Your capacity for Antoine Blossier’s Prey will depend largely on whether you’re a fan of creature features. Going forward, please be aware that I will spoil the creature that inevitably turns the hunters into the hunted, so spoilers abound. Luckily, this modestly-budgeted horror film benefits from an approach that’s more restrained than some. It is a French production and you may be feeling a mite eager to lump into the French horror new wave. For some, that invokes gag-inducing scenes of brutality and occasional misogyny. In regards to Prey, gore-hounds get their fill, but for first 40-odd minutes, the film shares a kinship with Jaws rather than Inside.
The beauty of Jaws, as has been well regurgitated by anyone with a layman’s knowledge of film history, is that the shark’s low quality forced Spielberg to hide away the sharp-toothed big fish. That choice led to the brilliantly ratcheted up terror that defined the film. Prey features a pack of villains of a different story – mutated wild boars hungry for man flesh. Their mutation is strongly hinted to be a result of a fertilizer empire built on healthy land, overseen by sturdy patriarch Eric (Fred Ulysse). Eric has had the blessing of two sons, Nicolas (Francois Levantal) and David (Joseph Malerba), whose sibling rivalry may be more infectious than the chemicals seeping into the land.
When several deer apparently throw themselves into an electric fence, the boys and their elderly father stake out into the wilderness to find and rid themselves of the cause. At home is Claire (Berenice Bejo), pregnant with the child of Nathan (Gregoire Colin). Nathan is the outsider, a nervous soul that doesn’t strive to the machismo parade led by Eric and his sons. He’s a city dweller, and while Nicolas puts pressure on Claire to get his daughter, a chemist, to stick around and put time in at the family factor, Nathan wants none of it.
Here’s a key problem with Prey – our cast is not likable. This is a not unheard of issue, in particular in horror films where just comeuppance can be humongous satisfying. This comeuppance however, works best as a result of overblown folly, not deep-seated and frankly irritating impulses that the cast acts out well, much to the chagrin of an audience. I’m a big fan of Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes remake – it’s not a perfect film, but a great melding of French horror and American stereotypes. The contrast between Ted Levine’s Big Bob Carter and Aaron Stanford’s Doug is imminently clear, but the characters are likeable enough for us to be concerned for them despite the flaws that initially place them in very thin brackets as the big, brawny fool and the dorky weakling.
When Nicolas and David trade vocal blows and Nathan attempts to turn Nicolas onto his way of “city thinking”, I heave a sigh and wait for the boards to do their dirty work. As surveyors of this land, the men have arrived, misguided by a hunter’s impulse, to get what’s coming to them. Midway, the film shifts into full-on horror, but there is a sublime set of moments where the excellent sound design does bloody good work of making the surroundings feel constricting. A boar is by itself an unpleasant creature – the air billowing out its nostrils can be particularly threatening, and one of the most memorable moments in Princess Mononoke belong to Okkoto, the massive leader of the boar tribe.
When the hunt does boil over the boars make themselves visible, Prey falters and Blossier struggles to present the confrontations in an interesting manner. We’ve all seen man versus beast tales and this one offers nothing new. The boars are bigger than your average cat and the man have a limited supply of weapons to fight them with – in other words, the clichés are in place. The fact that our gentlemen are dislikable from the get go only hurts the film when it comes time for them to be chewed down. Until that point though, Blossier’s direction is pretty on-point, in particular when it comes to the stalk prior to the kill. That expertise alone makes Prey worthy of a recommendation at the least.
DVD Bonus Features
Only the trailer.
"Prey" is on sale May 31, 2011 and is not rated. Horror, Thriller. Directed by Antoine Blossier. Written by Antoine Blossier, Erich Vogel. Starring Berenice Bejo , Francois Levantal, Gregoire Colin.
