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 cannibal alien from outer space on a reconnaissance mission to Earth drops in on the estate of a monied, eccentric British lesbian and her neurotic woman-child live-in girlfriend. Now how can anyone possibly go wrong starting with a premise like that? It has the feel of a Merchant-Ivory film adapted by Roger Corman (or maybe a Roger Corman film adapted by Merchant-Ivory?) As added attractions, the women are erotic and beautiful and the music, for some reason, is awfully nice in parts. A great B-movie.

You know the big house in the Omen (1976), the secluded stately pile in the English countryside where Ambassador Thorn and his wife intended to raise young Damien before they found out the hard way that he was the Anti-Christ? Well, that big old house was on the grounds of the now-defunct Shepperton Studios, and when cult director Norman J. Warren (fresh from a surprise hit with the slow- burning shocker Satan's Slave) found out it was free for ten days in 1977, he gathered a tiny group of actors (who wore their own clothes on camera) and technicians, and set about making a feature film in little over a week with a largely improvised piecemeal script. Actually, the story behind the making of Prey is a little more complicated than that, but this potted version of events simply underlines the freewheeling, anything-goes state of British cinema in the seventies, when apparently anyone with a few quid to spare and nerves of steel could shoot a film on loose change and have it playing in the Odeons and ABCs alongside the latest blockbusters from America in a matter of weeks. The fact that a turf accountant is mentioned in the credits for Prey tells you all you need to know, really.

There's not much of a plot here - a half-man, half-canine alien called Kator / Anders lands in the British countryside on a fact- finding mission and is adopted by a lesbian couple - one slightly butch and prone to possessive hysterics, the other more feminine and submissive. Things very quickly go awry as it becomes clear that Anders / Kator isn't all he seems, chickens are killed, policeman investigating the gruesome disappearance of a motorist are butchered, a fox is found half-eaten, and it's only a matter of time before the awful truth comes out. You've probably guessed the twist already, which is understandable because the title kind of gives it away, but not only are the man-dog-alien thing's alien brethren going to kill us all, but eat us as well. Yikes!

Norman J. Warren has been referred to in some quarters as the nearest British cinema's ever come to its very own Fred Olen Ray, but that pat description manages to belittle both parties. Warren was a knowledgeable craftsman and canny director, capable of performing minor miracles on the tightest of budgets, and stands nicely alongside his closest contemporary Pete Walker as one of the true 'wide boys' of seventies exploitation. If Walker offered the public unsentimental tales, however, Warren could be downright misanthropic, presenting a very dim view of humanity with his endlessly shrill and argumentative characters, skew-whiff pocket universes where an attempted rape, a bloody murder or a Suspiria- referencing set-piece lurked around every corner, and happy endings were for wimps and ten-year-old girls. He may have looked like a personable supply teacher, but there's a solid core of pitch-black nastiness at the heart of Warren's best films, and Prey is no exception. Relationships are open wounds, conversations are punctuated by recriminations and hysterics, blood (and vomit) pours off the screen and nobody emerges with any real credit. Throw in some hilariously awkward transvestism, skid row special effects, a commendably gloomy atmosphere of infinite foreboding and you've got a unique, if undeniably flawed little oddity that should please anyone with a taste for the forgotten avenues of schlock horror.

A note on the performances, in particular Barry Stokes's turn as the androgynous, almost catatonic alien. Having previously hammed it up in no-budget sex comedies (something he'd do again in the Warren- directed 1979 soft-core science fiction spoof Spaced Out), Stokes proves here that he's just as comfortable with the opposite side of the exploitation coin, and he's hauntingly effective in his role. Sally Faulkner is memorable, if occasionally a touch overpowering, as the dominant half of the partnership, and the late Glory Annen (who would be reunited with Stokes in Spaced Out two years later) should, by rights, have become a legitimate film star - she certainly had the charisma, the acting chops and the looks for it, but it seems she never got the right breaks. Ivor Slaney provides the pulsating electronic score which is appropriately other-worldly and disconcerting, particularly during the genuinely nauseating scene where the three leads thrash around in a heavily polluted river in glorious slow motion - to be honest, in spite of the plentiful blood and viscera on show in certain other scenes, that's the part of Prey most likely to turn the average viewer's stomach.

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.

Alien lands on earth and takes on human form only to end-up being a pawn in the lives of a bickering lesbian couple.

The premise of Alien Prey alone will give one a glimpse into the off-beat weirdness that is this strange low budget sci-fi/horror show. Among the crazy offerings you've got animal-men attacking people, an alien in drag, some howlingly bad dialog, a party for a dead fox - its difficult not to find this a tongue-in-cheek effort. Also this bizarre flick has enough sleaze for any exploitation fan thanks to some drawn-out sex scenes. This is all capped off with a surprisingly violent (and bloody) finale and one pleasingly nihilistic ending.

The direction isn't bad and the filming locales are nice. The cast's performances are just erratic enough to add even more weirdness to the film. Sally Faulkner throws out a perfectly 'bitchy' vibe only matched by Barry Stokes' deliciously odd 'stowic' performance as the alien - who you just might be rooting for in the end.

Alien Prey is simply a hoot for cult fans. There's definitely no other film like it and whether you laugh or groan you're bound to be entertained regardless!

*** out of ****