Hunter Prey

If you like movies that are more story driven, you'll like "Hunter Prey".

It has the look and feel of one of those made for TV movies of the 70's. I mean that in a really good way. You see, way back when, before all this CG crap, filmmakers had to use ingenuity and talent to craft their films. They had to tell their story through... Well, telling a story.

This is not a film for anyone seeking a fast paced, mindless, mess. It's a film for hardcore sci fi junkies like myself, who grew up on Star Trek, The Outer Limits, and The Twilight Zone.

It's more about the story and characters than special effects.

What a surprise treat this film was. Throwback to the old school style of film making when directors needed talent and imagination to make these kinds of movies, not millions of dollars. HUNTER PREY is an example of what can accomplished on a very limited budget, with two actors on basically one location. It's easy to make big budget, tent pole, summer blockbusters when you have a hundreds of people, millions of dollars and movie stars. I'd like to see just one of those big studio directors make something from nothing, get blood from a turnup and bring a world to life with only raw talent and there two hands. This director is a real artist who knows how to tell a compelling story with visually arresting imagery. 10/10

First thing is I must say, this film looks so stunning and captivating, it's like watching one of those discovery channel nature shows, just on an alien world. I was blown away at the level of design and attention to detail in absolutely everything in this movie, especially for the low budget. This director has a great eye. The locations were awe-inspiring and lent themselves well to the story. I give films like this a lot of credit. It's hard to be ambitious in this genre without the money and the means. Most who try, fail miserably where "Hunter Prey" succeeds.

Something which really stood out to me while watching this film, was the sense of the director wanting to tell a larger story and make a bigger movie. I could actually feel the filmmaker striving to be James Cameron only with Roger Corman's checkbook.

"Hunter Prey" takes a little while to get going and parts of it are very derivative, but once it does, it delivers on a level that few films in this budget range can. 8/10

What a relief a movie like Hunter Prey is in this world of grade Z "SyFy channel" entertainment. The focus on this movie is not on special effects (although they are excellent) but on character and story which sadly isn't the norm.

Above average in this film are the cinematography and score, which gives the film the appearance of being big budget. The film itself feels like it was shot in the 1970s, I mean this in a positive way as it takes it's time to develop the characters and stories.

Hunter Prey is the kind of science fiction movie we don't get enough of, one that puts the substance over the style.

I would have liked to have seen the version of Hunter Prey where Collora followed his gut instincts and made a pure art film, instead of trying to make it more commercial or sellable. I see this all the time with indie genre films, particularly ones that don't have a bankable star in them. The producers feel they need an element that can take the place of a notable actor, especially in the foreign markets. What that usually ends up being is some really awful, bad CG ridden, formulaic mess that ends up on the SciFi channel. What we have here, is a film that thankfully isn't that, but what it does end up being is a bit of a confused movie, unable to define itself.

It's good, but it's clunky in places. Sometimes this is a result of performance issues, but sometimes it lies more in the writing and editing choices. There are a few elements of Hunter Prey that simply don't match up or make much sense.

The most glaring example of this, is the score. It's fantastic, but doesn't fit the movie, especially after the first act. It's way too big for a small, personal movie like this. I just felt like the filmmaker was trying to pound me over the head with music that maybe was representing what he wanted to be there visually and perhaps didn't have the budget to do. It seemed like they took the score from a big, popcorn action movie and stuck it on Hunter Prey in an effort to make it seem bigger or more commercial, but all it does, is make the audience wish there was more movie or less music. A more subdued, un-inflected, moody soundtrack would have served this film much better.

I'm predicting this film will eventually become Collora's "Blade Runner" of sorts... An awe inspiring, visual feast with a story that some people will get into and some won't. Like most art films, it will be unsuccessful and commercially disappointing at first, with an audience that slowly builds over time. As his body of work grows and he makes more films, people will come to appreciate Hunter Prey.