After the recent "Bloodline" I was looking forward to the next Blumhouse's straight-to-video feature, but this time it was quite the disappointment. "Prey" does have potential but I don't think it was aware of that.
For the first 15 minutes "Prey" kept me intrigued - right away the story smells a little cliché, but the interesting part is the setting of a string of uninhabited islands around Malaysia. The nature shown in "Prey" is beautiful and made me think of one awesome game called "Far Cry 3" - if it was made into a movie, these would be very fitting shooting locations. Other than that this movie had serious pacing problems, a plot that promises more than it delivers & a climax sequence / ending that falls flat and is simply painfully unoriginal. While the movie drags along and defies your expectations with unsatisfying twists, Logan Miller does what he can & props to him, a shallow character, but a decent performance. The rest of the cast were okay as well, 3 of the 4 other characters didn't have much to do at all. Really, it's hard to say literally anything about "Prey" because it's only entertaining enough to forget it 5 minutes after watching it. As for the visuals, not counting the qualities provided by the filming locations, the cinematography could've been more imaginative & gore is practically non existant.
I'd guess that "Prey" might appeal more to the less seasoned horror fans, but all I saw was something I've seen tens of times, just this time set in the jungle. My rating: 4/10.
