Deadly Prey

Deadly Prey. 1987. Dir. David A. Prior. With Cameron Mitchell, Troy Donahue, Ted Prior, Fritz Matthews, David Campbell, Dawn Abraham, William Zipp, Suzanne Tara, Thomas Baldwin, Leo Weltman. Written by David A. Prior. 

Badness:

Enjoyment Factor:

Deadly Prey takes two of the most time honored subgenres in action films, the “being hunted for sport” movie and the “one man army” movie, and blends them together in a delicious stew of movie cliches and tropes. It is as violent and as trashy as you expect and hope it to be. The acting is The Room quality, and the production value is akin to home video. It’s like they remade First Blood with friends and family, and shot it on a camcorder. Since the film stars the director’s brother; they kinda did.

From the title card sequence that shows a seemingly victorious man in silhouette through the credits, which are interspersed with close-ups of men cocking their guns, the opening moments promise an amazingly cheesy eighties experience, in the best way possible. With the intense and throbbing Casio synthesizer score by Tim Heintz, Tim James, and Steve McClintock blasting, we see a group of military men hunting a confused and helpless man. One of the men throws a grenade at the hunted man, and yells “I got ’em!” as the grenade explodes. After the successful hunt, we learn that this is a mercenary training camp led by the evil Colonel Hogan (played by relish by David Campbell). As Hogan explains to his new recruits, “when we train, it’s for real.”

We learn that Colonel Hogan and his mercenaries kidnap people off the street in Los Angeles, and hunt them at the school. In the first act, they abduct a man with the perfect eighties mullet named Michael Danton (played by the one and only Ted Prior). Little do they know, that Danton is basically a low-budget Rambo, and in fact, has a history with Colonel Hogan. As Hogan says about twenty times, “I trained him!” Danton is, therefore, pretty deadly prey (wow, I think I figured out the title, folks)!

For an eighty-eight minute direct-to-video movie, the plot is pretty complex, with lots of key characters. Colonel Hogan has not one, but two, evil hench-people: the femme fatale Sybil (played by Dawn Abraham) and the diabolical, sunglasses-wearing Lieutenant Thornton (played by Fritz Matthews, who is incredible). Also, Danton’s concerned wife Jaimy (Suzanne Tara) and her father (Cameron Mitchell, who is top-billed with the character name “Jaimy’s Father”) are main characters. Cameron Mitchell, who was a veteran performer during Hollywood’s golden age, is unfortunately costumed like Baron Harkonnen on vacation. Oh, and I forgot to talk about Jack Cooper, an old military buddy of Danton who is also now a mercenary working for Hogan, and played by William Zipp. Oops, I must mention that Troy Donahue is in this movie, for three scenes, as the mysterious investor Don Michaelson. As I said, there are quite a few characters to keep track of.

A good deal of the movie involves Danton running around the woods wearing the world’s shortest pair of jean shorts, and looking like a rock ‘n’ roll Tarzan. We get to see Danton creatively killing lots, and I mean lots, of mercenaries. I don’t think he gets a gun until the third act. He stabs them with sticks, breaks their backs against tree trunks, and, in one awesome moment, fashions a spear and hurls it at a bad guy.

This movie is bad. Like amazingly, shockingly bad. It has a homemade feel, and it’s kind of surprising that a direct-to-video film from 1987 has lasted in the popular culture this long. It is terrible but also incredibly fun in its awfulness. Also, though, for an eighties action film, it has a very cynical and nasty streak to it, especially the last five minutes. It also, like many films from this time period, has a very inappropriately laid-back approach to depicting sexual assault.

That being said, Deadly Prey is a stand-out bad movie.