a fine job of establishing most of the characters and showing their true selves ... Negative and positive. The realness was there. I will not give away the ending, only to say you will not be disappointed. Enjoy .

"Rated R for terror and violence, nudity throughout" - perfect line for your average snuff movie.

Yet, this movie has a bit more quality. The nudity is non-pornographic. The sexuality shown is sometimes erotic, but not perverse.

The plot: Sadistic killer versus innocent, naive, girl. Seen often before.

After the first 10 minutes I thought of giving this a 4 out of 10 or less, for its stereotypes, standard patterns of story development and rather bad acting and camera work. But as the story developed, it actually became an entertaining movie. I thought the naive girl was believable in her actions, and somehow the camera and sound work seemed to improve as well. Even the nudity was fitting in without being exploiting.

I try to avoid spoilers in the first comment for this movie, so I just try give you an idea of what you might like about it: You don't have to turn away every other scene thinking: wow, this is stupid, why in world would he/she do that? Meaning it's mostly believable. And it's not explicit - meaning that even thought this movie contains cruelty, it does not show it off with lots of gore. It's quite subtle at it.

It's still your basic thriller with some mild horror elements mixed in. No greatness in the dialogues or in the action scenes (well, the ending line it great). I found it enjoyable, only the acting of the supporting cast and the sound sometimes irritated me. I'd recommend this to anyone wanting to see a not-too-violent thriller with some depth and a few surprises.

I suspect some might question my reasons for liking this movie, but I actually liked it a lot. While movies on terror nowadays seem to involve gore and torture, this one is more mental. Oh yes, the title does say naked fear and it does involve nudity, but for me the real horror here is where it should be - a mental thing. I do think for many of us perhaps the most frightening thing is for us to be vulnerable and scared - even more so than the events themselves that scare us. And what could make one more vulnerable than to be naked, alone, and fearing someone out to kill you? If you can identify at all with this actress, you might come away with something of real horror and true fear - and yet have that fear without the chainsaws and other items of gore so frequent nowadays. It would be wrong to say what happens, but I do think the plot developed well and led to a story that I felt perhaps was more believable than some who rated this movie. And maybe since this is situational mental horror, the movie just might stay in our minds more than the simplistic slasher movies.

Let's do the negatives first. The repeated shots of the animal heads is trite and repetitious. And the ending is trite. And some of the supporting cast is awful. The Indian, for example, is truly wooden. I thought Joe Mantegna was miscast. He did a decent job, but the strain showed. Miss De Luca is very skilled, and shines in the non-horror scenes. I would like to see more of her. The movie is genuinely suspenseful and well paced. And, yes, Miss De Luca looks lovely in her stripper scene. The chase scenes in the wilderness are effectively planned: the tension is high enough that we hatdly notice the nudity. Sum: not at all a waste of time.

Going into this film I thought two things: 1. Another new take on "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell(Which is one of my favorite short fictions) 2.It would be an attempt at successful "exploitation" films of the 60's, with all the titillation, terrible acting, and fake blood that were synonymous with those films...How wrong I was.

I was unaware that this was actually based on the killings of serial killer Robert Hansen, which this was very accurately based, except he was in Alaska and the film takes place in New Mexico.

As far as cast and acting goes, it was rather well done. Strong plot(which isn't hard being based on actual events). The title, cover art, and synopsis would lead one to believe that this IS an attempt at an exploitation film and yes it does have the nudity to concur, though as another reviewer had added, the plot and solid acting of the lead got to a point that I didn't care she was nude and was actually yelling at the character in an already made film to "MOVE NOW" or "look behind you"(come on most of us have done it).

All in all, not Oscar worthy, but a very enthralling and well rounded film. A definite 7 out of 10.