Prey

Instantly watchable and delightfully cheap British sci-fi finds a male alien missionary on Earth being taken in as a house-guest by an unsuspecting separatist lesbian couple. The true fanged creature is concealed beneath a stolen body, but occasionally emerges during conflicts and feeding frenzies(and looks a bit like the titular terrors of THE BAT PEOPLE). The decidedly non-vegetarian visitor becomes caught in the middle of the womyns' peculiar psychodramas and recurring hostilities, and at one point is cross-dressed by them and finds new pleasures in the consumption of champagne....allthewhile drooling over a pet bird they have kept in a hanging cage.

This film, for all its misgivings, remains one of the more "out there" entries in the sci-fi/horror genre...a bad film, to be sure, but one recommendable for its sheer uncommonness. At least they were clearly trying for something altogether different...and they sure did succeed in that task.

5.5 out of 10 -- for decent performances and overall...erm...queerness.

A shape-shifting space alien takes the form of a handsome young man on Earth and, after violently doing what he was sent for (which we learn at the end), he finds two pretty lesbians holed-up in a rural country estate... just so he can study their daily/nightly routine... Which means that men are all the same no matter what planet they derive...

For a robotic-like Barry Stokes it's a complicated (and often risky) lesson of love and jealousy in what's an offbeat triangle within a low-budget science-fiction horror, with plenty of intended downtime...

Giving the feel that cult director Norman J. Warren's PREY is actually more of a deliberately slow-paced arthouse thriller, and, filmed in England with British actors, the acting's quite good when it really shouldn't be...

Featuring the more feminine and once straight Glory Annen (with an unseen backstory involving an ex-husband), who's given either loving/controlling kisses or dirty/frustrated looks by her shorter-haired yet equally attractive Sally Faulkner, the most fun is how the bickering couple tries figuring out this strange male visitor, who winds up like a benign, manipulated little brother of sorts...

Meanwhile the taboo exploitation gets sporadically intruded upon by what hardcore horror fans want much more of, like gruesome body count deaths by the alien, particularly while sporting full fangs, an interstellar wolfman, who, despite having plenty to watch (as a voyeur along with the intended male audience) has very little to do.

I laughed a lot near the end of this movie. I thought the character of Jo just got funnier and funnier the more jealous she became.

This movie has some really great moments. In particular, the drowning scene, the hunting scene, the fighting scene where Jessica gets knocked out, the drag costume, etc etc! All are pretty original and pretty hilarious when you think about it.

Why they needed the drowning scene to be in slow motion, I'll never know. And the idea of dressing an alien man up in drag, getting him drunk and playing hide and seek with him cracks me up.

Jo was such a drama queen, like when the chickens got killed, when she missed the shot at the fox, when she is yelling at Jessica or running out of the house, she is always freaking out so majorly, it's great! Such an unassuming body/face, and such a huge character.

I liked this movie a lot, it's worth checking out.

Don't expect a top notch production here, by any means. But, if you allow yourself to vegetate, it's entertaining. Even better, the story, to an extent, is believable and possible.

An alien sent on an at first unknown mission lands on Earth and assumes the form of some man he comes across and kills. He's taken in by a lesbian couple, one of whom believes him to be injured. As time passes, however, she starts to want to be his lover and be taken away from her possessive lesbian lover. Said lesbian lover arrives just in time to see, after they have consummated, the alien eating her! She tries to flee, but is immediately hunted down... which leads in to the finale which reveals the alien mission: a child runs about playing as our alien reports in he has found perfect cattle stock to start raising food with!

This is a nice play on the old cliche of Mars Needs Women type of film story. And, though stories have been done where aliens come down to conquer Earth for food (Read "V.") this is, so far, the only film I've seen where they've combined the two cliches: capture Earthlings to use as cattle to reproduce to raise food. Beyond this theme, though, is where the film doesn't do as well. The direction is a bit plodding, but at least, some positive character development is given between the jealously obsessive lesbian lover losing her opposite other. The lighting is practically non-existent, so, turn up the brightness.

All in all, if you can stomach it, it's a good movie. It's not as disgusting as some flicks, of course, but, be warned there is one graphic murder (The eating scene. Who here remembers the great Continental Video release of this, where the front cover box features the alien looming over its victim, chewing on a piece of her body, and blood coating the ENTIRE cover? "THEIR HUNGER MAKES US ALL... ALIEN PREY!") and 2 strong sex scenes.

I like this film. I like it a lot. I like it because it makes me incredibly nostalgic for a period in British cinema that has long since passed. The 1970's. A time when irreverent and irrelevant schlock like this could get made. I like it because it is monumentally silly yet eerily compulsive, possesses a truly odd atmosphere, and at one point it actually frightened me.

It was made in 10 days with whatever change the crew had in their back pockets. It's very entertaining.

How I wish up-and-comers would make stuff like this rather than the Tarantino and 'Trainspotting' tributes that they STILL are.

Norman 'J.' Warren, I salute you.